I have been in a quandary recently musing on the nature of destiny and free will. Over the course of my life I can chart the oscillating nature of my relationship to my will. As a child, of course, the theoretical question of whether you are in charge of your own life really doesn't rise in conversation other than the rage that you might feel at being denied what you want. Then over time as you grow older and then move into adolescence I personally found a sense of impotence as events beyond my control shaped me and my world. I became in my bitterness a victim of fate and I surrendered to fate as my conquering king. Then I embark on my conscious spiritual quest and I am given the support and insights to question whether I am victim of fate at all or whether I am in fact master of my own destiny. I rise to that rallying call, you can shape your destiny, you can manifest your desires! But can you? After a time my desires were not manifest and my only way of rationalising that is to blame myself because if I were righteous and true then those desires would be manifest, surely. It was then shared with me in a meditation that I am "servant of this universe first and its queen second" and that insight enabled me to reframe my sense of destiny: that in service came reward, that if my will was to serve then my destiny would unfold. This was about the same sort of time that I replaced the phrase "master of my destiny" with a phrase many of you, my friends, reading this may have heard me use "captain of my own ship". This latter statement to me was more closely aligned to my understanding of the role of my will within a greater destiny. I see myself as a ship in a fleet and the Beloved creator is the Lord Admiral while I am captain of my own vessel. Therefore the range of will I have is great within parameters set by my ultimate commander.
Lately I find that I have been brought to my knees. Literally. And I am called once more to surrender my will to the Higher Will. And initially I have no quarrel with this but then I start to think... was I wrong to ever think I was captain of my own ship? Was I wrong to share that view with others that might attempt to do the same and then find themselves in the mire that I am now in?
And tonight came an understanding that the basis of my quandary was in a fundamental misunderstanding of will. If one believes that free will is the opposite of a life "dictated" by a divine will then one believes in a free will that is material and of our making. Yet within the material world there are only choices. You can have chocolate or vanilla ice cream. This or that. That or this. Your will is only "free" by the extent to which you might accept the range of choices on offer to you. But that choice will always be limited within the material realm because in becoming material something becomes finite. Thus it can never be FREE. So Free Will as opposed to divine Will is a mirage, an illusion.
WILL CAN ONLY BE FREE WHEN IT IS LIBERATED FROM THE MATERIAL REALM. That is to say that only when your will is completely aligned to divine will can your will actually and truelly be free.
And that paradox that is the human interpretation of the Divine Will as limited (fate) is flawed so fundamentally that it drives people to believe that to master one's own destiny is to reject God. But ironically it is in turning one's will over to the divine that you free it and free yourself. Because the more aligned your will is to the divine plan the more likely it is that it will be made material. But if your will starts from a material place and has a material goal it can only blunder around the maze to find itself at the the only false centre through trial and error.
So whether this makes sense to anyone else would be interesting to find out but I am assured and reassured that Captain of my own Ship is a title I can retain so long as I am loyal to my Lord Admiral.
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