The tabloid dream that is US Congressman Anthony Weiner’s sexting escapade is playing out predictably here in New York. The congruence of name and nature makes for easy puns - “cocksure,” “stimulus package” are a couple that jump out at me, although the “feeling perfect assurance sometimes on inadequate grounds” - especially in the face of Weiner’s initial denials - prompts a chuckle.

The whole overblown drama is rousing moral outrage all over the country, whose puritanical roots are never so obvious as in the face of a political sex scandal. Whilst interviewing 2012 Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney (who is a devout Mormon and seemingly with an unblemished past) Piers Morgan even raised the subject of sin.

Reducing this to a discussion of what constitutes sin doesn’t get us far. Sin is a tool, and at times a weapon, used by the mainstream Church to keep adherents in line with their doctrine and dogma. It has no part in a debate about contemporary ethics.

Nor does getting caught up in a self-righteous flurry, rushing - as many on the CNN website seem to have - to act as moral arbiters of others’ actions. It is not only hypocritical - we all have the potential, capacity and even the urge to err from society’s standards of accepted behavior - but it also misses the point (pun not intended!).

The greatest challenge, and ultimately the door to the greatest wisdom, is learning to choose thoughts, words and actions correctly. By ‘correctly’ I don’t mean ‘right’ as opposed to ‘wrong,’ but rather, having an understanding of the Universal Spiritual Law of Cause and Effect so that we are able to choose thoughts, words and actions that create and produce the effects we want and intend.

This life is an exercise in learning the likely consequences of an infinite range of options thoughts, words and deeds . In this physical world the only consequences we initially anticipate are those that are readily perceivable by the five senses.

But life, and wisdom, soon teach us that there is a whole raft of consequences we never saw as either possible or probable. It is only after we have lived a bit that we realize that just because we can’t see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. (I’m thinking, at this point, this has particular poignancy for Weiner, as he awaits the return of his wife, a close aide to Hillary Clinton, who was been away on a business trip when the scandal erupted.)

When bestselling author Gregg Braden went in search of ancient texts in the remote mountains of Tibet, the monks guarding those texts told him that choice is the great secret of the Masters.

As we stand ready to choose (a thought, word or action) we need to consider the unseen forces of the Universe that dictate that we will receive in equal measure everything we put out there. We create our own experience through such choices.

Time has nothing to do with it, thus the connection between cause and effect may be difficult to pinpoint. Also, it’s no use looking at what others are doing and experiencing - we have no way of discerning cause, let alone judging effect, in other people’s lives.

All we can do is know that if we want love, then we must choose it. Equally, if we want truth, beauty, peace, respect, compassion, then we must choose them - at all times and under all circumstances.

Eileen McBride
Eileen McBride is the author of Love Equals Power 2, a spiritual seeker and teacher. This article was published on June 16, 2011.