​
THE CHOICELESS CHOICE:
Our Return to Direction by Spirit
2/27/2026
​
In today’s days and times there is an overwhelming push to choose a side relative to our life perspective and point of view. Whether we are raised to pursue structure through dedicated discipline or chaos through unrestricted impulse, we will likely feel that we must choose one path over the other based on our reactions to being disapproved of during our upbringing.
The key to feeling that we must choose a path lies in the degree to which we haven’t been allowed to follow our own inner guidance. The major cause of that feeling will have been the predominance of criticism in lieu of any form of encouragement. The less encouragement or autonomy that we’ve received or been allowed to have in our upbringing, the more likely we will feel trapped into reacting to the outer world’s demands of us rather than proactively following our own counsel from within our heart. We will react to the need for that choice in one of two ways; we will either acquiesce to what we’ve been told to do or we will aggressively rebel against it. What’s important to understand here is that the less autonomy we were allowed and the less encouragement that we received, the more likely we will feel that we must react through choosing to acquiesce or rebel.
Underlying our reaction there may be many external “reasons” based on outer world requirements that convince us that we must choose and commit to one particular “side” over the other. Upon our commitment, we are then, and usually non-verbally, “promised” the approval of our preferred clan and are “guaranteed” its support consequently creating a feeling of belonging.
Essentially, this is a form of emotional blackmail. In feeling that we must choose keeps us aligned with and locked into the competitive values governing our preferred tribe in the polarized tangible world.
Overall, our goal should be to arrive at a place where we can feel that there is no need to make a choice. This can only occur if we can be in a state of mind where approval or disapproval are no longer the factors that govern how we make our choices.
We can look at this in simpler terms. If we are so immersed in worldly issues that the world makes our choices for us by way of making us feel pressured to live up to its standards at the risk of losing our sense of “belonging” or being approved of, then our choices and decisions will not be our own. For our spirit, our immersion in this dichotomy is poisonous and painful. It’s essentially being enslaved by the world and its demands and eliminates any potential we have to grow into our preferred potential based on our own personal values. We may tell ourselves that we are free but don’t feel it. We need to be “in the world but not of it.” Being enslaved by the world is what wise men meant when the talked about being OF the world rather than simply being passengers moving through it.
All pain is a function of being OF the world. THIS is what creates desire and keeps us trapped in trying to escape the pain of being separate. When we have become obligated to jump through hoops by our indoctrinators, it intensifies that separateness. When we are caught in this, our mind believes that having “control” will close the gap of being alone and separate. But the mind, unknown to us, is OF the world. That is, it is a tool of tangibility and cannot comprehend the concept of freedom from having to choose. Its main vehicle for its operation is to separate or compartmentalize the world in order to comprehend it. This is why meditation is so important. It frees us from the mind and its polarized logic. In a meditative headspace, we do not feel pressured and are free to be choiceless.
The path to function without needing to choose between polarized perspectives is twofold. First, we must work at releasing ourselves from primarily following the dictates of the tangible world only and second, we must learn to disconnect from that tangibility through some form of centering or meditation.
The first perspective for us to be disconnected from has been programmed into us from the first instant that we gave attention away from our inner reality and onto the tangible world by our birth. The first people in that outer world were our parents. Instantly, they became gods to us as they provided love, attention, nurturing and protected. Exiting the womb was a tremendous shock to our new and emerging mind and body. It’s only natural that we would grasp at whatever influences might partly imitate the free environment that we were pushed out from. In being born, the focus on the outer world was initiated and then set in motion.
Beyond our parents, the world continued, and still does, with a demand for external attention by blackmailing us, unintentionally as it might seem, with the possibility of us being shunned or deprived of its acknowledgement and support if we don’t concentrate our attention on what it requires or needs to feel loved and included by its “clan.” This intentionality is most sharply exhibited through our current-day media advertising. Being barraged on all sides, it seems virtually impossible to break free from the perspective of focusing solely on the external world. The key to creating peace within ourselves is to break free of this one-sided external perspective and bring balance between our inner and outer directives. That is, to make our spirit, the inner awareness that was in charge just before we were born, a whole lot more dominant in directing our actions and choices. This is the most difficult hurdle for us humans to overcome. Yet, once this is accomplished, the peace that we can feel will be overwhelmingly satisfying.
There are many programs that are intended to bring us back to this balance. Yet most of them fall short as they still use external standards to “guide” our choices. The most reliable source of guidance is to use our own experience as the standard for establishing balance between our inner and outer attention. This usually does not occur until well after midlife when most of us have reached a crisis point relative to “knowing” the meaning behind our life and its lessons. When we “unhook” from the demands of the outer world it is only then that we may be able to see why we have incarnated into our current lineage and circumstances.
Many authors have given an effective perspective for us to evolve by. Among these are John Bradshaw, Bhagwan Rajneesh (Osho), Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell just to name a few. I humbly offer similar paths and protocols in two of my own books, “Self-Worth: Its Origins, Faces & Remedies” and “In the World But Not of It.” Both are available through Amazon.
Our second perspective to be worked on is the use of our will in meditation and centering. Many of us have difficulty doing either due to our ingrained need to control the world and its circumstances. Since childhood, this need has grown into a full-fledged addiction. Our challenge is now in letting go. Yet in our perception, feeling that we have control is still an aspect well ingrained in us disguised as survival and by working in a time frame by either anticipating or dreading the repetition of experiences that we either enjoyed or suffered. This tells us that the now or being in the moment is what must be cultivated. This disconnects the past and the future and disengages the “monkey mind” talked about by the sages. One way we can do this by simply allowing thoughts to occur without following them with our attention to their logical conclusions or judgements. The mind works by comparing things. So, if we ignore what came before and not conjure, then anticipate, what might come, the “monkey mind” has nothing more to chew on. This is an indirect way of letting go. We can also accomplish this by distracting the mind by giving it something to do such as following our breath or gazing at a candle. But it all comes back to and down to simply using our will to direct our attention. Most of us have not yet developed our will to be able to do this. Our will often runs contrary to what we’ve been programmed to do…follow the external world’s dictates. Hence, we can substitute distractions such as following the breath and observing candles to do this.
As we regain confidence, without the need for the world’s permission or approval and as we begin to trust our own judgement gained from our own experience, the strength of our will concurrently will follow. This makes centering and meditation easier. We can now anticipate the peace that comes from being in the moment and not dwelling in the past or future thereby not being forced to make any choices.
So, we have a twofold way to bring our spirit to be back in charge of our existence; consciously cutting free from the demands of the external world and centering our attention on the now, the domain of The Spirit.
We can look at our incarnation as a planned immersion into a life perspective geared toward making us aware of earthly viewpoints that, as a soul, we have not yet experienced. After our immersion, we begin a journey back to the full awareness of The Spirit and its beauty. Birth, life and death are a full circle, into matter and out.
Please understand that this twofold process is not an escape but a path to becoming aware of our larger purpose and viewpoint behind why we incarnate into these polarized tangible lives. The process doesn’t allow us to escape circumstances, but to integrate new experiences into the “memory” of our soul. There is a difference between The Spirit and our soul. The Spirit “shows” the quality of our innocence within the unity of the universe. Our soul is the accumulation of our experience that produces the wisdom and awareness of that unity.
