Choice and Control

What is going on? Everything is about choice and control. We each have the freedom of choice, and when that is allowed to unfold naturally; we make choices which we perceive to be favorable to our own life experiencing. "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence, and reflects the idea of having the freedom to choose what we believe is the pursuit of our own happiness.

The choices we make are meant to be the rudder which steers the course of our life expressing, and therefore, according to our choices, we bring joy or we bring sorrow into our life experiencing. And, by the choices we make, we learn through our own experience, what we like and what we don’t like, what we want and don’t want to experience.

Because we aren’t isolated from other people and our environment, our choices have effects which can collide with the choices of other people and environments. Some choices may be considered favorable to other people and environments, and some may be considered unfavorable to other people and environments, with a range of possibilities existing between those extremes.

Because of the diversity in possible choices, we may not, and probably won’t agree with all the choices other people make, choices which may conflict with our own choices. And this is where it gets messy, because in those circumstances, we may choose to have others do what we want, because we believe what we want is the best for everyone, (or at least that’s what we use as our justification,) when we force our choices upon others.

How then is the expression in life allowed to unfold? Choices have consequences; they are governed by the principle of or cause and effect. The underlying expression in being has an innate tendency to seek balance; therefore the law of Karma comes into effect. That is to say, in order to maintain balance in life expressing, if we cause joy to unfold in our life expressing, this joyous effect radiates out into our world environment and therefore may have an effect on those beings touched by that expression in being. The cause is the intent to express joy, and the effect is the expression of joy. Joy is life supporting and beneficial to all natural expressions in life. So, as we radiate joy to the world, due to the law of Karma, joy is reflected back to us as an expression in the external world we live in.

Likewise, if our choice is to control another, to make them do what we want them to do, then to balance the scales of Karma, the choice to control others gives rise to others choosing to control us, and this may show up in our life as a loss of choice. This causes a cyclic effect where the mechanism of choice from both perspectives is self-propelling and therefore perpetuates the cycle so long as the cause remains. As a reminder, the cause was to control another person’s choices, which in effect takes away our own freedom of choice in order to balance the scales of Karma.

How do we get off that wheel of Karma then? We may defuse the circumstance by deciding not to force our choices upon others; we may choose to allow others the freedom of their own choice which through the balancing of Karma enables our own freedom of choice to be reinstated.

This is why I often cite the saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This saying embodies the law of Karma perfectly. When we understand and embody this saying in our life expressing, we automatically balance the scales of Karma so that what we experience is favorable to our own life expressing, and favorable to other people in our environment.

Governmental laws which restrict the freedom of choice have to abide by the law of Karma as well. The laws are formulated by people, and accordingly, those who formulate such laws are subject to the law of Karma whether they believe in it or not, whether they are aware of it or not. Because the law of Karma is not a respecter of person, it endeavors to return to balance in all cases and circumstances. Governmental laws which are restrictive engender more laws which are restrictive and this cycle continues until the restrictions cause the demise of the system which perpetuates such increasingly restrictive laws. In other words restrictive laws are eventually self-defeating.

The insidious control of others is accomplished by causing others to make the choices “they” want to activate. “They” are the ones who are aware of the law of Karma, and how it seeks balance. They know that in order to avoid the effects of limiting freedoms, they engineer ways to get people to make the choices “they” want the people to make. That way, the individual’s freedom of choice appears to be maintained, yet that is part of the deception because without the deceit and manipulation, without the covert attempts to control other people’s choices, one may not choose to cooperate so readily as the deceived and manipulated who have been controlled.

In conclusion, I suggest it behooves one to make their own choices and allow others the freedom to make their own choices. The freedoms we choose for ourselves are the freedoms we allow for others. The joy we promote for ourselves is the joy we promote for others. If we must control, we must control our own choice to allow other the very same freedom of choice we enjoy. Let the law of Karma do its job, maintaining balance.

As we sow, so shall we reap.

Blessings to us all.