Do we really have a choice?

Lately books and discussions on ‘The law of attraction’, The secret’, Ask and it is given’ or work by Abraham Hicks in co-creating our lives are gaining popularity. There are blogs, forums, communities and web-sites dedicated to manifesting things in our lives and using affirmations and visualizations etc.

All of these say that we can change our lives and manifest into our lives anything we desire. All of this is good stuff and thoughts do become things, and we do manifest a lot of things we desire as well as things we do not desire. I too, am a believer of the law of attraction. One thing that made me wonder is that no where do these methods of visualization etc talk of KARMA. I am attempting to understand how all of this links together.

Karma can be understood through the following definitions.

Karma is the total effect of a person's actions and conduct or behavior during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny.

Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda, has said that we produce Karma in four ways:

• through our thoughts
• through our words
• through our actions that we perform ourselves
• through the actions others perform under our instructions

Everything that we have ever thought, spoken, done or caused is Karma; as is also that which we think, speak or do this very moment.

Many old Hindu gurus believe that our destiny was shaped long before the body came into being. There is a science called the called the naadi-shastra or palm leaf readings, which says that using a thumb print, or given the date and time of birth of a person, it is possible to predict his future. His past can also be read with accuracy. Moreover the naadi-shastra also tells you about your past life. I have met many people who have got their palm leafs read and they vouch by the accuracy of the reading. This makes it seem like we are “pre-determined” beings.

Now the question arises- where does Karma fit into the scheme of things in the law of attraction or the secret etc?

Recently I came across some material that said our soul makes some contracts before we manifest on earth. Even doctor Wayne Dyer says this in his book ‘Living in Inspiration, your ultimate calling’. So if the soul has agreed to suffer from some dreadful disease in this life-time in order to learn some lesson that we are not aware of in our waking moments, then will things like the ‘Law of attraction’ or visualization work? In this case do we really have a choice but to suffer?

They do say- ‘que sera, sera’ ‘whatever will be, will be’, how does this fit into the law of attraction or deliberate co-creation?

Our choice points:

I have come to learn that for most part of the time, ‘Whatever will be, will be,’ our choice lies in how we deal with it. Will we choose to blame, criticize, and feel victimized or will we choose to stand up and take responsibility for our choices? We have after all made a contract when we were still in spirit form. We do have to deal with the lessons we chose to learn and they WILL manifest, whether you wished it in your manifestations, visualizations or not. It is at times such as these when we turn to the deeper meaning of life and really understand the term ‘meditation’; when we really seek to understand the lesson behind the so called tough situation. And when we choose how to deal with the situation, we either feel empowered or disempowered. If the lesson is not learnt in an empowering way, it will be presented again.

The choice we have is - to learn or not to learn, to change or not to change, to be or not to be.