Part I: Why We Resist the Truth

Free will, Christ, and the power of choice

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THE GOOD LORD WILLING
The mystery of free will

 

We often say, "The good Lord willing." Yet behind that simple phrase lies one of life's deepest mysteries: free will.

 

Are we truly free?

Or is everything guided by God's will?

 

For centuries, people have wrestled with this question.

 

Some claim there is no free will at all—that everything is fate.

Others claim the opposite—that everything depends entirely on our own choices.

Still others believe that some things are predetermined while others are not.

 

So which of these is true?

 

The answer, it turns out, is both simpler—and more profound—than we might expect.

 

Both are real.

Three alternate ideas

Let's explore this from a spiritual perspective.

We'll start with those who believe only in this current life—people who think there is no existence before it or after. If that's us, then we also don't believe in the Spirit World or in divine laws.

Some things, we think, happen due to fate, and others due to our free will.

We are also probably convinced we have no choice about where or when we are born, whether we are male or female, or when we will die. We believe we have no control over how certain phases of our life unfold.

There are other people who feel, know and have experienced the truth of cause and effect. In this case, we are clear about the truth of reincarnation.

From this perspective, the previous point of view cannot be correct. We can see that every person ultimately has complete free will.

 

Although we have free will, our current options may be temporarily limited by causes we set in motion earlier. Perhaps even in previous lives.

 

Here is an example. Let's say someone is a murderer.

This person has committed a crime against God as well as human law. So this person is apprehended and put in jail.

But now let's say the person has amnesia and cannot remember what they did. Even if the murderer is told what they did, they no longer remember it.

But that doesn't alter the fact that they committed the crime.

In much the same way, we may not remember the actions from past lives that created our present circumstances.

To the prisoner, all this will seem very unjust. For the past actions are hidden from them. Nonetheless, they still happened.

In this case, the person's imprisonment was caused by their use of their free will. But the effect had to work its way through the time lag of cause and effect.

 

At times, then, our free will seems to not be working in our best interest. But this is always due to causes we have brought about, even though we cannot remember them.

On the other hand, wherever we are able to use our free will to our advantage, we have set those causes into motion, too.

Whether this all takes place in one lifetime doesn't change this law of cause and effect. When it happens over lifetimes, it is called karma.

 

The upshot is that, at one time, we have freely chosen to act and think in a way that brought about the results that are our current life situation.

Freedom must be freely chosen

Fate is the word we use to describe what happens in our lives when we completely overlook how we've sown those seeds ourselves. Every action, thought and feeling produces a result.

Some show up quickly, so it's easier to trace.

Others take longer to unfold.

Regardless, nothing happens in a person's life for which that person does not share responsibility.

This means that the alternative in which free will doesn't exist is not correct. And the option of free will only existing some of the time is also not true.

 

The simple truth is this: we always have free will.

Whatever we think or do today, and however we react, must have an effect in the future. This is true, whether it's tomorrow, next month, next year or in our next life.

 

This world, which is God's creation, runs on an infinite number of laws. We, God's children, get to choose to keep or not keep these laws.

We've had this choice since long before Earth came into existence.

 

What happens when we choose to keep them?

This leads down the road of happiness, love, harmony, light and supreme wisdom. Because God, who is perfect, created a system based on perfect laws.

If God were to force us to follow spiritual laws, that would not align with the nature of God. This would go against the basic law of free will and how it is applied in all of creation.

It simply cannot be beauty, harmony, wisdom, bliss and love if it's forced on us.

The whole point, in fact, is for us to apply our own will in recognizing the wisdom and perfection of God's laws. Otherwise, God would not be a god of freedom, but a god of slavery.

And it wouldn't matter that we might be very happy in such an enforced system.

 

Every created creature, then—human as well as spirit—gets to choose:

Do we want to live according to God's laws or not?

 

Embedded in this question lies an important key.

Not only is this a key to understanding free will, it explains how evil, darkness and cruelty have come into being.

In short, it explains the Fall of the Angels.

How evil came into being

Many people wonder how a god of love could have created evil.

But God is not the one who did this.

No, God created each of us with the capacity to freely choose whether we want to align with God's laws. To be fair, this isn't always easy to do.

For those who have left divine law do indeed find it more difficult to abide by them again. But for the spirits who never left it—who were not part of the Fall—it is not difficult to follow spiritual laws.

 

The difficulty lies in the purification process.

The struggle is in going back, step by step, to the state that was once ours. To where the keeping of the laws was not a problem.

In truth, we didn't abandon spiritual laws because we found they were too hard to keep.

In fact, in the parts of ourselves that never left, or that through painstaking work in previous incarnations have gotten back to our original state, it is not the least bit difficult to keep the laws.

 

The struggle is different for each of us.

One may find it incredibly hard to not steal. Another has no issue with that, but is forever losing their temper. Yet another has to struggle with feelings of envy.

The goal is to clean up all our issues, in every conceivable respect.

But this state of living once again within divine law must be reached through our own choosing—through our own free will.

 

There's no God out there, then, who is punishing or rewarding us, arbitrarily.

"Punishment," of course, being a word that makes so many revolt.

 

Rather, God has created perfect laws for us to follow freely. Or not.

Furthermore, these laws have been created with such supreme wisdom that whatever we do, we must ultimately find our way back to God—to a state of utter bliss and perfection.

One way or another, this is where we are heading.

Eventually, we will all return to bliss. Note that "we" includes all of us humans, for we have all deviated from God's laws.

Why unhappiness can be a remedy

What motivates us is the pain we create when we stray from God's laws.

The farther we travel from them, the harder it becomes to find our way back. The way becomes tedious and arduous, and we become more and more unhappy.

 

Yet this very unhappiness contains the remedy.

For this is what motivates us to choose to change our ways.

 

A person can live in a state of mediocre contentment for a very long time without making any spiritual progress.

Although they may have no major conflicts or problems, they lack real happiness. Because things seem "good enough," they feel little motivation to search for deeper truth or greater fulfillment.

But should a crisis or some major cause for unhappiness come along, they swiftly shift their stance. This is what moves us to start reaching for a higher level of consciousness, and consequently, happiness.

 

Unhappiness, then, is the remedy.

 

We fail to realize that in breaking spiritual laws lies the punishment, and therefore also the remedy. It is then our choice to do what we must to alleviate the unhappy state.

Few people understand this.

Seek the inner causes

Becoming happy must happen from within. Which means, as long as we rely on anything outside ourselves to make us happy, we will not know true happiness.

We may feel temporary contentment, but we'll always be afraid of losing it.

For we cannot control other people, especially after we've given them power over us or our circumstances.

 

The only lasting happiness—happiness that cannot be taken away—comes from doing the inner work of correcting where we deviate from divine law.

That's the only sure footing, the only safe place to stand.

 

That's when we discover that the only person responsible for anything that has ever happened to us… is us.

 

These inner causes are the places where our wrong inner currents deviate from spiritual laws. When we find them, we find the real reason for our hardships and trials.

But if we're like nearly everyone else, we won't do that most of the time—unless something unpleasant happens in our life.

So, don't think that God is sitting somewhere on a throne, willfully deciding to send unpleasantness to us.

No, it's all us.

At some point—whether in this lifetime or a previous one, it doesn't matter—we set the wheels into motion.

 

We don't need to remember previous lives to discover the causes of our present circumstances. There's truly no need for that.

Because everything we need is right here, right now.

If there is some trend in our soul that has not yet been purified, it exists in us right this moment. That makes it available for our recognition.

If we are willing, that is.

 

Nothing is hidden from us—we are the hiders.

 

When we uncover our faults and weaknesses—when we really get to know them—we begin to see how, directly or indirectly, they are the roots of everything we dislike about our present life.

The way out, then, lies through these very faults and weaknesses in our own soul.

Make no mistake—the process of purifying ourselves is a long, upward-winding path, like climbing a mountain one step at a time.

But that's the only way to go if we want to walk out of the darkness we find ourselves in.

 

We put ourselves here through our own choices.

And we can get ourselves out if we choose to—the good Lord willing.

The proper use of willpower

Without a doubt, finding freedom requires the proper use of our will.

But where exactly should we use our will?

And where should we not?

What about having enough willpower?

 

Note, all this pertains, whether we're talking about earthly things or about inner things like spiritual purification. For earthly things should also not deviate from God's law.

We can start with the premise that we wish, above all, to fulfill the will of God.

From there, we can listen in quiet meditation for the clear, still voice of God—or our Higher Self—that is always available and trying to reach us.

 

But there are other sources of willpower inside us as well. We must become aware of them and learn how to use them.

For example, there is a will-stream that comes out of our Higher Self—which is good—and another that comes from our Lower Self—which is not so good.

So there are two distinct ways we can use our willpower.

The one aligning with our Higher Self flows freely and with vitality, and it will never rob us of our serenity.

This type is deep yet conscious, strong yet patient. It leaves us free and detached yet never passive or resigned.

The other, from our Lower Self, creates pressure and tension.

And it totally robs us of peace.

It goes in the opposite direction of the sort of detachment that we need for having emotional maturity.

 

Our inner sources of willpower are incredibly potent. One can accomplish almost anything through sheer willpower.

But should we?

 

When would it be better to accept God's will and not push against it, and when should we harness our dormant powers and take action?

Many of us don't even fully grasp the possibilities, and we find this all very confusing.

The first step, then, involves finding out whether we feel this confusion. If so, we must formulate clear and concise thoughts.

In short, we must figure out what we really want.

 

We also need to get clear about whether our desire aligns with what God wants for us. Once we settle this within ourselves, we have already taken a step toward inner peace.

Anyone who has ever attained anything in this life has done this step.

And don't think that because you have accomplished something, that it must have been God's will. We have our own will, and it may or may not match God's.

But that's never because God's will was kept a secret from us.

 

We've all got a lot to learn—about ourselves and about the ways we have drifted off course. It will help to marshal all the inner willpower we have available if we want to have enough fuel to sort this all out.

Frankly, we could all use our willpower a lot more often than we do, and we would have greater strength.

But it will be far easier if we use the proper power in the proper way.

Finding the middle path

But how does this actually look in everyday life?

How does this look in the area of having a job or a profession?

 

Let's say we want one, and we want to do our best. This is a legitimate wish.

To have no desire in this respect would be wrong, because our inner spark would be missing. It is, in fact, possible to be too desireless and detached.

In that case, we are apt to move too slow and slide straight into a state of resignation. From there, we don't care much, for we're not fully alive.

So the middle path—the one that is so difficult to attain and maintain—is the right one.

How do we go about finding this middle path?

 

Daily meditation.

 

We've got to test our inner motives and be completely honest with ourselves. For instance, in our job, do we want to do our best so we can satisfy our vanity?

Are we secretly looking to raise ourselves up in the eyes of other people?

We have to see what's really going on before we can redirect it. Then the inner willpower can flow freely, in clean alignment with our motives.

After all, it's possible to want something that is right for us, but then go about it in the wrong way, mixing in wrong motives.

 

Also realize that the more work we have done on ourselves—the higher our development—the more any off-target desires will hamper our willpower.

This underscores why the first step must be to bring to the surface any unconscious material that requires cleaning up and being set right.

If we do this, we will then know where to let go and relinquish our willpower, and where we should make more effort than we have in the past.

The harm of self-will

We can want—or will—from either the head or from the soul.

The willpower of the ego may be strong, but it can never match the strength of the soul. This is why detaching from any strong pressing from our ego matters so much.

When we start to become aware, repeatedly, of the drive of our ego, we can begin to let go of it.

Then, once we've sorted out the two trends in ourselves of the vain egoic self-will versus the desire to serve others—such as in the motives behind doing our best in our profession—we can get our willpower running in the right direction.

 

We can actually train our willpower to flow out from our solar plexus, the intuitive center of our being, instead of our brain.

What's the difference?

This we have to learn to feel for ourselves.

 

One is our vital spark that resides deep in our soul. The other is from our ego and often acts against divine law.

The latter brings nothing but trouble.

Often these two combine, creating mixed motives that spoil our intentions for what's good and what's right.

We've got to learn to feel the difference.

 

Otherwise our ego, which wants to be the center of our world, will take over.

Although such discernment may not come easily, it is worth working to understand this difference.

This is key to getting out of the prison we are living in.

And that can't come cheap.

 

We have the power to set ourselves free. But we must begin to act now so every inner stream inside us flows in the direction of divine law—not against it.

We already know some of the basics: don't kill, don't steal, don't commit crimes. But if we're reading these words, these don't apply to us anymore.

We are way past that.

As many teachings suggest, we have worked through these currents long ago, even in other lifetimes.

Now, we must truly go inside and not just look at outer deeds.

 

Changing our thoughts is not enough.

We also have to change our feelings.

 

And that cannot happen unless we take a good, honest look at who we really are.

Humanity's spiritual development depends on learning how to freely return to divine law. Then we discover that "the good Lord willing" is not about fate controlling us.

 

It is about our freedom to choose.

Our freedom to accept God's constant invitation to return to him.

And to appreciate Christ's mission, which made that return possible.

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Read Original Pathwork^® Lecture: #18 Free Will