This episode, “Dedicate your life to your purpose.” brought to you by the universal laws of nature, all of them.

Free will is a hilarious personal development topic. Today I am going to say this is one is a doozy. Do you have free will?

Of course you do.

You can pee in the street. You can cry over spilt milk. You can tell people anything. Tell yourself anything. You can climb a mountain or sit watching YouTube videos and call that life. You can say you are doing spiritual practice that just makes who you think you are easier to be it. Free will? Of course. And there are lots of quotes to encourage you to express it. Here are a few:

“Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg but my will, not even Zeus himself can overpower.” 

― Epictetus, The Discourses

“Keep being the author of your own story. Never let anyone else write it for you again.” 

― Jennifer Donnelly, Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book

“Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in faces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.” 

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

“To each man shall his own free actions bring both his suffering and his good fortune. Jupiter is impartially king over all alike. The Fates will find the way.” 

― Virgil, The Aeneid

“When babies fall asleep at one place but wake up at another place, they don’t even feel surprised. They know that their mother must have shifted them during sleep. If something similar happens to you, you will freak out. This attachment to the body and the surroundings is the reason your higher self is not able to shift you to better scenes in life.” 

― Shunya

“How sick in your mind and your soul to be scared of my voice and my words.” 

― The Cure

“We are slaves 
to the dictates of free will.” 

― Vijay Fafat, The Ninth Pawn of White – A Book of Unwritten Verses

“You are free to the choice that you want, but you are not free from the consequences of that choice. That choice you make today may break or make your family in future.” 

― Itayi Garande, Broken Families: How to get rid of toxic people and live a purposeful life

“To give a gift, we think that someone must receive it. But possibly the greatest gift is granting the recipient permission to reject it, for then we have freed that gift of every agenda that would render it as less than a gift.” 

― Craig D. Lounsbrough

Might it not be the case that that extremely foolhardy and fateful philosophical invention, first devised for Europe, of the ‘free will’, of man’s absolute freedom [Spontaneität] to do good or evil, was chiefly thought up to justify the idea that the interest of the gods in man, in man’s virtue, could never be exhausted?” 

― nietszche

I have noticed even people
who claim everything is predestined,
and that we can do nothing to change it,
look before they cross the road.

Stephen Hawking

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism;
the way you play it is free will.

Jawaharlal Nehru

So you can see there are mixed opinions on what free will really means. For those of course, who want order, free will should be monitored. Otherwise they fear mayhem. On the other hand, those who were in someway gifted with too much of it, then it is a poison. They become autocratic and bound by rules and laws that send them insane.

But those who were held back, restricted in their choices, become obsessed with free will. They, as adults find it impossible to suffer any form of discomfort and call it pain. They cannot deal with even a moment of pain whether it’s emotional, spiritual or mental, pain to them is the enemy of free will. They might even obsess with wealth in order to prevent any intrusion into their choice to avoid pain. As soon as a boss comes on strong or weak they feel constricted and react.

Free will and our interpretation of it is a big part of our interpretation of life. Some even get agressive when their opinions, which are often based on minimal knowledge, are not considered to be as right as the commandments. This opinion based expression comes always from a person who has had excess freedom and needs to create order in the world. It really causes them emotional and mental pain. Because every opinion sits on quicksand and they know it.

So, predestined is a strange concept. I went to a priest in India. He was dressed in white, I was instructed clearly, do not touch him, do not hand him money, do not look at his face. He lived in a realm outside the reality of all of us. I had to write my birth and one piece of jewellery, I chose a watch, and put it in a bag which was given to him. With this he spent a week preparing for my visit. When I sat opposite him he was so handsome, such a beautiful face I’ve never ever seen. Definitely androgynous. Beyond the division of self and other, masculine and feminine, right and wrong, pleasure and pain. He was, I think, a saint. But that’s my opinion and opinions are like arseholes, every body has one, except those with a cholostomy bag who, if it happened in life, will be very very opinionated people. Anyway, back to the story.

He started with the birthday dates and times of my three children. Shit, that made me so suspicious but internet in those days was barely functional in the best of India, let alone in this village. So the story continued. He said, one wife, and I said, aha, gotcha, I’ve had 3 at that time. And he said, that’s your mistake. You are only married to one and the rest are different loves. OK, maybe in some form true. He then told me that there were several forks in my path. One was the death of my mother. He pinned the year. He then gave the birth year of my brother and sister. He then gave the birth year of my father. He then picked three forks in my path, my turning points that I suffered extreme pain going through. Business sales, university choices, and more. He couldn’t tell me what, just when those forks happened and that they were choice points that could not be reversed. And those were times in my life that I made major choices around career.

He then told me the date and time of my death. He spoke about different things, times that would change my life, and the lives of many. The accuracy was uncanny. I walked away not buying the prediction but marvelling at the accuracy of the historical observations.

I was obsessed with the idea that every choice I made was made by me, that I am the master of the ship called my life. That the future is in my hands. I mean, I was a constricted kid and being free had obsessed my being from the get go. The idea of a predestined road map of my destiny was disgusting to me.

That was 30 years ago. I’ve not thought about him since. And as I write this I have cold shivers in my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck are bristling. His predictions were accurate. Not the death one yet. but there’s still a bunch of years to go before I’ll test that. hahahaha.

Then the idea came to me, what if human will and divine will, are one? What if there is no difference?

Maybe on purpose human will and divine will are one. Predestined and free will are one. And what if our ego is fighting that. Trying to keep those two separate?

What my opinion is, is not important. But, there is a final argument for “Dedicating your life to your purpose.” And that is that nothing else makes sense. Why else would nature destroy anything that doesn’t fulfil its purpose?

That’s it for today on this episode.

With Spirit.

Chris