Mastering Choice: This is an excerpt from The New Akashic Records, Strand Eighty-Seven.
You alone are the master of your choices.
When I lived in Japan as a college student, I studied calligraphy following the time honored method of learning from a master calligrapher. My teacher would write a character for me explaining the nuances of mixing ink, holding brush, and applying brush point to paper in order to create the desired shape and balance. Next I would place this master example to the left of my own paper and after studying it, pick up my brush and attempt to replicate the character as best I could. Class and homework consisted of practicing over and over to make my calligraphy look like my teacher’s.
My western brain contemplated the implications of trying to make mine look like hers. I asked about the desired result, surprised by her response. The example, she explained, provides direction to the student and after many hours of practice, the student will find within herself, her balance, her proportion and, while the character may resemble the teacher’s, the end desire is for the practice to bring forward from within the student, her deepest expression of the character. Through the example of the master, the student’s practice brings forward the student’s own character expressed from within the unique perspective of the student. The desire is not to replicate the master but find one’s own mastery within.
While to master can mean to compel obedience, to master can also denote the attainment of expertise. These two explanations define the line within spiritual practice between blind obedience to an outside authority and the capacity to find and follow one’s own inner master. Just as following one’s critical voice can be an easy path, following without thought the various voices of authority one finds in teachers, gurus, and other elevated personalities and manuscripts can also be tempting and difficult to resist.
We can forget that the spiritual path is not one for creating idols to revere. Rather, the spiritual path for each individual is to bring your awareness to the center of your Being and live from the flow of truth which you learn to perceive there. Both student and master can forget that the master is not a statue on a pedestal to be worshipped, but a springboard for the student to elevate herself toward an ability to live from her own inner master. The outer master can help you find your inner expression but is never meant to be a permanent replacement for your own innate ability for self-understanding, rule, and expertise.
There is only one master of you: YOU. You are the only one who can access the clear knowing and truth of your Being. Your Inner Master is your focal point for learning and growing, for developing understanding and expanding awareness. Your Inner Master at the fulcrum of balance, trust, truth and wisdom works with your Witness whose observations are food for thought for your Inner Master. As one within the center of your Being, the Witness observes the flow of your life and the Inner Master activates your ability to make choices.
Choice is fundamental to Spiritual Practice. As we begin along our paths we often abdicate this responsibility in hope that following an external master will bring the peace and joy for which we search. However, nothing can replace our own inner truth, not even the truth of the revered master. A true master serves as example, allowing her students the safety to practice and to claim their own truths, their own responsibilities, and their own next steps.
Energetically, we come to the deepest expressions of our souls and of All That Is not by blindly emulating, but by reaching deep within to find our truest expression. When we relinquish choice and do only as we think we are told to do, we experience separation from our core Being and our truth. By claiming choice we also claim the powerful flow of our centers, thus orienting all of our motion from our centers, from our truth, and from the balance that is ours with All That Is.
Choice means that we have decided to be responsible for ourselves. With choice, there is no one to blame for mistakes and for disappointments. We alone must bear the results. How we live reveals our choices. How we make choices reveals how we perceive our life. As we begin to listen to the quiet voice of our Inner Master, our choices can come from an equanimity born of trust, and from perceptions free of fear, blame and judgment. Through this balance, we become aware of opportunity and potential.
Choice becomes a channel to exercise our mastery. We choose not to blindly react, but to move forward in trust and with a sense of our personal truth. Life becomes more joyous because we feel free to express who we feel ourselves to be rather than define ourselves by acting according to outside standards and demands. We choose love and compassion not because we think we should. Instead love and compassion become expressions of our truth and Being, unavoidable because love and compassion are who we are in this moment of All That Is. We do not do as we are told, we do as we BE, claiming the divine depth of our Being as the guide to our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
The power of the Akashic Records comes to you as a heart-to-heart talk with your Inner Master. Not here to assume the place as a dictating master, the Akashic Records come forward to support and help you establish your sense of mastery.
Flowing from the One center to your Center, the Akashic Records answers the call of your heart to find for yourself your Inner Master.
Guidance, love, and support are yours as you claim your knowing, your balance and your awareness of trust and truth.
Your truth, your life, your choice.
Mastering Choice: This is an excerpt from The New Akashic Records, Strand Eighty-Seven.
