15  Divine Will…Individual Will TC  "15  Divine Will…Individual Will" \l 1

Free will is a very strange creature. At the same time, it is the greatest gift given to mankind by Divinity for his own progress. Exercising free will may lead you to greater suffering, but that greater suffering could be more evolutionary for you. You might learn more from that suffering because behind your free will there is a Divine will that guides the destiny of the individual.

You have been given the gift of free will, so do not misuse that gift. You have been given the lamp to light the way home, but do not use the lamp to set the forest afire.

Only we are to blame for misusing our free will. We have the mechanism and the power within us to join free will with Divine will and move with the current of nature, not against it.

The misuse of free will produces friction, and friction is suffering. Yet that very suffering can also lead you to understanding. But, if you have the choice, why not choose the easier path? For each and every one, consciously or unconsciously is bound to return home, even as the prodigal son did. Each and every one is headed back to merge away into that light from which he has come.

You do not need to throw away everything and go into a cave in order to live by Divine will. Have material things, but let it not be for greed, or a need which will engender a greater sense of ego, or greater self-aggrandizement. Do what you can, even in material ambitions, so that others might benefit.

Life can become an offering, an offering to Divinity. What are we here for? We are here to glorify the expression of Divinity, and the expression of Divinity is nothing else but glory. We must use that privilege with the free will that has been given to us.

If you have the ability to recognize tendencies, you will know where something will lead you, and you have the ability to exercise your free will. Free will is the greatest gift that God could have given humanity. When one has that gift of exercising free will, there is choice. The word “choice” is synonymous with free will.

Language is so limited that it could never express what true surrender is. In order to surrender our will to the Divine will or Divinity, we have to understand what we mean by our will and Divine will. Without understanding, how can we surrender? We do not teach people to have blind faith. Have a reasoning faith, a reasonable faith; for only with a rational faith, can you be spurred to that surrender.

When you are capable of sacrificing, you are capable of surrender. Spontaneously, the grace of love dawns upon you.

Within the path of Bhakti Yoga, one can surrender oneself consciously. First, through the thought process until all that, too, is discarded — thought, feeling, and emotions. With all that discarded, you yourself become the Divine will. The separation remains if you do not become the Divine will, and there is the conflict of free will and Divine will.

One may have ambition and yet the ambition should be filled with humility. There is nothing wrong with a desire to have billions of dollars, as long as the heart and mind are working with Divine law. The idea to be kept in mind is, that which is gathered is always offered at the feet of the Lord.

The law of nature is always there to help and support us. Nature is never against man. Man is a product of nature. Having that free will, we sometimes go against nature, and that is where the trouble starts.

Once you recognize and acknowledge the weakness which is a stumbling block to your happiness in life, then the cure has begun. Once you admit the weakness, then you accept yourself. When you accept yourself, you rid yourself of guilt. When you rid yourself of guilt, you say, “There is a force within me that is just waiting to burst out. I have been keeping the doors closed.” Then when we try to open the doors, we are amazed at how the light rushes out into our lives and brightens everything. In the torrential rush of that flood of light, your free will does not remain free will anymore; it becomes one with Divine will.

Our will is fickle, but if surrendered to Divine will, by the process of meditation, our every action in life is guided automatically into the right path. Automatically, we become happy; we blossom into a fullness. The flower emanates its full fragrance, undiluted by pollution, and it enjoys and enjoys.

Free will was not created, it is an emanation or a projection of the Divine will. Through the process that this emanation or manifestation has gone through, it has gathered dust and dirt around it; whereby the Divine will has been covered. To work according to the Divine will is to live a natural life; but because of free will, we have made a natural life into an unnatural life.

The body, like a beautiful flute, is just a hollow reed, a piece of wood. We need to develop the attitude that Divinity resides in everything, and that it is not my will, but His will that counts. Then the music that flows through the hollow reed becomes enjoyable, not only to yourself, but to those around you. That is the purpose of life.

Surrendering the free will to Divine will is like throwing a pound of salt into the sea, where it is merged and cannot be retrieved. You allow the sea to function, not the salt.

By sacrificing the sense of individuality, individual life merges into Divine life.

It is the nature of the little wills to join themselves to become one with the great will or Divinity. It is inherent in everyone, because we are subject to the force of evolution. The thing that evolution does is to take you from stillness back to stillness. You come from home and you have to go back home; but the night might be dark, and a lantern might be needed to light your path. You see how one’s will can become attuned to Divine will? Not by wishful thinking; but by having a one-pointedness towards the goal. That is how the little will gets joined to the Divine will.

When the rivulet reaches the ocean, what great freedom it feels in the ocean! It is away from the confines of the banks, which restrict its scope of expansion. This is what the joining of the free will to the Divine will is like.

I am not the master of my destiny, I am the destiny.