Too Many Choices 
Humanity has more choices than ever before but sometimes this plethora of choices can confuse and depress us.
So many job options, places to live, different dreams that could be pursued…
Choice is a good thing – it is what our forefathers and mothers fought for. But often we fear that we will make the wrong choice, and we wonder what if we had followed choice B rather than choice A.
One friend of mine was freaking out because there were so many things she wanted to learn and practice. I said to her, well you could always do some of them when your 50 - you don’t need to do it all today. Often we are overwhelmed by all the choices that fall like jewels before us.
Choice seems to be a big theme for 2009. I decided to write on this topic and then picked up my 2009 diary – We’Moon ’09 - and the theme of the year in the diary is ‘At the Crossroads. ‘
Goddess Hecate
Sometimes at crossroads, we wonder how we got there and how we can go forwards.
Goddess Hecate is found at the crossroads – she looks all ways at once. She is past, present and future and can show us the light. Sometimes we need to look in all directions too.
“When you come to a crossroads and know not which way to turn, stop and ask your inner voice – and thank Goddess she speaks the same language as you.” (We’Moon)
Barriers To Choosing
Often we find it hard to choose, because we are not sure whose plan to follow. We are holding on to ideas of what we ought to do or be (often passed down from the dreams of our parents) or we are holding onto so much emotional baggage from the past, we don’t know how to leave it behind and move forwards.
Where do you hold on? What are your patterns?
Sometimes what we choose is just a habit or the repetition of a lesson not yet learned.
“Our experiences in this life, from the womb up to the present, become consciously and unconsciously encoded in our cell tissues,” says Sri Swamini Mayatitananda. “Giving rise to attitudes and beliefs that affect our lives positively and negatively. Many ancient impressions live on in the genes we inherited from our parents and ancestors, going back countless generations. These too need to be made conscious, lest they manifest as disease or seemingly inexplicable urges to behave in certain ways or to pursue certain ideas…
Cosmic memory is held and refined by the genetic code, the DNA. We call our own genetic memories into consciousness and honour them by the foods we choose, how we breathe, and how we listen to ourselves and the living universe around us. The key to healing our physical, psychological and spiritual maladies is through the evocation of these genetic or ancestral memories that are imprinted into our individual body-mind and spirit.”
No Perfect Answer
We are often stymied by choice because we think there is only one right path or that we have to get it right first time – but as Osho says, "The perfectionist is bound to be a neurotic, he cannot enjoy life, until he is perfect. And perfection as such never happens, it is not in the nature of things. Totality is possible, perfection is not possible."
Spiritualist Russill Paul adds “We must learn to trust in our own light, believe in our own spiritual potencies, and stop worrying excessively about getting things right the first time.”
I believe we need to let go of the judging of a choice as right or wrong and simply accept what is. So often we worry that we will make the wrong decision and then we fear that we have not much time left to find the right path.
“Worrying is praying for what we don’t want,” says Bhagavan Das. “We have one foot on the banana peel and the other in the grave. We want to have control. It’s hard to just let life happen.”
Worrying and procrastination are like being in hell. Celebrate your choices, don’t be limited by them… and if you can’t make a choice, then perhaps you are not ready to choose. A friend of mine always says, “If in doubt, do nowt.”
Inner Voice
Choice is very much a mind game. Our minds believe we have many choices, but in our heart of hearts we already know there is only one choice to be made.
“The instinctual skill of human beings is intuition, known as Buddhi” says Mayatitananda. She suggests that all spiritual pursuits from meditation to zen koans “are designed to get us beyond the busy, distracted, five-sensory mind and allow the buddhi to prevail.”
When you tap into intuition, you go beyond choice. You simply feel the answer, rather than agonizing over a decision with the mind, weighing up the pros and cons. You need to trust and develop your inner voice.
In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.”
Meditation for Guidance from Yogi Bhajan
Sit in Easy Pose with a straight spine. Make the hands into a cup with the palms facing up. Leave a fish-like hole between the sides of the little fingers. Bow the head forward over the palms.
Look into the palms with the eyes 1/10th open. Inhale in ten sips (as if you are sipping the breath in ten parts) mentally chanting ‘Wahe’ with each sip. Then you also exhale in ten sips and mentally chant ‘guru’ –
Together ‘Wahe Guru’ mean from darkness to light. You can do this for up to 11 minutes. Then stay in the same position with the same mudra (hand position) and chant ‘Wahe’ out loud eight times and then ‘Guru’ eight times. Again you can do this up to 11 minutes.
Yogiji says “At times when the path of truth and clarity seems lost, calm yourself and still your mind, then the path will come to you. To live life according to the guidance of the inner truth is essential.”