FREE WILL
If the burden were taken away the lesson would not be there, coping with it is what is important and is what will count.
This blog is replete with the Ancestors wisdom in quotes. Rather than my trying to paraphrase them which would dilute their power I am including them here. They are best savored slowly to fully realize the depth of their meanings.
Free will is a seminal cosmic law.
“Everything is foreseen yet freedom of choice is given.” Rev. Akiva
This implies that our life and destiny is predestined by the Divine but because of free will, we are entitled to not find it and if we do find it, not to follow it or even not follow it with integrity. The Infinite One knows what we will do. In other words it can be foreseen to the Great Spirit. However, our choices gives us the power to change coarse at any time. This too is foreseen by the Creator though not ourselves and not necessarily even to our guides.
Everyone will ultimately achieve the spiritual perfection for which we are created and this may take many lifetimes because of free will.
Free will is essential in order to test our worthiness. Our skillfulness in adhering to spiritual laws will depend on how consciously we apply our choices. If we are unskilful there will be consequences and we will need to come back again to correct them.
Merit on a judgmental level is the balancing of evil and good deeds. Merit is the credit we receive on the side of good.
There are no good choices or bad choices only the consequences of those choices.
Consequences are neither reward nor punishment, they simply are consequences – natural cause and effect, often not immediate but always inescapable.
Karma as determined by free will is in a way similar to Newtons laws in physics. His law of cause and effect states that for every cause there is an effect and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The spiritual law of karma is also one of cause and effect. The Creator does not micromanage. Karma is set as a default into the soul. Free will and our actions have automatic consequences. No one is up in the heavens judging us - we are judging our-Selves (as in Higher Self) all the time. Have no doubt that our deeds are recorded in the Book of Life or the Akashic records. We do not get away with anything. We will be accountable for our intentions, choices and actions.
To make a choice good and evil must both operate freely. The only way to do away with evil is to continually choose good.
Evil is not the cause but rather the consequence of not choosing the Creator's revealed will. It is important to understand that it is neither evil nor good that cause our choice but rather that they are the consequence of it.
Only we are to blame!
This too is what gives goodness its birth and sustains its life.
Free will as we tend to think of it implies choices so that we may decide upon them. Where there are no choices there is no freedom of will to be exercised. Where choices are limited by circumstances, one may still at least determine what one’s attitude will be, how we respond, not in action but in deciding our thoughts, intent and opinions.
God does not want us to do good because of fear damnation or burning in a fiery hell. The Creator want us to do good out of love and for its own sake and also not out of an expectation for compensation. If every good deed was followed by a reward we would be no better than a well trained animal bound to a Pavlovian type of response.
The results of cause and effect are often not immediate because they would influence free will.
God wants us to do things for the right reasons; not out of fear and shame and because of what may result but out of love and justice.
The ancestors and/or our guides cannot save but only alert, advise and warn and only according to our openness and willingness. They cannot change or deter us from own insistency no matter to what it is due. Only we can change!
Free will is always neutral, motivated and catalyzed by desire.
You cannot say; “the devil made me do it!
You are free always to change course at any time or place; if you were not, there would be no challenge, no discovery, no victory, no fulfillment.
We are responsible for our actions and the laws governed by love and truth on the other side of the veil between worlds differ from those on the earth plane. In spite of our karmic sins God loves us unconditionally and we are all capable of redemption. The law of karma, however is conditional.
Spiritual laws are operative whether or not we understand them or can explain them or whether or not we even know about them or believe in them.
When we pass over we will be confronted by a spiritual tribunal who will help us see the error of our ways and the consequences we will inherit in term of our next incarnation. We are likely to be born again into the family that is most capable of teaching us the lessons we need to learn that we disregarded in prior life times. Bodhisattvas pray and practice so that if they have to reincarnate and are denied access to the Pure Land (of perfected beings) they can inherit a next life where they can continue their spiritual practice at a higher level.
Unthinking conformity no matter how piously enacted, lacks meaning and as such is soulless.
The Creator wants us to create our own individual reality and not someone else’s. S/He does not endorse a copycat spirituality although having one is better than having none. Moreover, if it is done out of fear it may be karmically negative or neutral because it should be done out of love. We have to find our own way to our unique destiny and to God. Yet, although our motives and actions may be ego driven, good deeds are always worthwhile although, depending on the circumstances and our intentions, also karmically neutral or even negative.
Ulterior motives are greatly under-rated.
Acting compassionately to do good for any reason is preferable to not doing good at all.
But determine well the heart’s true desire for in releasing the power of your motivation its energies will actualize the holiness or unholiness of your intent.
You must free yourself to be yourself. Do not be captive to the demands of false duty.
Be attentive only to the responsibility of what compels.
Bestow blessings, refuse burdens.
What makes you beholden enslaves you.
What makes you grateful blesses you.
What you touch, touches you. What you let touch you, enhances or diminishes.
Anyone or anything that does not make you more of who you are, makes you less of who you are.
Be careful of what you taste and where you immerse.
As for your power what are you doing in the wrong circle.
Release yourself from what you are not accountable.
Our awareness will be determined by how truly we can “see” and be true to our Selves. Spiritual awareness is essential to stay true to the process of transformation through enlightenment or what the Ancestors call Becoming where we can find redemption.
“A person cannot find redemption until s/he sees the flaws in his soul. Whoever shuts out the realization of his flaws is shutting out redemption. We can only be redeemed to the extent to which we see ourselves.” Talmud
There can be no denial of what is real across the veil which is imbedded in truth, love and our passion for them.
While dedication has its satisfactions, it is passion that zests our commitments with joy. There are passions of the senses and passions of the heart. Some are transitory, some are eternal, the soul decides.
In the Astral realm we lose free will and our karma is then cut in stone.
On the other side, we no longer have options upon which to decide what fashions our destiny. We have already determined it.
We do, however, still have thought, intent and opinion which we may use to help others, although no longer ourselves.
Once we pass over, most of us will go to one of the multiple vibrations in the Astral realm where we lose free will. Our karma then is well defined but can be partially redeemed in certain circumstance by forgiveness by the living for that particular iniquity. Unfinished business is best resolved with forgiveness before someone departs. However, skeletons in the closet can still be released after death by those skilled in this kind of spiritual work which requires special rituals. Forgiveness, if sincere, will erase that particular karmic sin and make for a better reincarnation especially if the action was heinous.
It can also be mollified by doing service through the free will of a living loved one acting as a guide. We are able to complete work that we never completed in a previous life but only by acting through the free will of another sentient being.
Free will resides in Narrow Mind
In the clarity of the awareness of Spacious Mind there is no need for free will.
In Spacious Mind there is no need for free will because Spacious Mind sees clearly what is, and what needs to be done.
Hence everything is foreseen but only in Spacious Mind.
Narrow Mind is limited to free will and clings to the perception that there is choice.
With clarity of awareness choice is seen as illusory.
Hence free will is a responsibility for those who do not see things clearly.
Narrow mind is always with us, Spacious mind makes room for it and so it is that when clarity does away with choice it does not deny free will, it simply has no use for it.
As Krishnamurti taught; “Discernment is choice-less.”
Choice is made challenging because of the complexity of the Supreme Being’s creation.
God’s rivers of pleasure and good are not placid waters of insipid purity. They have currents of all strengths, frequently forming into wild twists and turns alongside gentle flows, all churning and tumbling into swirling pools too deep to fathom. They are for reflecting, playing and rejuvenating and then continuing endlessly onto their source.
Even if we make good choices there are no guarantees in the short run that all will be well. Handling Karma effectively is a challenge and is about the long term. Sometimes “no good deed remains unpunished," and is only just another test. It does not get easier as we rise up the vibrational levels. We get challenged more severely to see how worthy we are.
We are always being tested, not on how much we know or how well we perform but out trust, faith and love are being tried at unexpected times in unrecognized guises.
You cannot decide outcomes, only your choices. You cannot control results, only your actions. So, it is best that you practice non-attachment to positive or negative events that befall you.
Look carefully to what you aspire, cherish and guard so as not to squander your gifts nor lose your heritage
Remember that good prevails by being what it is, not by dispossessing, defeating or winning but rather simply by being more and more of what it is.
If you would dispel the darkness, seek the sacred.
What you resist will persist, what you defeat, defeats you, what you destroy destroys you, what you sanctify, sanctifies you.
Determine well your heart’s desire for in releasing your intention its energy will affect its holiness or unholiness.
One should also be wary of mitigating against another’s free will which is against the cosmic law.
If God were after "numbers" S/He would have made that abundantly clear.
…Love nurtures you, gives you safe haven but you decide, you choose, you are responsible. The consequences are yours. There is wisdom; there is folly; there is love; there is lust; there is surrender; there is willfulness.
All these polarities are templates for spiritual perfection. There must be tension for perfection.
We can think of spiritual transformation as enlisting for the “spiritual special forces.” The task is just as difficult although not life threatening but karma testing. Everyone is welcome to enlist and each of us has the potential for success but it is not easy.
"Kabir says, friend, there are very few who find the way."
