Embracing Choice: Your Path to Freedom

Embracing Inner Guidance: Mind, Intelligence, and the Soul

Embracing Responsibility: Decisions Build Your Future

Managing the mind means embracing conscious choice by guiding it with intelligence. In this framing, the mind produces ideas, impulses, and desires, while intelligence discriminates, evaluates consequences, and decides what to accept or reject. When intelligence leads, the senses become directed rather than reactive, and your choices become intentional instead of automatic. Above both is the soul, the ultimate observer of the mind-body complex, sometimes described as the witness. In practical terms, embracing the role of witness means noticing thoughts and urges without immediately acting on them, so intelligence can choose a direction rather than being pulled by habit. Often, ignorance of our spiritual nature leads us to let the mind dictate our lives or to let intelligence go dull, which weakens discernment and results in poor decision-making. Embracing awareness restores that discernment: you notice desire forming, you pause, and you choose a response that aligns with your deeper values rather than momentary pressure. You do this by understanding the difference between the two. Essentially, the mind conjures up ideas and desires, and the intelligence analyzes and decides whether to accept or reject these concepts. Above the intelligence, however, is the soul—the ultimate controller of the body/mind complex, the “witness,” if you will. Unfortunately, due to ignorance of our higher spiritual nature, as a “witness” to these psychological affairs, we either allow the whimsical mind to dictate the direction of our lives or we fail to keep our intelligence alert and thus lose all sense of discrimination.

Embracing Karma: How Actions Shape Outcomes

While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion, bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost, one falls down again into the material pool. (Bhagavad-Gita 2.63-63)

Karma, the reactions to our actions, plays a crucial role in shaping our potential. Like the biblical saying, “As you sow, so shall you reap,” karma ensures balance in the universe. Our actions, whether good or bad, eventually return to us, influencing our life circumstances, including our physical body and environment. Simply put, karma means work, or more precisely, the reactions to the work you have performed. Embracing this principle reframes choice as cause-and-effect: what you repeatedly think, say, and do tends to generate corresponding outcomes over time, shaping circumstances and opportunities. The bible states: As you sow, so shall you reap. The universe functions on a delicate balance of give and take, striving for equilibrium. In the context of embracing responsibility, this means your actions are not isolated events: they participate in an ongoing exchange where helpful actions tend to invite support and harmony, while harmful actions tend to return as friction, loss, or lessons. This principle applies to karma, where actions lead to corresponding reactions. By understanding this balance, you can align your actions with positive outcomes, ensuring that the energy you put into the world returns to you favorably. Everything in the universe is seeking balance, or the most natural state of being. It is the same with our karma. As a universal law, karma is always seeking a fair balance of good and evil. If you act in such a way to cause suffering to another, in time, that same suffering will reflect back to you. Not necessarily in this life, but eventually it will catch you. Much the same as an old parking ticket may follow you from state to state until you pay it off.

Although our potential is unlimited, it is affected by the state of our mind and the nature of our karma, which subsequently determines the type of physical body we get, the place we will be born, and the people we will come into contact with. Embracing conscious choice, therefore, is not just self-improvement in the moment; it is the ongoing effort to refine the mind and actions so the trajectory of consequences becomes more favorable.

Today’s decisions are the building blocks of your future. Your current situation is a result of past choices and actions. By taking responsibility for your present, you can shape a better future. The Bhagavad-Gita reminds us that our choices influence the senses and experiences we encounter, emphasizing the importance of mindful decision-making.. What you are today is an accumulation of all the decisions and actions you have made in the past. You are entirely responsible for your present situation.

The Bhagavad-Gita warns us:

The living entity, thus taking another gross body, obtains a certain type of ear, eye, tongue, nose and sense of touch, which are grouped about the mind. He thus enjoys a particular set of sense objects. (15.9)

No, it is not my fault,” you cry. But yes, it is, for karma follows us throughout our spiritual evolution and not just in this one lifetime. Embracing karmic accountability in this broader sense does not mean self-punishment; it means treating recurring patterns as information, asking what lesson is being repeated, and choosing a different action so the pattern can change. What is happening today may just as likely be a result of something we did in a past life. The good news is that you do not have to be locked into a karmic downward spiral. Once you grasp the lessons from your karma, you can break free from repetitive cycles. This understanding allows you to transcend past actions and create new patterns that lead to growth and fulfillment. Embracing this change empowers you to shape your destiny consciously.

Embracing the Present Moment: Start Change Now

As the soul and witness of your life, you hold the power to initiate positive change. This transformation must start immediately, as life is a series of present moments. The past is gone, and the future is uncertain, but the present is where you can harness the cosmic power within you to live the life you desire. Change has to begin now, not tomorrow, but now, because life is only ever lived in present moments. Embracing the present can be practiced immediately by doing three things: observing what the mind is demanding, consulting intelligence for consequences, and acting from your chosen values rather than impulse. You have to focus all your attention on what is happening around you now, because life really is just a string of “now” moments. The past is gone forever and only remains as fragmented pictures in our minds. And the “future” is always in a state of elusiveness—you can never touch it. All that really matters is now. Just as the micro is equal to the macro, or the ocean drop is equal to the quality of the entire ocean, the full power of the cosmic creation is within you. Draw on that source power and start living life the way you want to NOW.

Source: The 5 Noble Truths – by Paul Rodney Turner.

FAQ

Q: What is the relationship between the mind and intelligence?

A: The mind generates ideas and desires, while intelligence evaluates and decides which to pursue. The soul, as the ultimate observer, guides these processes.

Q: How does karma influence our lives?

A: Karma, the reactions to our actions, shapes our life circumstances, including our physical body and environment, by ensuring balance in the universe.

Q: Why is it important to make conscious decisions?

A: Conscious decisions are the building blocks of your future. By taking responsibility for your present choices, you can shape a better future.

Q: How can I initiate positive change in my life?

A: As the soul and witness of your life, you have the power to initiate change by focusing on the present moment and harnessing the cosmic power within you.

Q: What does the universe’s balance of give and take mean?

A: The universe functions on a balance of give and take, where actions lead to corresponding reactions, ensuring equilibrium in life.

Q: How can I break free from negative karmic cycles?

A: By understanding and learning from your karmic lessons, you can break free from repetitive cycles and create new patterns for growth.

Q: What does embracing choice mean in this post?

A: Embracing choice means recognizing that the mind produces desires and ideas, while intelligence can evaluate them and decide what to pursue. The post frames the soul as the witness above both. Practically, embracing choice is the habit of pausing before acting, letting discernment lead, and taking responsibility for the direction your life takes.

Q: What is the chariot analogy and how does it relate to embracing freedom?

A: The post uses the Katha Upanishad chariot analogy: the body is the chariot, senses are horses, the mind is the driving instrument, intelligence is the driver, and the individual soul is the passenger. Embracing freedom means ensuring intelligence guides the mind and senses rather than letting impulses pull the “horses” off course.

Q: How can I tell the difference between mind and intelligence in daily life?

A: In the post’s framework, the mind is the source of wants, fears, and attractions, while intelligence is the capacity to analyze, discriminate, and choose. A practical test is: if a thought pressures you toward immediate gratification, it’s likely mind-driven; if it weighs consequences and alignment with values, it’s intelligence at work.

Q: How does the Bhagavad-Gita describe the chain from desire to downfall?

A: The post cites Bhagavad-Gita 2.63, describing a progression: contemplation leads to attachment, attachment to lust, lust to anger, anger to delusion, delusion to bewildered memory, then loss of intelligence, followed by a fall into material entanglement. It supports the idea that embracing mindful choice interrupts this chain early.

Q: What is karma according to the post?

A: Karma is described as work and, more importantly, the reactions to the work you have performed. The post compares it with the saying “As you sow, so shall you reap,” emphasizing a balancing principle where actions bring corresponding outcomes. Embracing karma here means acting with awareness of long-term consequences.

Q: Does embracing karma mean blaming yourself for everything?

A: The post argues for personal responsibility and karmic continuity across lifetimes, but it also points to a constructive aim: learning lessons and breaking repetitive cycles. Embracing karma is best understood as accountability that empowers change—using present choices to alter future outcomes—rather than self-condemnation.

Q: How do present decisions shape the future in this teaching?

A: The post states that today’s decisions are the building blocks of your future and that your present situation reflects past choices and actions. Embracing this view encourages you to act deliberately now, because the “now” moment is where you can influence what comes next through thought, behavior, and intention.

Q: What does it mean to be the “witness” of the mind-body complex?

A: Being the witness means the soul observes thoughts, desires, and emotions rather than being identical to them. In the post’s logic, embracing the witness position helps you avoid being ruled by the “whimsical mind,” keeping intelligence alert and discrimination strong so you can choose rather than react.

Q: How can I break free from negative karmic cycles, according to the post?

A: The post says you are not locked into a downward spiral once you grasp karma’s lessons. Embracing change involves recognizing repeating patterns, understanding what they are teaching, and choosing different actions in the present. This creates new patterns that lead toward growth, fulfillment, and greater inner freedom.

Q: Why is “now” emphasized so strongly?

A: The post argues that life is a string of present moments: the past remains as fragmented pictures in the mind, and the future is elusive. Embracing the present is presented as the only workable place for transformation, because real decisions and actions can only occur in the immediate experience of now.

Q: What practical steps does the post imply for managing the senses?

A: Using the chariot metaphor, the senses are “horses” that need guidance. The implied practice is to keep intelligence awake and in control, using the mind as an instrument rather than a dictator. Embracing this approach means limiting compulsive sense-chasing and repeatedly choosing actions aligned with higher aims.

Q: How do my actions affect my environment and relationships in this framework?

A: The post states that karma influences life circumstances, including the physical body and environment, and affects the people you come into contact with. Embracing this view encourages intentional behavior: what you contribute—help or harm—returns over time as experiences, opportunities, and lessons that shape your path.