The gift of choice and its transformative powers

The joy of living is an entirely different reality. I am not condemning animals here. By nature they are blessed with unbelievable intelligence which you can never ever imagine. For example, their ability to fly, to swim and to escape from their enemies, etc. needs no training. Other than human beings, every other creature is designed by nature in such a way to meet the highest joy of existence. But still I would like to call it as survival because they don’t have big plans for their future. All the intelligence they possess is to maintain life within them and to experience it. They don’t enjoy the process called creation. For this reason, every human being has to thank oneself for being human and thank God every moment for giving this birth. Only we have the ability to explore the beauty of planet Earth. With precise planning, you have the choice to travel and enjoy any part of this world. This is living, which means you have a choice. This is the secret which you have to accept and understand to take yourself to the next level of success in every aspect of life. This is the fate and fact of human existence. When you don’t have a choice, you don’t feel like living. You will almost bring yourself down to the level of animals. In spite of having a human form, you will start living a life of animal standards. Birds and animals don’t have a choice. This is the moment you realise that this life of ours as a human being is indeed a great blessing by God.

But what gives you choices in life? It’s not your intelligence, your past experiences or your position. This is where our shastras play a vital role as a source of guidance to the entire humanity. When you don’t have good health and financial abundance, your choices in life will be taken away. I want to be direct and straightforward in what I am trying to convey here. Let me make it very simple. If you don’t have a choice you will not have a desire. On the other hand, you have a desire but don’t have a choice, and you will not be able to work towards your desire. Life is not just breathing and feeding. It’s about creating what you want. Everyone should realise that you are a creator of your own choice. Failing to understand this, you just exist as a reactor to the given situation and to the world. You are not born to be a reactor in human form. You are a creator in human form. This very power of creation will happen to the fullest only when you have a choice. And the very power of choice is a possibility only when you have good health and financial abundance. Let me take three simple examples to make you understand this well.

1. It is easy to gain knowledge or to decide the field in which you want to be an expert. In spite of having these two, your ability to express the knowledge you possess or to put that knowledge into action is decided only by your health and financial abundance. A scientist who suddenly suffers from renal failure will no longer be able to express his knowledge he possesses. The fact remains he still has the same knowledge but is of no use as he is not in a position to put that knowledge into action. Consider the same scientist having good health and knowledge but no financial stability to expand his experiments and to contribute to the world. Given these two situations, the health is always under one’s control. With good health and right knowledge, the world will naturally facilitate you with financial abundance.

2. The fundamental choices given to you are again decided by your health and financial abundance. Consider the most beautiful process called marriage. It’s a dream for every individual to choose the best companion in their life. People tend to look for a partner with good heart and fine character. All these are the society standards but the fact is when you have a health problem, you really don’t have a big choice in choosing your partner for life. Unfortunately, this is never being revealed or discussed directly when it comes to marriage.

Mangalya shastra says “porutham udalilum vendum”. People may like your features and character but they may not accept you as a life partner if you are going through a health issue. Why am I talking about this now? In today’s world, our youngsters think they are powerful by just having a lot of knowledge. The real power comes when you put your knowledge into action which is possible only with sound health. This article should make youngsters realise that if they want to have a good life partner, they need to possess good health. Having just great education or ample wealth will not fetch you a good life. This is one fundamental truth about our existence. If you lose your health, you lose the choice of having the right partner you deserve. Understanding this is called wisdom.

Your ability to see the future in the present; your ability to see the present beyond the present is called wisdom. A child who likes ice-cream will eat more of it without knowing that it’s going to affect the throat in the future. This is because the child is unable to see the future in the present. Consider a singer in the same situation. He or she will not eat more of it in spite of having the ability to buy it, considering their future in the present. The singer clearly knows that eating an ice-cream in the present is going to affect the singing in the future. This is called wisdom. Once you start living out of wisdom you will not involve in action; you will rather involve in preparation. One has to accept this point and start preparing oneself for a great future which will give them more choices in life.

What to choose and what not to choose varies from person to person. But to have this choice, you have no other choice but to have good health and financial abundance.

3. I have seen people complaining that they are not blessed with the life they want to live. People should realise that the real purpose of human life is realising the power of God in human form. You have the ability to connect with the God within you. It is the ability to understand that God is not external, he is internal. You may not be blessed with the life you want to live, still when you have the ability to connect with the inner God, you will gain the power to bless yourself with the life you want to live. Even though you feel you are not gifted with the life you want to have, the inner connection with God will give you the power to gift yourself the life you want to have. But to bless yourself or gift yourself with the life you want to live, first you need to have good health. Financial abundance comes secondary. Sound health is the primary thing you need to possess. Even in spirituality, your choice of enjoying the liberation and transformation is decided by the fundamental need called health and financial abundance.  By financial abundance, I don’t mean richness or financial affluence. It’s simple. Financial abundance means having the financial ability to get what you want or to get what you need.

Four major factors are involved in having good health-good food, good sleep, exercise and positive thoughts. Other than thoughts, all the other three requires financial need. Now in this moment, even if you feel you are not blessed with good health or great financial abundance, still you accepting that you have the power to create a life you want to live is like taking the first step of doing what is known to you and not doing things that is not going to do any good to you.

Finally, in every moment of human form, the energy within you can either work for you or work against you. You should take the self-effort to make sure that the energy is not working against you. Then automatically, the energy will work for you and bless you with good health and financial abundance. With this discipline, your life has to be a series of beautiful experiences and happiness because you will be filled with choices more than you imagine. When you have more choices you have the choice to choose from your own preferences.  Now you will enjoy the very core of living. You will realise that you don’t need to go to heaven; you are already living in heaven. Just that you made a hell out of heaven by not having choices in life because of not having good health and financial abundance. Think about it. Feel about it and decide to do something about it. No one can do it for you. You will have to do it for yourself. The sooner you act, the greater you live and bigger you achieve in life.