(05-15-2019, 01:44 PM)redchartreuse Wrote: ....  These teachings suggest that the will is something that needs to be developed in the aspiring seeker; that it is akin to a spiritual muscle that is strengthened in proportion that an entity actively resists their unconscious programming.  In this view, it is the resistance against this psychological inertia that causes the indwelling soul to grow and evolve.

(05-15-2019, 05:28 PM)krb Wrote: Pre-Incarnate decisions made by Higher Self to bring about the desired outcome for the incarnation.

(05-15-2019, 05:28 PM)krb Wrote: Pre-Incarnate decisions made by Higher Self to bring about the desired outcome for the incarnation.
"Programming" by parents/teachers/society "pressure"/media
Biological microbes you mention, as well as chemicals in food/water/medications
State of mental health
4th Density entities offering their "service" to us, consisting of temptations.

Quote:I tend to agree with this. I've found the need to "fight" to overcome things in my life that were contrary to the highest version of myself that I wish to be. No one can/will fight this battle for me. I fight to overcome in total cooperation with Creator (having stated my intention to walk the Positive path). I disagree with philosophy that tells me not to oppose/resist what I don't wish to remain attached to my life. I wish to be "free" to choose, and can't be free if I continually allow some sort of "pressure" to overcome my personal goals.

Quote:I feel that I don't "own" myself if I can constantly be led away from my goal by whatever method the negative attempts to apply against me. If something/someone has control/influence over my inner self, how can I claim to ownership?

(05-15-2019, 06:47 PM)speedforce131 Wrote:

(05-15-2019, 05:28 PM)krb Wrote: Pre-Incarnate decisions made by Higher Self to bring about the desired outcome for the incarnation.

This one is huge for me. Higher self in this context is not the higher self in mid 6th density but rather your true self. I am hyper-aware of the decisions my higher self made after looking back at all the decisions I've made in the past, where that led me, and the current present moment and condition.

After I lost my 1st job, which was back when I was 18~19, I KNEW it was over. Contrast that with me losing my job this year, I knew it was over, but that wasn't the end. When I was younger, I KNEW it was over and that was IT! Furthermore, attempts to get out of the situation were met with failure, and subconsciously I did not want to get a job.

There was a period of 6 years give or take a year, where I stayed home and had various odd jobs that did not last more than a week or two. It was these experiences that taught me how cruel HR was, how the whole job system was, race discrimination, the value of what you own and choose to own, financial responsibility and so on.

Now in my 30's, I have a clear understanding of how employment works (including the seedy underbelly that's nepotism), I know the intricacies of race AND gender discrimination, and now I carefully select what I own and do not ever part with them for any reason. I ran into Law of One BECAUSE of my staying home and eventually working at home. I would not have found Law of One otherwise. If I had a steady job before 2016, all this spiritual progress would not have been made. It's not just Law of One content that I consumed but also the works of Dolores Cannon, Robert Monroe, a wider overview of the Bible and even Taoism.

Looking at it from the perspective of pre-incarnative decisions, my life HAD to have progressed in this way in order to reach the present moment. In that respect, we do not have free will. I am moving onto my next phase of life and in this next phase, I am fully equipped with spiritual knowledge and practical knowledge. It is a new journey, one I'm not quite sure how my true self planned it out, but I'm sure that there are things that I want in it.

When it comes to interactions with others, including relationships, those are decided pre-incarnatively as well. So I'm absolutely clueless as to which new relationships are going to be a part of my new life, I only know how I want it to be. I journey on the path that's set by my true self and along the way is when the pre-incarnative arrangements trigger.

(05-16-2019, 01:23 PM)Glow Wrote: It may not be a popular way to see it but it sure helps one forgive. If all we are is a sum of distortions and experiences we(any of us) can only be/act as we do at any time until we know better. Can’t blame anyone for being exactly where they are in the flow of evolution.

(05-16-2019, 12:09 PM)redchartreuse Wrote: So here's the million dollar question.  Throughout all of these experiences, at the time you were going through them, didn't it truly feel in your "heart of hearts" that you were making choices?

(05-19-2019, 01:58 PM)Stranger Wrote: redchartreuse, there are two meanings of "free will".  One is the conventional meaning: you are free to choose.
The second meaning of free will, as used in the Ra material, is: not knowing the truth of the oneness of all, which enables entities to make choices which would not be made if the oneness of all had been self-evident (as it is when we are not veiled).

You seem to be speaking about the first meaning, so let's focus on that.  You are correct that free will is always constrained: we are Infinite Creator bound within an enormous number of conceptual "shells", which include everything we perceive around us, as well as our bodies, minds, emotions.  We exist within a world designed by our Logos.  It comes with laws, including spiritual laws, emotional laws, laws of physics.  He created this game, and we are playing as characters in it.  This is infinitely more interesting than if we had been left to stare at a blank screen and use our free will to doodle on it as we wished.  

However, within the game, we are absolutely free to choose how to respond to all the stimuli presented to our awareness.  Yes, of course we have impulses and biases - most obviously, the biological drives for food, water, sex, etc, and a myriad psychological drives and biases, many of which come from our unconscious as a result of unresolved trauma (old unprocessed catalyst).  As a result, we can find ourselves experiencing strong anger, or sadness, or fear and anxiety, etc., and various personality configurations and traits; and each of these will "pull" us toward (or away from) particular choices.  This seems to be what you're describing when you argue that we do not have free will.

The most important thing to understand here is none of that is deterministic.  When a true second-density animal experiences an impulse, it has no capacity to reflect on that and choose to go against it; we do.  We can have very strong lust, or fear, or sadness, and yet force ourselves to act against them: ie, refrain from cheating on our spouse; march forward into the line of enemy fire in a war; force ourselves to get up and get dressed and go to work, etc.    We can work "smarter, not harder" and, instead of choosing to use willpower, find love in the situation, find peace, work on changing our emotional state.

This is free will.  It is the capacity to go along with, or against the various pushes and pulls on our various natures (physical, emotional, mental).  Adding in the second meaning of free will: with the help of the veil, it is the capacity to either become part of the harmonious original plan created by the Logos, or go against it into hate, aggression, further separation.  It is up to us.  Our impulses do not drive us.  They make very compelling suggestions.

Quote:One of the most vengeful murderers of the twentieth century, the terrible Carl Panzram, was raped, brutalized and betrayed in the Minnesota institution responsible for his “rehabilitation” when he was a delinquent juvenile. He emerged, enraged beyond measure, as burglar, arsonist, rapist and serial killer. He aimed consciously and consistently at destruction, even keeping track of the dollar value of the property he burned. He started by hating the individuals who had hurt him. His resentment grew, until his hatred encompassed all of mankind, and he didn’t stop there. His destructiveness was aimed in some fundamental manner at God Himself. There is no other way of phrasing it. Panzram raped, murdered and burned to express his outrage at Being. He acted as if Someone was responsible. The same thing happens in the story of Cain and Abel /.../

Panzram’s response was (and this is what was so terrible) perfectly understandable. The details of his autobiography reveal that he was one of Tolstoy’s strong and logically consistent people. He was a powerful, consistent, fearless actor. He had the courage of his convictions. How could someone like him be expected to forgive and forget, given what had happened to him? Truly terrible things happen to people. It’s no wonder they’re out for revenge. Under such conditions, vengeance seems a moral necessity. How can it be distinguished from the demand for justice? After the experience of terrible atrocity, isn’t forgiveness just cowardice, or lack of willpower? Such questions torment me. But people emerge from terrible pasts to do good, and not evil, although such an accomplishment can seem superhuman.

I have met people who managed to do it. I know a man, a great artist, who emerged from just such a “school” as the one described by Panzram—only this man was thrown into it as an innocent five-year-old, fresh from a long stretch in a hospital, where he had suffered measles, mumps and chicken pox, simultaneously. Incapable of speaking the language of the school, deliberately isolated from his family, abused, starved and otherwise tormented, he emerged an angry, broken young man. He hurt himself badly in the aftermath with drugs and alcohol and other forms of self-destructive behaviour. He detested everyone—God, himself and blind fate included. But he put an end to all of that. He stopped drinking. He stopped hating (although it still emerges in flashes). He revitalized the artistic culture of his Native tradition, and trained young men to continue in his footsteps. He produced a fifty-foot totem pole memorializing the events of his life, and a canoe, forty feet long, from a single log, of a kind rarely if ever produced now. He brought his family together, and held a great potlatch, with sixteen hours of dancing and hundreds of people in attendance, to express his grief, and make peace with the past. He decided to be a good person, and then did the impossible things required to live that way.

I had a client who did not have good parents. Her mother died when she was very young. Her grandmother, who raised her, was a harridan, bitter and over-concerned with appearances. She mistreated her granddaughter, punishing her for her virtues: creativity, sensitivity, intelligence—unable to resist acting out her resentment for an admittedly hard life on her granddaughter. She had a better relationship with her father, but he was an addict who died, badly, while she cared for him. My client had a son. She perpetuated none of this with him. He grew up truthful, and independent, and hard-working, and smart. Instead of widening the tear in the cultural fabric she inherited, and transmitting it, she sewed it up. She rejected the sins of her forefathers. Such things can be done.