The Gift to Choose

Choice is a gift...

The human mind is a powerful tool that has been granted to us, that lets us make choices. In our everyday lives we can make good and bad choices, and we can assign a value of good or bad to each of our choices as these qualifiers are very subjective. However, at the end, it's all our choice. Other created beings such as animals and plants don't have the same degree of choice that we do - now it may be argued that some animals can definitely distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong, I would agree to an extent, but I do not believe that animals can make a choice between following a path in life to the same extent you or I can. This means that we can choose to do good, and this choice is what places us at a higher spiritual level than other entities.

Choice is important indeed, however the holiest of people, throughout history have invariably chosen "good" over "evil". So, to be a holy or spiritually high human being, do you really have a choice? If you want to be good, then you do not really have a choice in whether you do good things or bad things. So doesn't this lack of choice reduce your spiritual status?

There are many possible answers, I would propose that the truly spiritually high and uplifted individuals of our world still do have a choice. They choose to give up their right to choose. They choose to leave their decisions in the hands of the higher power that they serve. They choose to serve. They choose to overlook temptation and always do what is "good".

As a human being, whenever I do anything that benefits another, whenever I perform a "good" deed I almost invariably feel a small rush of pleasure and happiness that I have done the right thing. This happiness acts as a small reward for doing what is right, and it also acts as incentive to continually do what is right. If attaining spiritual heights is the goal, I believe it will be essential to do good, not because it has any personal benefit at all... but simply because doing good things, is the only way that you can possibly conceive of doing anything. Sublimation of one's own sense of self is one way that I feel we can eventually become closer to God. Not an easy thing... and not one that many people will agree with - but that's the purpose of faith and belief in an intellectual tradition like Islam. To argue and disagree until a workable answer has been reached.

What do you think?

-Rahim