The Robot with a Heart

Ask a gambling addict what is going on inside him when he smells the smoke-infested room where the players are gathering, when he sees the whiskey being poured into his glass, when he puts his chips on the table and when he hears, sees and smells the shuffling of the brand-new set of cards, and he will tell you that at this stage, even before the playing has begun, he is already in a trance. He is hooked and from this point on he will only leave this premise when it is 4 am (when it closes down) or when he is broke and will be kicked out, literally.

You would agree with me that our addicted player acts like a robot, driven by his addiction, but you would probably also agree with me that every addiction can be beat, so from the perspective of the cured addict, you gain freedom. Yet, the question remains, do we ever have the potential to gain freedom when we are in this body; aren't we always in one way or another set up by our hormones, the environment we are in and our stored memories? The psychological research would claim we are. Our thoughts are a function of our feelings, and our feelings depend on the environment we are in, the state of our body, our past, etc. For example, put people in an untidy room and they turn out to be more judgmental than people who sit in clean surroundings. Expose woman to men with high testosterone levels and they will find them more attractive during the time they are ovulating. The list goes on and on.

So you can argue that we have a choice to free ourselves very much as the gambling addict who with a lot of will-power and the help from his friends avoids the trance state, or you can argue that no matter how pure our actions or the environment we are living in, we will always be robots led by life, our body and the environment we are operating in, viewed from a higher level of consciousness. Actually, I think the latter view is correct but I would also say that from a spiritual perspective this discussion is entirely intellectual. Just imagine yourself sitting on a couch somewhere experiencing the movie called life. So you are an avatar, but the spiritual person conjectures that one day we will be waking up to a higher level of consciousness.

So what do you know with that insight? You might never be free, always bound by the avatar life has chosen for you. What you can do, however if you are a spiritual person, you can get in touch with your heart and choose love always, no matter what. That is the spiritual mandate the Christ has for you and you can always study for yourself how you experience life if you run this divine experiment. As far as your mind is concerned, you might be a robot. But luckily for you, this robot has always the choice to get into touch with his heart. Please try it, it is very much worth your while.