The Horse Or The Cart? - by Pat Campbell

You get what you ask for in life! I think that most of us have realised that this statement is true! If we desire something strongly enough and visualise, keep our thoughts positive, take some steps towards the goal etc, then things will generally flow easily and we will achieve our goals and dreams. Whereas when we are going the wrong way, life will appear to be more difficult.

But what comes first? What is the horse and what is the cart? Do we desire something as a human being and then our soul helps us create it? Or did our soul choose this experience for us before we even came here and so we develop the desire for it when we are in harmony with our soul's choice? In which case it isn't our human self that has the free choice at all - except for the freedom to make mistakes of course! And we are told to discover our life purpose, that special thing that only we can do in just the right way. This is surely something our soul chose for us before we incarnated!

When I was a lot younger, I believed in destiny. I thought that our lives were mapped out for us when we were born and that was it. We could either go with the flow or we could resist but if we resisted too much then life would become rather difficult. Then when I became spiritual and really understood that we have free choice, I entirely discounted my previous belief. But now I am not so sure that my earlier belief was totally wrong.

We do have free choice; there is no debating that. But I feel that most of these "free choice" decisions are made while we are still in spirit form before we incarnate. So it is when we honour what our soul has chosen that we are in harmony and life flows nicely. Whereas if we decide to do something different, even if well justified and researched, it never seems to work out quite as well. Or if we resist the inevitable, then challenges appear in our lives.

My feeling is that when we make a decision quickly and "know" that it is the right decision, then it is our soul's choice. But if we take some time making a decision - doing research, weighing up the odds etc, then it is a human choice. Although the soul's choices bring more lasting contentment to our lives, I believe that both types of choices are necessary as balance in all things is a component for our spiritual development. It is the human choices that provide us with the lessons and challenges to enable us to grow.

However, the real lesson from this quandary is that no matter what we consciously choose and what is pre-determined from our soul's choice, we still do have to get off our bums and do something. We can't just stand still and let life happen to us! That was the part I did not know about when I thought our lives were destined.