Free will versus predestiny. (Spoiler: free will is a myth.) Predestiny is sometimes just called “destiny.” A funner word might be “fate.” I digress. Like most people… I flatly denied the concepts of predestiny, destiny, and fate. And then… I looked into it further.
The late and great Ho’oponopono teacher Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph.D. (R.I.P.) said in a video interview series, “We don’t have free will, but we have choice.”
After considerable contemplation, I determined that I agree, and he is correct. I encourage anybody to look into this more themselves.
The belief in free will is even more ubiquitous and than all of the conservative/liberal American monoparty beliefs. And it’s just as cringe, if not more. Every time I read it or hear it I have to say the Ho’oponopono mantra to myself.
Saying we have choice is kind of like taking the middle ground between free will and predestiny – but, not quite. Maybe the best way to notice the truth of the matter is to try and change your life in some dramatic way and notice how difficult it is. Just losing weight or even maintaining a healthy weight takes serious effort.
What we are day to day, is a series of programs. Our minds run programs all day long, all week long, all month long, and all year long. If you want to make a big change in your life, you have deprogram big chunks of your existing programming, and then add in new programming to replace it. Like what Yoda tells Luke Skywalker on planet Dagobah, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” Some of the programming we are running was put into our minds at a very early age. Further, it’s not like we are born a blank slate. We have ancestors, race, sex, and all kinds of information in our DNA.
This idea about “free will” makes it sound like you can and will do anything at any time for any reason that you and you alone have chosen. Like you’re just going get a mohawk, stand it up and dye it purple, strip down to your underwear, and run around the neighborhood shouting Dr. Seuss poetry. Today. And you’ll notice people that believe they can do this kind of spontaneous weirdness psychologists call an “antisocial psychotic episode” will also believe that this power of free will can get them laid. In my opinion, I think that’s actually why they believe in free will. Because, just in case they need to attract a hot young slut, God himself was kind enough to give them “free will” so they could have the power to act out a psychotic episode to attract a hot young slut and get laid. And if you’re having any trouble doing this, you need the services of a skilled pick-up artist community to learn this “free will” that God gave you “naturally” and you’ll learn it was “society” that beat your free will out of you during all your years on earth. Good lord. Ok, yes you can definitely get bad ideas and bad programming from society, but society didn’t subtract “free will” because you never had it to begin with.
There is a lot to this, and this is worthy of a much longer article, but I wanted to write a brief foundational piece. So no, we don’t have free will. You want big life-changes, you need to take time out and go to Dagobah.
While you’re on Dagobah, listen to some advice from the late great Earl Shoaff.
Shoaff says that things don’t happen “to you” they happen “through you.” He says that to accomplish your goals, you must first plant the right seeds deep within your subconscious mind.
I theorize that people that believe in fate either like their programming or are at the very least ok with their programming. Don’t run away from everyone that says they believe in fate, especially if they’re good people. Not everyone talking about “destiny” is Darth Vader telling you to go to the dark side.
Even in this ESB video clip people are going to say “Luke is exercising his free will, man.” Cringe. No, he’s exercising a very difficult choice that he wouldn’t have otherwise had, had he not spent a good amount of time on Dagobah.