“To be free, means to be at the level of choice.” Dr. David Hawkins (cal.875).
This statement contains an absolute truth. But what does it really mean? Recently, I spent a lot of time thinking about this quote. The depth of it continues to hit me the more I consider it.
First, we must ask what it means to be free. Freedom could be defined as not being subject to the control or domination of others, or relief from something that was lacking or something unpleasant or burdensome. It could be not feeling bound, confined, or forced or having no obligations or commitments. It could also be defined as not being restricted, obstructed, or impeded.
How do you define freedom? Where in your life are you not free?
I think it’s safe to say that freedom is the state of being or experience in the world that everyone longs for. Imagine feeling totally free in your family and in your intimate relationships. Imagine feeling total and complete freedom at work. Imagine playing sports feeling totally and completely free. Imagine having a body that was completely free from symptoms, pain, uncomfortability, or disease. People come into my clinic because they are not free either physically, energetically, emotionally, or spiritually. Freedom is what we’re really after.
So first ask yourself where in your life you don’t feel free.
Next, freedom equals being at choice. I want you to consider at this moment that much or even most of your life is not defined by freedom because you are not “at choice.”
What is choice? One way to define choice is being free from considerations, justifications, excuses and reasons. Another definition of choice would be to declare what is going to happen in your life and make it so without anything stopping you, especially your negative internal emotional states. Let’s take an example.
Let’s say you want to lose weight and have been overweight for 20 years. It would be safe to say that if you have tried to do something and failed for 20 years, you are not at choice. For you, no choice has been possible for you at all in the last 20 years. As a result, you are not free to be exactly the way that you would like to be, which is to weigh less. Instead, you have many considerations, justifications, reasons, excuses, or anything else that has gotten in the way of you from being free to just simply be at the weight you desire. In this example, you have had no choice. Choice isn’t available to you.
Choice would mean that one day you just suddenly declare that instead of weighing 250 lb, in 1 years time, you weigh 190. Choice would mean that nothing would get in your way, nothing would stop you, no excuse would keep you bound to the weight that you’re currently at. 190 pounds is just what is and what would be. It’s a way of acting and being as if that’s already happened and you are simply living into your declared future in the present moment.
It would be the same as if one day made a choice to run a marathon. When does the running of the marathon actually begin? It begins the moment you declare that that’s what’s going to be. The marathon is being run now. The marathon actually begins now as a declaration even though in reality it hasn’t been started yet. The reason why it’s happening now is because you have to start taking action now in order to run the marathon in 6 months. The marathon is running you and you just do it.
We also aren’t at choice with our emotional states much of the time. No one chooses to get angry or afraid. Anger or fear, like a horrible aggressor, simply forces their way into our lives and we live largely at their mercy. I know very few people that have the presence of mind in a heated moment to be able to say, “Anger would be an appropriate response and I am going to CHOOSE to be angry now.” No, this is not what happens. We don’t choose anger, it forces itself on us or just arises without choice. That is, until we have such a degree of developed inner presence that we can choose our states of being at will. Only after when we choose to forgive ourself or another for our anger does some semblance of choice become available. All of the enlightened saints and sages throughout time have had the ability to choose their states of being at will and be free, because they were 100% at choice.
Let’s be honest, most of us live a good portion of our lives from the position of reactor rather than chooser. Many of us don’t sit down at the beginning of our day and say x, y, and z are going to happen and then just make that happen. Many don’t choose or plan, we just react. Instead, we turn on the phone and we simply react to everything happening in our world. We react to our email, our text messages, Facebook, phone calls and so much more. We react all day long in many cases.
It’s almost as if we have routines that are like computer programs that just run in the background and require zero choice. When you do declare choice, and choose to be creator of your life, rather than ractor, then you start to embody freedom.
Choice is very intentional. Choice is declarative. Choice is freedom from excuses, justifications, and considerations.
I know I live a lot of my life from the position of reactor. I don’t live in choice, and therefore I’m not free. However, when it comes to health, my life has become largely an expression of choice. I choose health. I choose to be at the exact weight I want. I choose to eat healthy foods. I choose to exercise frequently. I choose to drink lots of filtered water. I choose to meditate every day. Hardly anything or nothing gets in the way of those things from happening everyday or habitually. As a result, health occurs. There’s freedom there.
I don’t see everybody consuming pizza, fried food, chips, wonder bread, white rice, ice cream, coffee and sugary food and see freedom. I see a world that’s not at choice and therefore completely enslaved to the foods that they’re consuming. Needing these foods in order to be happy is not freedom or choice but addiction and slavery. These foods don’t generate life, they destroy it, which also is not freedom.
“To be free, means to be at the level of choice.”
What is one area of your life that you can truly declare to be at choice that will totally give you freedom like you’ve never had before?
Even if it’s something small, like choosing to drink 60 oz of purified water everyday, make that choice, declare it, and let absolutely nothing get in your way. As a result, in this area of your life, you will be totally and completely free. In the discipline is freedom. Once you have mastered one thing like this, move to the next thing to master. Live at choice.
