The Only Choice We Have

Photo by MARIOLA GROBELSKA on Unsplash

Note: What follows is how, at the time of writing, the writer views reality based on research and personal experience. Take what resonates with you, leave the rest.

The Only Choice We Have

Our free will is limited. In short, our freedom boils down to one choice. This choice is often an unconscious one: whether to block or allow the light and love of God to flow through us.

This allowing or blocking is what determines our overall state of consciousness. Some call it awakening, others, living in the kingdom of God. Regardless of the name, the flow of the divine energy through us determines both how we experience our own lives and our spiritual impact on others/the world.

This choice to allow or block the divine within shows up dressed up in two different ways. Really, it’s two different versions of that same choice, two sides of the same coin.

The First Appearance: Love or Judgment

The easiest way to measure if we are blocking or allowing the light and love of God is in the openness of our hearts to others.

How much of God’s light can shine through you?

Can you feel genuine unconditional love for everyone?

Including the murderer of someone you love?

The politician who seems more monster than human?

The foreign country’s leader who commits genocide?

If the answer is no, consider this: What if it was your own child who, for unspeakable reasons, was in the position of the murderer/politician/corrupt leader?

Do you think it would be possible then? Could you grieve the choices of your child and the unimaginable pain caused while also holding them in love?

This is the radical love, the radical lack of judgment that is required to open yourself to be a channel of God’s love in the world.

As a conduit of God’s love, you take the extreme unconditional love you have/could have for a beloved child and extend it to others.

What Love is Not

This does not mean loving those close to you less. As you open your heart to others, your ability to love increases. Your heart’s capacity increases tenfold. You love EVERYONE more strongly than you previously thought possible.

It is also not naïveté. You can simultaneously both love someone and protect yourself from maltreatment. It is possible to hold boundaries and keep your heart open.

Love is often wordless yet powerful. This unconditional, radiant force pours through you and out to everyone. You cherish the innate God-spark/Holy Spirit within everyone you encounter, whether or not they are aware of its existence. This flow of energy fills you with unspeakable joy and peace, and, sometimes, even aids others in seeing it within themselves for the first time.

Your love may be the spark needed to reignite the fire within them.

Would you let your useless judgments stand in the way?

The Second Appearance: Allowing or Resisting

The second way we block the movement of God through us is through resistance/control.

We are disillusioned into thinking that we are in control of what happens in our lives, in our world. We resist what we don’t want and try to control or hold on to what we do.

The truth is, we are not in control. Rather, we are the culmination of the choices of our ancestors, our culture, our conditionings. Everything from the food we eat to the way we speak to what we value is almost completely the result of unconscious mechanisms that we have no control over.

The key word is “almost”. We do have one choice: whether or not to admit it. When we fight to control or fix ourselves and our world, we feed into the preconditions. The saying “what you resist persists” holds true here.

The alternative is surrender. To forgive and love ourselves in the moment. To understand that we are doing the best we know how given the situation we are in.

With surrender, the second block to the divine energy lifts. Now, instead of being another cog in the machinations of conditions, we become channels of love. Just as the flow of water smooths the jagged parts of the rocks, the divine energy first trickles, then surges through us, reshaping our lives to align with the love that we are.

Ironically, the fastest and only way to truly become all that we can be is to stop trying to do it.

Perhaps it isn’t ironic. The creator of the universe has more ability and wisdom in “fixing” us and the world than we, as humans, ever could.

We just need to get out of the way.

Love yourself radically, love others radically, and trust that divine power to align all things.

Two Choices

Love or judgment

Allowing or resisting

Both ultimately determine how much of God’s love, light, and power flow through us. We do nothing except block or allow that flow.

What will you decide today?

For Further Study:

If any of this resonances with you, consider:

For choosing love over judgment:

A Course in Miracles

Any 12 step program (if applicable)

For choosing allowing over resisting:

The teachings of Byron Katie

The teachings of Dr. David Hawkins