The other day I came across an email from 2008 that I sent to a group of friends at the dawn of the election of President Obama.

On the surface, this might seem like a political email, but from my perspective, it is an appeal to people to seek consciousness in the choices we are invited to make in this world. Looking at the choices we are faced with right now, I hope that something out of this old email connects with the readers today as we continue to move through this choice-responsive environment.

Hi Friend,

I don’t fully know how to express the significance of this upcoming election.  Listening to those around me, I hear all types of reasons for why people will choose one candidate over the other.  Most of those reasons go back to their survival instincts—money in the bank, food on the table, healthcare for their family.  All these reasons are understandable and speak to all of us in some way.  But then there is that undeniable aspect of all things manifest that over time show themselves to be something more—something beyond.

When I look at this election, I do not see it in the terms that are so easily attributed to it.  No amount of understanding or intellectualizing can truly express the depths to which this moment can express.  Calling it symbolic is not enough.  Forget about the financial crisis; forget about parties; forget about race; even forget about the spiritual implications of one of the candidates being the expressed image of the dichotomy that is America—the reconciliation of our blemished foundation—as much African as he is Euro-Caucasian.  Forget it all and what do we have?

In my eyes this election is less about our reasons and more about purpose.  It is bigger than black and white, left or right.  It’s beyond being a citizen of this country or even this planet.  To me this election gives each of us witnessing it an opportunity to go to the very core of our being and ask ourselves questions about that which goes to the indivisible essence of what it means to be a human being—our endowment of free will; of choice.

On November 4, 2008 we can exercise our right to choose.  Now in order to understand what I mean you must understand that from my vantage point, every ill that we see in this world stems not from an evil that is innate to humanity.  Rather, I see the appearance of pain, suffering, and rampant inequality to be the side effect of a collective mind that surrendered its right to choose.  I truly believe that in the heart of each of us we are perpetually impregnated with the seed of Truth—of Love.  We know what is right and our souls are pure.

But in our actions and our choices, we have given in.  We have repeatedly aborted the Truth of what we know to be the Way of the Divine and have instead put our faith in a system that we believe will serve our own interests.  It is a rare occasion when people will look beyond themselves and make a choice that serves the whole.  Their candidate is the one of their parents or the one that thinks, acts, or looks like them, or maybe even symbolizes some utopian ideal that’s meant to cleanse away association with past transgression.  Then there are some among us who believe that they were born into the choices that they will make—their every action is nothing more than a reaction to some external stimulus that always returns to “me me me”.  And so it goes, the wheel keeps turning.

Regardless of the results of this election, the world’s changing.  No matter who we vote for, we all are going to own a piece of the outcome.  We’ve all been here before and we know where this decision can lead us.  But make no mistake; November 4th is not the end anymore than it will be a beginning.  What it is is a reminder that every day we have the choice to choose what the world we live in will be like and that our choices have consequences.  But more than that, this election will, like those before it, demonstrate what happens when we don’t choose; when we surrender our hearts and minds to a lifeless system that was created to serve us and not to be served by us.

The state of America today shows you what happens when people ignore the writing on the wall on the basis of inconvenience and believe that the machine which was created by humans has the ability to sustain us.  Wake up people!  You have 10 days and counting.

We can’t change the past. We can only change the way we relate to the past.–Me