Another Choice

Which ends, which means?

Can one grasp this question at its first grammar, its first declension, in the ordinary minutes of daily life and, through the cultivation of conscious choice, of the quality of one’s choices, learn to live in harmony with the inner being, with the truth of things and of nature? For it is from choice to choice that an individual being’s orientation affirms and confirms itself and, by its own growing clarity, cleaves its own unique path ahead, or by its confusion degrades and sinks – and thus contributes either to the cohesion and transparency of the whole or to disorder and loss of meaning.

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The more we become able to open to the presence and to align to its axis of work and to offer into it the movements of our nature and the more the ordinary human life appears hollow and unsubstantial, a parody of what ought to be – save for these moments of grace, self-giving and trusting élan, of nobility and of beauty which mark out the high points of our respective journeys.

It is the very fabric of our condition as physical human creatures that appears now so indigent, an imitation or a play of shadows, a used or deformed reflection.

And yet, each time one meets someone who emanates a harmony, an accord of nature and life with the inner being and presence, it is as if the whole atmosphere and place were illumined by it. An evidence common to all such beings stands out: it is that each of them has known to choose the truest choices – the most attuned to what was perceived of the individual truth – and that, from choice to choice a force of harmony was able to settle in their life and circumstances.

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