Fate and Freewill Explained

A reoccurring theme during a spiritual awakening is examining the role fate plays in our lives. Are we making its role bigger than it actually plays, does it even exist, is it ALL that exits? 

 The tug of war between Fate and free will is the reflection of a larger ontology that traces back to the origins of creation: are we in a created or a creating universe? So this article will be explaining what fate is and how it factors into our life, and  I will reveal the third force that fate and free will are both agents desperately trying to connect you with. 

To understand fate we have to know a little about the soul because Fate belongs to the domain of the soul. So the level of the soul resides outside of space and time. It can be looked at on par with universal consciousness. Fate is the course of action already determined at the level of the soul. It is the choices that were already made coming into our incarnation and the outcome of those choices. Fate is not necessarily positive, although it can be. But what is informing the course of action that creates a person’s fate? We know it comes from the level of the soul, but does that mean the soul simply generates an outcome it wants and if that were so, wouldn’t we see a lot more positive outcomes being played out in the world? 

Fate is the higher expression of what we know as karma. When it’s outside of space and time it’s called fate, when it’s inside space/time it arranges itself into karma. There are different kinds of fate. There is collective fate, group fate, and individual fate. Each of these have their own gravitational pull. So there are different layers of reality within this one. Meaning we are not all occupying the same level of reality even though we inhabit the same overall reality. And reality behaves differently in one level than it does the other.

 For instance, the less conscious a being is, the more they are ruled under the collective’s gravity, which is the densest level of inertia. As we use our free will to move in the direction of consciousness, we are gradually exalting ourselves from many layers of fate as well as building what’s known in physics as escape velocity. But we know this term in spirituality as dharma. 

 Fate can be looked at as the dominate archetypes that the soul is expressing itself through. By the time the eternal essence of our soul drops into the 3rd Dimension it’s operating and accessing experiences through archetypes. Everything in this reality is in an archetypal expression. There’s even an archetype for awakening commonly referred to as the hero’s journey. A popular reference to an ill-fated archetype is the star-crossed lovers from Romeo and Juliet. 

We are in a realm of archetypes. There are far more archetypes and archetypal energies than the ones we currently refer to. So if you’re looking for Jungian equivalents here, you shall not find it. 

Fate can be looked at as the archetypal template that is inserted over our life.  I’ll say this another way. Fate can be looked at as the energetic template that is inserted over your life. Fate sets our life path up and then it remains parallel to it as a guiding force that steers its course yet can be overcome by our own free will. Fate is what was predetermined to be lived and experienced, challenges and all, including soul contracts and the corresponding outcomes.

 However, there are a myriad of ways those outcomes can come into fruition and not all of them are optimal. Fate doesn’t micromanage the details. It is Free will that determines the quality of our experience. So fate is the journey and free will is our attitude...except free will is so much more than that, for we are indeed in a creating universe, rather than a created one. It is only through free will that we can change our fate and become sovereign creators.

To facilitate this, Life will bring us fated experiences, and these can be used as catalysts to connect us with our free will. Such as exercising our discernment in situations where we would normally be expected to just go with everything. Only if we are using our free will, will we be able to overcome these life challenges since they require us to look beyond the definitive choices laid before us. If we are not truly utilizing our free will, we fall back on the predetermined outcome of that fate whatever it may be. 

Which is also why there are so many compelling theories to explain how free will is an illusion. It’s because fate has a past, present, and future already designed. And freewill exists only as a fiction, a vague notion, until it’s brought to life, until it’s implemented. Once it’s implemented, the field has to reflect that. It’s now what is. 

So fate and freewill work in unison together: one is the lesson, one is the learning. They are not opposing forces although they have the potential to be. In this way, fate and free will work as agents for our creative evolution. It’s common in religion and even in the spiritual community to believe that we are in the hands of fate and fate alone, that the cycles have spoken, and the deed is done. This cosmology is monochrome at best with no regard for the fact that choices impact the outcome. This isn’t even mystical. Not all choices lead to the same outcome, no matter how much we would love to just believe they all do. 

For instance if a person ate junk food every day, that creates an outcome. And if that person were to choose to make a major lifestyle change for the better to their diet, that that would also create a different outcome. Not all choices are equal, and our choices directly impact the quality of our experience in our personal life and in the world at large. 

So, fate comes from the level of the soul, and it shapes our life path. It’s expressing itself through archetypal energy and is neither all positive nor all negative but rather the reflection of something. What is it reflecting? Its responding to something within us, that’s guiding the souls’ choices on a higher level and what it’s responding to is our essence. 

Essence is our inherent nature, before we were conditioned and before the world told us how to be. It is creative life force that can be thought of as prana or spirit. We are eternal essence, as a unique expression of infinity and spiritual evolution is the evolution of this unique essence. So, the qualities of our essence merge with the body to form our personality. Life has the tendency to disconnect us from our essence, rather than aid its development. Because of this it’s very common to have a stunted essence. So even though a person may have come in with a lot of creative life force, it’s possible to never be in touch with it, or to develop it into its full expression. That entirely depends on our free will. 

Fate is responding to our essence, it’s choosing experiences at a soul level that are going to best meet our essence wherever it’s already at, and then broaden its bandwidth in a way that is personal and customized to that unique life force. This does not explain away the atrocities of the world, but rather is meant to highlight the severity that manifestation takes on when our consciousness is under the gravity of inertia instead of free will. 

So fate can assist us, it can also restrict us, it can move us along, it can intervene. It works in many different ways to manipulate the course of our life. It’s also why some experiences are more probable than others, it can even inspire. But fate is still not the final destination of this party bus. 

Because there is a third force that both fate and free will are trying to get us in contact with. If karma is the form that fate takes once it’s entered space and time, destiny is the force that free will takes on as the fruits of our conscious labor. Destiny gets confused with fate a lot and it’s not hard to see why. But Destiny belongs to a higher order than fate. It’s entirely liberated. It starts entering the scene the more we are able to embody our essence and act from our free will. 

Destiny is not even a possibility most of the time since certain factors have to be in place in order for it to actualize. It remains merely a potential in a sea of potentials. But it begins to emerge, materialize, and become substantial the more we act from our free will, and from our essence. Destiny can overwrite the whole matrix. 

It’s not that bad things don’t ever happen to a person who is living their Destiny, it’s that they refuse to be reduced by them. They stay open and malleable using life’s challenges as a springboard to greater heights rather than being shut down by them. 

Destiny is another word for dharma, and it can only be accessed through free will. But once we start to walk this path of awakening, fate has its ways of pushing us closer toward it.

And now we understand the true meaning of the saying amori fati, love your fate. Not because we have to love what is or what could be, but because it’s really saying play the choices you already made to their fullest. 

I hope this has helped you love your fate. 

 © 2022 Sarah Elkhaldy