Making choices at every second

Awareness, which was discussed at some length in the last post, opens up the possibility of freedom.

But that possibility has to be realised through a continuous, unending series of choices. It starts as soon as you wake up in the morning.

You can choose to cringe and moan because you think you’ve slept badly and it’s going to be an awful day, or you can choose to smile, be grateful for life and look forward to new experiences.

It is entirely your choice.

Even though your temperament, personality, electro-chemical balance and stomach acidity will tend to push you towards one choice rather than the other. But these things all pertain to the ephemeral, shallow side of who you are. In other words to the mortal character you play in the 3D video of your present life. Psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors make a big deal of these things, but in the end, they have nothing to do with the real you. With the one that is eternal, infinite, connected to Source.

If you maintain a strong awareness of your real you, whatever the immediate circumstances you momentarily find yourself in, your choices will be freer, will be less influenced by emotions, pain, fear, dislikes and superficial desires produced by your personality and by the indoctrination to which your mind has be subjected ever since you were conceived in this present life.

A strong awareness of your real you is the prerequisite for freedom.

Without awareness, your mind is a puppet constantly dragged and shaken, its strings pulled by countless manipulators, starting with your own parents, educators, peers, teachers, colleagues, actors in films and adverts, politicians pontificating on the TV screen, media stars deploying their inflated egos.

If you are sufficiently aware, none of their tricks will impress you. But you will not judge them either, because they may be sincerely trying to help you in the direction of what they think is best for you, without realising that they are themselves, not their real selves, but mere shadows of a dark cloud of narrow beliefs and prejudices.

Freedom is an experience that has to be re-enacted every second of everyday of your life.

It doesn’t just concern the big issues, but also the apparently minor events which unaware people would hardly even notice. Like a little spider walking on the side of your bath. Are you going to squash the poor thing and throw its body in the dustbin without a second thought, or are you going to let it walk on your hand and take it outside where it can survive for a while. Unimportant?

Once you are aware and sufficiently connected to feel in unison with other creatures, nothing is unimportant, and everything contains infinite beauty.

The secret to happiness is freedom

And the secret to freedom is courage

Thucydides, 5^th century BC (on picture above)

Love,

Leo

Leo Foresta