thought of the day...

Enlightenment and Free Will

We have the free will to allow our mind to be in charge, or to surrender control to a higher Source. Surrendering control is the major challenge of our lives.

The spiritual path is the path of healing the ego, the mind, the wounded self, so that rather than our wounded self being in charge, we are able to release our will to God.

We are beings of free will. We can choose to allow our mind, our ego, our wounded self to guide us, or we can choose to allow God to guide us.

This is a simple concept, yet doing it is the major challenge of our lives. This is because we have been practicing allowing our mind, with all the fears and false beliefs that we have acquired over the years, to be in charge. Our mind thinks it knows what to do. It thinks it has the knowledge to make good decisions. Yet the mind cannot distinguish between what is in our highest good and what hurts us, between what is true and what is not. The mind tells us things like, "I am taking care of my self when I blame someone for my hurt feelings," or "I am taking care of myself when I reward myself with a doughnut," or "I am taking care of myself when I relax with pot,"or "I am taking care of myself when I yell at someone who is not doing what I want them to do," or "I am taking care of myself when I walk away from someone in anger." Yet all of these behaviors are ways of trying to control others or our own feelings, rather than taking loving care of ourselves.