Pro Choice

If we go to the ocean, the terrain there could be put into one of three categories. One category would be the areas of higher beach that do not fall under the water even at high tide, another would be areas that are always under water, and the final category would be the areas that are marginal, sometimes under water, sometimes not, depending on the tides, boat wakes, or other factors. The creation can be looked at in a similar way. There are things that are material, there is the spiritual world, and there are the marginal jivas, or spirit souls, who can take shelter in either place, according to a beautiful, innate phenomena called choice, or free will.

We are currently in the realm of matter, or material form. There appears to be a universe of appealing choices that present themselves to us, whether they have to do with sexuality, career, entertainment, foods, clothing, and so on, but these are all choices pertaining to the material experience. Accepting any of these choices further captivates us in the material sojourn, and deepens the material hold on us. If we are fortunate, there will eventually be a frustration, an awareness that none of it is giving us real and everlasting pleasure, but there is little educational facility available that offers us information about the spiritual reality and gives us a practical way to choose that path.

I am pro-choice, not in the way that modern society uses the term. I am pro-choice in the sense that there needs to also be access to the information that frees us from the entrapment of this material world and its seductions, by the application of which we enter the joyful practices that offer us the road to the eternal realm of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Reservoir of All Pleasure. Those are the two options we have, to align our free will either with the mundane, or with the spiritual. We cannot make a real choice without knowing the options that we have, and the ramifications of our decisions. The scientific literatures that offer the spiritual wisdom that enables us to make a truly informed choice are the books of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.