Divine Will vs. Free Will

If you are reading this, you are human, and you have accepted the responsibility of an important mission. It’s not unlike a space mission where the human, physical version of you accepts an assignment to visit a faraway planet, to study specific aspects of that environment that are designed to add to the understanding of your project. Once you have learned what you set out to study, your mission is complete and you are free to go home.

Now imagine that the transcendent, soul version of you is assigned to incarnate into a human body on faraway planet Earth, where you will learn specific lessons from the environment—through being human, having a physical body and experiencing life through a wide range of circumstances that are felt through the spectrum of emotion and duality. What you learn on this planet will add to the growth and understanding of your soul’s experience. Once you have learned the lessons you signed up to experience, your mission is complete and you are free to go home, back to another dimension or a different expression of consciousness.

To understand the meaning of an Earth life, we can widen the view to a multidimensional universe where soul growth and conscious experience take place in many shapes and forms. On Earth, the experience of loss leaves us confused and struggling to understand the existence of a kind Creator force who would not allow such suffering. We think: what a shame about the child who died young, or the person who was killed in a car crash, or the seemingly healthy man or woman who is suddenly stricken with late-stage cancer or a fatal heart attack. We say: how can the universe be so cruel as to take life away like that, from these people who were good people? Why does life include undeserved loss and perceived tragedy?

The answer is simple. Life on Earth is not about justice or fairness or equality, but about soul development and growth. What we perceive as tragedy and loss present the best kinds of learning opportunities. When loss is our teacher, we are forced to place the focus within and to deal with the painful emotions that come with forcibly detaching from anything outside of us that we put our faith in and built our reality upon. The individual on the conscious spirited path knows that putting faith in and building reality upon anything external in the physical world (a person, a relationship, a marriage, a job, a house, a state of physical being) is illusion. Therefore, the challenges of tragedy, sickness, disease and loss of all types are designed to move us past illusion and into illumination. Turning for answers inward, we learn to align with the light within instead of seeking it in someone or something outside of us.

Your life on Earth is guided by two forces that live inside of you:

1. DIVINE WILL (what your multidimensional self has chosen) exists at a higher, mostly unconscious level. You might think of divine will as destiny or fate. It guides you toward experiences that fulfill your soul blueprint, support your soul growth, and help you complete your Earth mission. Your divine will can be responsible for steering you into challenging circumstances and making what appears to be a mess of things! It’s all on purpose: the perceived mess helps you navigate change and hardship, and deepen your unfoldment, while helping you learn the art of letting go. It also breaks down the walls that stand between you and the only thing that is actually real: LOVE. Think of a time in your life when you found yourself doing something that you wouldn’t reasonably do, or when you felt driven or compelled by a greater force or led to do something that went against your values. This is divine will. It doesn’t care about the illusions of the 3D and whether you are a “good” person who does the “right” thing—that is illusion too!—it only cares that you gain the soul learning and complete your lessons and mission. Divine will is responsible for the timing and circumstances of when and how you die. Death is not a random occurrence. It is planned by the soul to occur when the Earth mission has been completed—whether that is 2 years or 92 years.
2. FREE WILL (what your 3D Earth self wants) chooses the experiences that make up your reality. It exists in your human mind at the conscious level. Free will protects you, helps you maintain reason, and guides your life in ways that you wish for. On the spiritual path, free will is secondary to divine will. For example, you may not have the courage to leave a job or relationship that is no longer for your highest good (free will/choice), but there is a greater plan at work (divine will/higher plan), and somehow you will eventually find yourself removed from it. Whenever you choose to ignore the inner voice, the universe (divine will) will eventually take over and push you out of circumstances that are no longer in service to your Earth mission regardless of what your free will desires. Suicide is the act of taking your life by free will, and is a violation of your assignment and mission. This choice requires a rest and reset in your soul development path, to try again in another incarnation until you succeed with your mission.

Divine will and free will explain a lot. We often look at our own lives or the lives of others through the lens of the illusion: whether a person makes “right” or “good” choices; or whether a person seems to have it all together according to what he or she is expected to do, be or say according to outer conditioning and programming. But this perspective only accounts for the outside illusion, and not for the lessons that person is drawing to them. The person who cheats, lies and steals is learning soul lessons. The person who murders or experiences the cycle of addiction is learning soul lessons. Though all souls are equal, not all souls are equally evolved, which makes the nature of learning vastly different from one person to another. That’s why compassion and non-judgement are essential. You simply don’t know what others signed up to learn on their mission.