The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [39]
If you want to fully experience life, you must close the circle.
Right and wrong decisions: If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. This isn’t a correct assumption because the universe is flexible—it adapts to every decision you make. Right and wrong are only mental constructs. Immediately I can hear strong emotional objections to this. What about Mister Right? What about the perfect job? What about buying the best car? We are all in the habit of looking like consumers at people, jobs, and cars, wanting best value for the money. But in reality the decisions we label as right and wrong are arbitrary. Mister Right is one of a hundred or a thousand people you could spend a satisfying life with. The best job is impossible to define, given that jobs turn out to be good or bad depending on a dozen factors that come into play only after you start the job. (Who knows in advance what your co-workers will be like, what the corporate climate is, whether you will have the right idea at the right moment?) And the best car may get driven into an accident two days after you buy it.
The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience. If this sounds too mystical, refer again to your body. Every significant vital sign—body temperature, heart rate, oxygen consumption, hormone level, brain activity, and so on—alters the moment you decide to do anything. A runner’s metabolism can’t afford to be as low as the metabolism of someone reading a book because, without increased air intake and faster heart rate, the runner would suffocate and collapse with muscle spasms.
Decisions are signals telling your body, mind, and environment to move in a certain direction. It may turn out afterward that you feel dissatisfied with the direction you’ve taken, but to obsess over right and wrong decisions is the same as taking no direction at all. Keep in mind that you are the choice-maker, which means that who you are is far more than any single choice you have ever made or ever will make.
Defending your self-image: Over the years you have built an idealized self-image that you defend as “me.” In this image are packed all the things you want to see as true about yourself; banished from it are all the shameful, guilty, and fear-provoking aspects that would threaten your self-confidence. But the very aspects you try to push away return as the most insistent, demanding voices in your head. The act of banishment creates the chaos of your internal dialogue, and thus your ideal erodes even while you are doing everything to look good and feel good about yourself.
To really feel good about yourself, renounce your self-image. Immediately you will find yourself being more open, undefended, and relaxed. It’s helpful to remember a startling comment from the renowned Indian spiritual teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj: “If you notice, you only have a self when you’re in trouble.” If that seems unbelievable, imagine yourself walking through a dangerous neighborhood in a bad part of town. All around you are people whose stares make you nervous; the sound of unfamiliar accents reminds you that you are different from these people, and in that difference you feel danger. The perception of threat causes you