Destiny vs. Free Will (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

Destiny vs. Free Will

[Lallymac]

Love the cheese analogy Erin. This blog is awesome. Fate/destiny and free will often appear to be a contradiction and I've had to explain it myself many times to clients. Have you found that some people have a very clear straight path in front of them and others duck and dive all over the place? I've noticed that people with dominant 1's in their numbers seem to have a stronger sense of who they are and what they want from a young age.

I read somewhere that we place crystals as markers at significant events in our lives, prior to coming here and no matter what choices we make along the way, the crystals will draw us to them making sure we're at the right place at the right time. Some people place more crystals than others depending on the experiences they have chosen in this lifetime. Some of us have more free will liscence and are able to experience what we've chosen in a variety of environments (eg;if we've decided to understand more about human emotion) than someone who say wants to be a pioneer in medicine.

I have a friend who is incredibly, naturally psychic and has a depth of spiritual knowledge. She struggles with it and has no inclination to work in the field. She often asks 'why me' and says she feels so alone in it and doesn't know if she can do it (but doesn't know what she's meant to do) although we have a number of like minded friends. A shamanic healer recently told her that she has worked under physical spiritual masters in many past lives.

Kim is able to recall these lives and the healer was accurate in her description of them. The healer told her that before this life she had moved into a higher vibration and had chosen to manage it on her own without a physical master on hand. All that's required of her in this life is to hold the energy while being in a physical body so that she work with it in future lives.

It made sense so much sense and bought her relief and comfort to see this life as a segment in a continuum.
Lallymac

[wolfgang]

Thanks Erin. I liked the humour and messages. I like the part about other's mazes getting overlayed on my - but also hope when that happens it hasn't totally distracted me from my maze.

The events that are in the maze of life, are they all positives? Or are some, like a tragedy. Of coarse there's supposed to be silver linnings in tragedies too, or life events are not subject to judgements, but those cheeses or crystals in our maze - what kind are they mostly?

How does one know if one has reached a divine chunk of cheese? It seems to me there are things that aren't meant to be - like getting stuck in a part of the maze and then we run into things that are trying to jolt us out of that maze section, or that stuck path may have ucky cheese chunks that try motivate us to push along or out of that section.

In other words, how to tell the difference bewteen some divine ucky cheeses as part of one's life plan, versus getting ucky cheeses found in a stuck part of the maze? I'm assuimng there are ucky cheese in the original plan and also that getting stuck produces ucky cheese chunks too.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Since you are a vegan, Erin, I would have to imagine your cheese is vegan. Great article, clarified something big for me. Thank you.

[Erin Pavlina]

I believe the cheeses are technically neutral, but your life experiences and beliefs will cause you to classify them as good or bad.

I've encountered some pretty nasty smelling cheese in my life but years later realized how much growth and wisdom I got out of the experience. Have that happen enough times and when you next encounter an ucky cheese you start looking at it as a growth opportunity and it doesn't have the negative impact it may have had if you were new at the whole maze wandering thing.

Also remember that you chose what cheese to put where along with your higher self and those wise guys, er I mean wise spirits in the ether. There is a reason for all of it. When you can discern that reason you will feel better towards the encounter.

There are no wrong turns in the maze, it's just that sometimes finding the cheese can take a little longer some days (or years).

[Erin Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

Since you are a vegan, Erin, I would have to imagine your cheese is vegan. Great article, clarified something big for me. Thank you.

Yes, when I first started out in life, my cheese was of the cow variety, and now it's mostly soy. Easier to digest too (she said wisely, and with a hint of a hidden vegan agenda...).

[carenkh]

"Ucky cheese chunks"! Just found a new phrase for when I'm feeling stuck... thanks, wolfgang!

Great article, Erin - very clear. I don't spend too much time thinking about fate/free will, mostly working on being present to what is, without judgement - but I enjoyed this explanation!

[mariusa]

Erin or anyone,
In a reading you did for me back in Dec. you said that my husband was suppose to be a short term relationship. I took a big detour. It's OK, I think detour is done, and now I hope I'm back on the right path.

Question is that I did get two great kids out of this relationship, so where do they fit in in this? Did they chose to come after they saw me strolling along the wrong path? I know the whole time thing is beyond my understanding but is this all writtten like a program with if this happens then that will happen?
If things are predetermined, can additions/changes be made like that? Where they some cheese that was added later?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

I believe the cheeses are technically neutral, but your life experiences and beliefs will cause you to classify them as good or bad.

I've encountered some pretty nasty smelling cheese in my life but years later realized how much growth and wisdom I got out of the experience. Have that happen enough times and when you next encounter an ucky cheese you start looking at it as a growth opportunity and it doesn't have the negative impact it may have had if you were new at the whole maze wandering thing.

Is there a way to shorten the time it takes to realize that nasty cheese contains growth and wisdom?

Also remember that you chose what cheese to put where along with your higher self and those wise guys, er I mean wise spirits in the ether. There is a reason for all of it. When you can discern that reason you will feel better towards the encounter.

Thanks for the laugh! Those wise guys have it in for me, it seems. Some of the nasty cheese seems to be a result of actions or non-actions of my free will. So, it seems sometimes those cheeses show up along the path, as you said, along the way and weren't there as the original plan. The free will that goes a different way than the original plan might make the higher self and wise spirits put discouraging cheese along these not planned paths as a deterent. Does that make sense?

[Erin Pavlina]

Mariusa: Your children may have been cheese added later. However, my best guess is that your husband's maze intersected yours and you got off track, followign along in his maze and thinking his cheeses were yours. There was probably a different "spouse cheese" in store for you that you missed.

Wolfgang: The methods spirit guides use to get us going again in the right direction may appear to be negative experiences but they can also be positive experiences. Like maybe you're supposed to meet your future spouse on a Disney cruise but you don't have the money to go on the cruise so you accidentally win the lottery and then you take the cruise. Another way to get you on the cruise is to cause you to lose your job and you end up on that cruise as a deck swabber.

Shortening the time it takes to realize you're not headed in the right direction is up to you, your wisdom, and what you learn from life. Learn well and learn fast might be a good motto.

[Tempest]

This sounds a lot like what they talk about in quantum physics - the theory that there are infiniate possibilities, each exisiting at the same time, and as soon as we make a choice, the other possibilities collapse and we are left with one "reality." The future is like a rough sketch, or the outline for a term paper - its sort of there, but can easily be altered when the time comes.

[Luca]

I wonder how astrology plays into all this. Our astrological chart is may be supposed to be some sort of guide. Any thoughts?

[Erin Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Tempest

This sounds a lot like what they talk about in quantum physics - the theory that there are infiniate possibilities, each exisiting at the same time, and as soon as we make a choice, the other possibilities collapse and we are left with one "reality." The future is like a rough sketch, or the outline for a term paper - its sort of there, but can easily be altered when the time comes.

Yes there are infinite ways of walking through the maze. You can even back track a little (i.e. go back to college for a different degree, get divorced and marry someone else, etc.) and there will of course be many corridors you never walk through in your maze (i.e. "I could have moved in with my sister during college but instead I chose to live in the dorms on my own.")

[Lallymac]

Originally Posted by mariusa

Erin or anyone,
In a reading you did for me back in Dec. you said that my husband was suppose to be a short term relationship. I took a big detour. It's OK, I think detour is done, and now I hope I'm back on the right path.

Question is that I did get two great kids out of this relationship, so where do they fit in in this? Did they chose to come after they saw me strolling along the wrong path? I know the whole time thing is beyond my understanding but is this all written like a program with if this happens then that will happen?
If things are predetermined, can additions/changes be made like that? Where they some cheese that was added later?

Hi Mariusa,
At 27 I had three young kiddies. My son was a baby. I remember having a b'day party for one of my daughters and while doing the dishes, my sister-in-law asked (in jest) when I planned to have the next one. I went to reply with complete conviction, that my family was complete and suddenly felt something tugging at my hand. I looked down and saw a little girl smiling up at me. Out of my mouth came the words 'In ten years time I'll have a little girl.' I got such a shock, I burst into tears.
As the years went by I forgot about it and at 35 I was newly divorced and met a man who also had 3 kids the same age as mine. We formed a relationship and I never considered having any more because we had our hands full with six already. My youngest daughter obviously had different ideas and arrived quite accidently a couple of years later. My sister-in-law reminded me of what I'd said ten yrs before, when she came to visit the new baby.
The relationship fell over four years later. Everything we tried to achieve together turned to custard but knowing that Sophie was meant to be, to spite the trials, has bought me a lot of comfort.
Lallymac

[shant121]

I've always wondered...

Thanks Erin, that was great n important topic and an excellent explanation

[somaziro]

interesting take, what made the most sense to me was a philosophy professor giving a lecture on determinism and bringing up the point that once everything gets moving (big bang, prime mover, whatever) everything (atoms) only react. If one knew which direction every atom in the universe was going, they could predict the future. Basically our brain just fools us into believing that we have free will, we think we make conscious choices but those are the only choices we could have made given the direction all the atoms are going.... or something like that.

The problem I have always had with fatalism is that its easy to just not care about anything. It is easy to say, well everything will happen the way its supposed to, so I will just hang out and see what happens. Its difficult to hold people responsible for their actions, if they really didn't have a choice in making them. But on the flip side, being a fatalist makes life easier to deal with. When something bad happens to you, thats the way it was supposed to be, nothing you could have done about it, so its easy to accept it and just move on. If things are going to 'work out the way they are supposed to' then there is no need to stress about the future. I can see why super religious people who believe in either fate, or that god has a 'plan' can lead very happy lives... that belief takes responsibility away from the people and it takes away the stress of the future.

I have always been pragmatic and never really put much faith into fatalism, but it is an attractive world view.

[Jill]

That's all well and good for those of us in Western societies, but what about people born elsewhere in the world into poverty and all that? How does all this apply to them?

[shant121]

A well-known spiritual teacher once compared 'destiny vs free will' to a dog on a leash. The dog can only stretch the leash so much. That is: if the dog is tied to a pole, it can sit near the pole or move around it. But the farthest it can go is determined by the length of the leash. So the dog can do whatever it wants, but only within a certain radius (radius=length of leash=destiny) around the pole.

[Erin Pavlina]

It comes down to choice. People are born into the family they choose to be born into. And they can see and know what is up with the family before they incarnate. When you're in the ether getting ready to enter the world matrix you're not afraid of what's going to happen to you while incarnated any more than you would be afraid to hit "Start" in your role playing computer game. It's temporary and it serves a purpose. That doesn't mean we should ignore suffering or the plight of those in poverty, but I think it helps to get some perspective on where we're coming from and why we chose to be where we are.

[Jill]

I guess I just have trouble understanding why so many would choose to be born in an underdeveloped country, only to starve to death, or get some disease or whatever.

[Kaja]

Hi Erin,

thanks for the beautiful article which clarifies a lot. The question that keeps me up at night - not kidding - is how the Law of Attraction ties in with destiny and free will? Is it related to free will? Or do you think we "want" things that are preordained, i e. the things we wish to manifest are things that fit in with what we decided before we were born?

[Erin Pavlina]

I think the LOA is more about free will. But also about tapping in to the realization that you can change your destiny, you can create your reality, you can reprogram the matrix.

[Genevieve]

Can you change your time to die free-willingly or is it pre-determined? If death is an inevitable human condition, at the end of the maze, how much free will do I have on it? If I die in a car crash suddenly, hit by a careless driver, how did I free willingly choose this? If I get killed in my classroom, shot by a stranger, was I practicing free will? What if I die falling down some stairs back from the gym? Perhaps, there are some key events in life, like time of death, which are pre-determined. Perhpas the maze is not something you can leisurely explore at your own pace, but a constantly moving treadmill which inevitably brings you to your death.