A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
- Thomas Huxley
There's nothing "wrong" with anything. "Wrong" is a relative term, indicating the opposite of that which you call "right."
Yet, what is "right"? Can you be truly objective in these matters? Or are "right" and "wrong" simply descriptions overlaid on events and circumstances by you, out of your decision about them?
And what, pray tell, forms the basis of your decision? Your own experience? No. In most cases, you've chosen to accept someone else's decision. Someone who came before you and, presumably, knows better. Very few of your daily decisions about what is "right" and "wrong" are being made by you, based on your understanding.
This is especially true on important matters. In fact, the more important the matter, the less likely are you to listen to your own experience, and the more ready you seem to be to make someone else's ideas your own.
This explains why you've given up virtually total control over certain areas of your life, and certain questions that arise within the human experience.
These areas and questions very often include the subjects most vital to your soul: the nature of God; the nature of true morality; the question of ultimate reality; the issues of life and death surrounding war, medicine, abortion, euthanasia, the whole sum and substance of personal values, structures, judgments. These most of you have abrogated, assigned to others. You don't want to make your own decisions about them.
"Someone else decide! I'll go along, I'll go along!" you shout. "Someone else just tell me what's right and wrong!"
This is why, by the way, human religions are so popular. It almost doesn't matter what the belief system is, as long as it's firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. The strangest behavior and belief can be - has been - attributed to God. It's God's way, they say. God's word.
And there are those who will accept that. Gladly.
Because, you see, it eliminates the need to think.
...
There is no "right" or "wrong" in these matters.
But by your decisions you paint a portrait of Who You Are.
Indeed, by their decisions your states and nations have already painted such pictures.
By their decisions your religions have created lasting, indelible impressions. By their decisions your societies have produced their self-portraits, too.
Are you pleased with these pictures? Are these the impressions you wish to make? Do these portraits represent Who You Are?
Be careful of these questions. They may require you to think.
Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you'll have to say, "I don't know. I just don't know." Yet still you'll have to decide. And so you'll have to choose. You'll have to make an arbitrary choice.
Such a choice - a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge - is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.
Most of you are not interested in such important work. Most of you would rather leave that to others. And so most of you are not self-created, but creatures of habit - other-created creatures.
...
Approvals and demonstrations seldom accompany inner decisions. Celebrations rarely surround choices to follow personal truth. In fact, quite the contrary. Not only may others fail to celebrate, they may actually subject you to ridicule. What? You're thinking for yourself? You're deciding on your own? You're applying your own yardsticks, your own judgments, your own values? Who do you think you are, anyway?
And, indeed, that is precisely the question you are answering.
But the work must be done very much alone. Very much without reward, without approval, perhaps with out even any notice.
And so you ask a very good question. Why go on? Why even start off on such a path? What is to be gained from embarking on such a journey? Where is the incentive? What is the reason?
The reason is ridiculously simple.
There is nothing else to do.
...I mean this is the only game in town. There is nothing else to do. In fact, there is nothing else you can do. You are going to be doing what you are doing for the rest of your life - just as you have been doing it since birth. The only question is whether you'll be doing it consciously, or unconsciously.
You see, you cannot disembark from the journey. You embarked before you were born. Your birth is simply a sign that the journey has begun.
So the question is not: Why start off on such a path? You have already started off. You did so with the first beat of your heart. The question is: Do I wish to walk this path consciously, or unconsciously? With awareness or lack of awareness? As the cause of my experience, or at the effect of it?
For most of your life you've lived at the effect of your experiences. Now, you're invited to be the cause of them. That is what is known as conscious living. That is what is called walking in awareness.
- Conversations with God
