I choose to be happy!

Everyone has heard the expression, “What you sow is what you reap.” Obviously, if we want to create happiness in our lives, we must learn to sow the seeds of happiness.

We are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices. Some of these choices are made consciously, while others are made unconsciously. Whether we like it or not, everything that is happening at this moment is a result of the choices we’ve made in the past.

If I were to insult you, you would most likely make the choice of being offended. If I were to pay you a compliment, you would most likely make the choice of being pleased or flattered. But think about it: it’s still a choice.

I could offend you and I could insult you, and you could make the choice of not being offended.  I could pay you a compliment and you could make the choice of not letting that flatter you either. In other words, most of us – even thugh we are infinite choice makers – have become bundles of conditioned reflexes that are constantly being triggered by people and circumstances into predictable outcomes of behavior.

If you step back for a moment and witness the choices you are making as you make these choices, then in just this act of witnessing, you take the whole process from the unconscious realm into the conscious realm. This procedure of conscious choice-making and witnessing is very empowering.

When you make any choice – any choice at all – you can ask yourself two things:

First of all, “What are the consequences of this choice that I’m making?”

Secondly, “Will this choice that I’m making now bring happiness to me and to those around me?” If the answer is no, if that choice brings distress either to you or those around you, then don’t make that choice. It’s as simple as that.

(Deepak Chopra. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success)

Man, the master of his destiny

Man is an engineer and at the same time man is a machine. There is a part of his being which works automatically, subject to climatic and personal influences and to favourable and unfavourable conditions. And there is another part in him which is the engineer part, and that which manifests from that part man calls free will. It is this outlook of life out of which comes the saying, "Man proposes, God disposes."It may be very well said that in the case of one it is more so than in the case of another. In one case, man continually proposes and God continually disposes; in the other case, it is quite on the contrary, man proposes and God grants. This gives one a key to understand the mystery of life, that the more the engineer part of his being is developed, the more man controls his life and affairs. But the more the machine part of his being is nurtured, the more helpless he becomes in spite of all the success in the world he may have. There comes a moment in man's life when man's efforts fall flat and he finds himself to be helpless before conditions.

Motive is a power for action and yet it limits power. The secret of the mystic is to be able to rise above the motive power in order to draw power from The All-Powerful. Once man realizes that he is an engineer and a mechanism at the same time, he studies that mechanism with which he must work, and he avoids being caught in this mechanism as the spider in the web. He keeps watch over it as an engineer to control and utilize this mechanism to the best purpose, in which the secret of mastery is to be found.

(Hazrat Inayat Khan, December 1925)