Free Will

Free Will is one of the most debated spiritual subjects ever - whether or not things are predestined or if we all truly have the freedom to make our own choices, and if those two things are even mutually exclusive. In this episode, Glenn discuses the subject of free will and how it effects our spiritual lives.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the show.

So today we are talking about Free Will.

Nice.

Free Will.

Free Will.

What is that?

Is that a song or are you just making that up?

No,

I'm completely making that up.

Sounds good.

Yeah,

Maybe it will be a song.

We'll have to get in touch with Jason Mraz and see if he can record a little Free Will song for us.

He probably would.

He probably already has one.

Yeah,

Probably.

So,

Free Will.

Free Will is basically,

I'm always talking about spiritual law and how spiritual law runs the universe,

Which is true.

However,

There is something that can override spiritual law and that's Free Will.

Free Will.

Jason Mraz's career is not in danger.

Not by you?

No.

Oh God.

Should I read?

I have the definition of Free Will here.

Would you like me to read it?

I would love you to read that.

Alright.

It's the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate.

The ability to act at one's own discretion.

Yeah,

That makes sense.

So,

Basically Free Will,

For me,

The real understanding,

Or the way I like to explain it,

Came when I was reading The Shack.

I just jumped out at me.

I was like,

Oh my God,

This is such a good way to understand Free Will.

The Shack,

Of course,

Being Shaquille O'Neal's biography.

No.

No,

Although he does implement his Free Will very well.

But no,

The Shack,

The book,

The spiritual book and movie.

And the movie is phenomenal,

Too,

By the way,

And does a good job of explaining this.

But basically,

The way they come about it is they explain that the relationship between the universe or God or creator or whatever the heck it is that you'd like to call it.

And its creation is based in love.

And love is not control.

So,

That's why it can't control.

That's why it doesn't step in.

That's why it can't control us.

That's why it doesn't control things that are happening.

A lot of people talk about the bad things that happen in this world.

Why do bad things happen?

And bad things,

As a general rule,

Are happening because of Free Will.

It's man-run riot.

It's the ego controlling people and doing things while they're disconnected from their source.

So,

The moment that God steps in and just kind of says,

No,

Okay,

I don't want this to happen.

This isn't good.

It would be better if I stopped them from doing this.

The moment God does that,

That's control.

That's not love.

And now,

All of a sudden,

The whole relationship between creator and creation is shattered.

It's no longer based in love.

It's simply based in control.

And that's why God's not jumping in,

Stopping us from doing hurtful things to each other.

Because it wrecks,

It destroys the entire dynamic.

We're supposed to want to choose to have a relationship with our creator.

So,

If we choose to have a relationship with our creator,

Then that's out of love.

But to be able to have the freedom of choice,

We have to have the freedom to block it out as well.

And unfortunately,

That's what we've been doing for a long time,

And I think that's what we're trying to correct now.

That's what this whole spiritual shift is about,

Is people reconnecting with their source.

Instead of having it blocked out and running around just doing things that are self-serving and not for the greater good of all people.

So there.

So that's the overview.

My favorite part of this podcast is when you say,

So there.

So there.

So there.

That's my way of saying I'm done talking for the moment.

So what about fate?

Do you believe in fate and destiny and all of that stuff?

Can you have fate and destiny and everything and still have free will?

Not the way that it's usually said.

You know,

I don't think that.

I don't know.

I personally think it's pretty obvious that we don't have a system that is no matter what we do,

We end up somewhere.

Like,

I think it's pretty obvious that,

You know,

There's many,

Many examples of people who have done just about zero with their lives.

And I don't think that was God's plan for them.

So I'm pretty sure that we can see that,

You know,

I think some people think that fate is like no matter what you do,

It's going to come out all right in the end because God's going to control things and that's control.

So it's,

You know,

We have to.

So no,

I don't believe in that.

I believe that sometimes we can have purpose and we can have,

You know,

Directions and things that if we open up,

We may end up in a destiny that we're kind of designed for.

You know,

I think that God gives us or the universe or our creator gives us certain capabilities,

Certain strengths,

Certain weaknesses also.

And,

You know,

Different people are good at different things.

I don't think that that's a mistake.

So I think that,

You know,

If you follow what you're naturally good at,

If you follow what brings you joy,

What brings you passion,

You're going to find out,

You're going to fall in line with what you were designed to do.

So fall in line with your purpose.

But I think that's a little bit different than the way most people use,

You know,

Fate and destiny.

But,

You know,

People,

If you have a little bit looser definition of destiny,

Or fate for that matter,

You know,

I can see how you could interchange those words a little bit and say like,

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

My fate was to become a life coach.

So here I am being a life coach and all my things led me to this.

Yeah.

I mean,

But I also had the free will to block that off and never open.

You know,

I could have blocked myself off.

And that,

You know,

And I think,

You know,

A lot of times I use extreme examples because I think that it's easier to see the truth in it when you use that.

And like with this,

I usually use the example of addicts.

I mean,

If we didn't have free will,

Or if we couldn't block out our fate or destiny,

If we didn't have that ability,

Then there would be no such thing as addicts on this earth.

Because I've been to way too many funerals of people that were addicts and alcoholics,

And they didn't have to die.

They died because they weren't capable of opening at this particular time.

They had closed off too much.

They weren't able to pop open throughout this.

And I don't believe that that was their fate.

I don't believe that was their destiny.

I think they had freedom of choice,

You know,

So they could open.

What about the argument that like those drugs are taking away free will?

Like when you try heroin,

You become addicted to heroin,

For example.

Let's go to an alcoholic,

Right?

Like an alcoholic is,

Most would say,

Predisposed to that.

So like if you drink alcohol and you're an alcoholic,

You're not going to be able to put it down.

So then,

Like the dependency on that drug,

Does that take away your free will a lot?

Like the dependency,

Especially if it's something,

You know,

Like an addiction.

Like people,

A lot of people say that addiction takes away free will.

Like because it's a chemical reaction that you then like can't,

You know,

It may or it makes free will more difficult at least.

Yeah.

And that's,

I mean,

When you're in the grips of it,

I've been in the grips of it.

So I think I'm probably a good person to speak on this.

But yeah,

When you're in the grips of it,

Of course it feels like you can't,

You know,

And it does make free will harder,

You know,

Once you're in the grips of it.

I agree with all that.

But I also know from experience that it doesn't take away your free will because if it took away my free will,

I wouldn't be sitting here.

You know,

That's just a fact.

I'd be dead by now.

So,

You know,

I know that it doesn't take away your free will because once I finally had enough,

I was able to use my free will to choose something different.

You know,

And it was difficult and it was hard,

But it was within my capability.

So that's another thing that I think that is worth talking about is that you have now given two examples of free will being a good thing and free will being a bad thing.

You know what I mean?

Like,

Or being used in a good way and being used in a negative way is how I want to reframe what I just said.

And I think that that's very important because I think that a lot of times people,

Whatever brush you're using to paint your free will,

You know,

As sort of like people sometimes use free will as an excuse to do bad things.

And I don't think that it often gets talked about enough as being,

You know,

A,

It's funny actually,

I think that the only time that I've ever heard the argument of free will to do good is through the atheist argument.

Right?

Because I've heard a lot of atheists such as Ricky Gervais is a very famous one talk about,

You know,

Like you don't need like a God to,

And like a set of rules to know that you shouldn't go do bad things.

Right?

But you're,

No,

You're choosing to go do good things and you're choosing it because of your free will.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Like,

So I think that,

I think that a lot of times free will is used in a,

Like as an excuse for horrible things happening,

Like gun violence and stuff like that,

You know,

Where people are like,

If there's a God,

How can this happen?

Well,

It happens because of free will.

Well,

That's negative.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's,

Everything has,

You know,

This is the world we live in.

It's ying and yang.

Everything has two sides,

You know,

And it's,

It's how we use it.

You know,

It's,

That's the whole point of free will is that we have a choice.

We can either choose to do things that benefit us,

But we can choose to do things that are detrimental to us.

And that's the whole point of free will,

You know,

And everything's like that.

It's the,

There's two sides to every coin.

It's not,

There's nothing wrong with technology,

You know,

This,

There's something wrong with how we choose to use it sometimes.

Right.

It can be used for good or it can be used for bad,

You know,

Everything's like that.

So it's,

It's just a matter of how we use it.

You know,

If,

If we get obsessive,

Like,

You know,

There's nothing wrong with sex,

But people can use it in a way to anesthetize themselves away from reality.

You know,

Nice word.

You know,

And so if,

You know,

If you,

If you go in one direction with it all the way and you,

Then it can be used for bad,

You know.

I mean,

Or,

Or rape,

You know,

That,

That would be sex being used in a bad way.

I mean,

It's,

You know,

But yet there's nothing wrong with sex.

So it's,

You know,

Everything on this earth is like that.

It's,

You know,

If we have free will and that,

You know,

That's why everything's like that because we have free will.

We can use things for whatever we choose to use them.

It's our choice.

And,

You know,

And we don't need,

You know,

I,

Of course I believe that there's,

There's a God or a creator or some loving force up there.

But I agree with the argument that you don't necessarily have to have a specific belief in that to do good things,

To know that you should do good things.

It's just,

That's,

That's our system.

That's,

That's one of the reasons why,

See,

Like atheists might believe,

Use that and go,

Oh,

Okay,

So there,

There is no,

I don't need a God.

I choose to look at it as belief that there is one and,

And it's loving and it cares about me.

Why?

Because when I do loving things,

Then I feel good.

So I,

I'm thinking like,

Okay,

If I'm going to,

You know,

If I'm going to make a Pinocchio,

If I'm going to make a boy,

If I'm going to make a creation,

If I were a creator and I'm going to create something,

I'm going to put it together in a way that when it does things I want it to do,

It feels good.

That way it continues doing things I want it to do.

And when it does things that are bad for it,

Or the world it's in,

Then it has negative consequences.

It feels,

It doesn't feel good.

That's how I'm going to create it.

So for me,

Just that the way,

The fact that I just feel good when I do good things,

Let's,

Makes me believe that a creator created me like that.

You know,

Not everybody has to believe that because we all have free will.

You can believe whatever you want.

Yeah.

And let's go back to what you said at the beginning about the point of free will,

Right?

Because even if,

So even if you're not,

Like we already said,

You don't have to believe in a God or a higher power or a creator to,

To know that you should do,

That you have the choice to do good things or bad things.

Right.

You also,

Like you just said about a loving creator,

Right?

Even if you believe in a vengeful creator,

Like the jealous God of the Old Testament,

Right?

Who like struck down people,

Like who made idols of,

You know,

False idols and all of this stuff.

Like,

Even if that is the version of God that you believe in,

The like fire and brimstone wrath of God that like is,

You're afraid of,

You're fearful of your creator,

Right?

Yeah.

There's still free will there to do the negative things that,

You know what I mean?

Like you're not on a conveyor belt.

The people in those stories that you believe that have created this fearful image of God that you have,

Like those people are choosing to do negative things.

A creator would not create something where everything is planned out to the detail,

You know what I mean?

Like,

This isn't a movie where we're all playing roles that have a script and like,

You know what I mean?

Because there's no love and there's no reason for wrath either.

Like,

There's no reason for anything if there's no free will.

Right.

We have to have the free will.

It really is what makes everything go round and that's why it can't be superseded by spiritual law,

You know?

It's just,

I mean,

Will,

There's a natural consequence when we do anything.

Like free will,

To understand free will,

We have to understand that yes,

We can do whatever we want.

That's all free will says.

But there's always a consequence for our choices.

And that's why an atheist can say,

Like,

Well,

I don't need a God to want to choose good things.

Well,

No,

You don't.

You don't need a God because it's just the way we're built.

When you do good things,

You feel better.

You can't walk around being a jerk to people and just taking advantage of people as much as possible and only looking out for yourself and actually like who you are.

You can't do it.

I mean,

You can lie to you.

There are people on this planet that can lie to themselves.

They can block out their own reality so much that they think that they love themselves while they're crapping on other people and derive some sort of warped joy out of it.

But I mean,

That's not actually true.

I mean,

You know,

If they went and sat on an island with a spiritual teacher for a month,

They'd be crying in three hours.

Oh my God,

I'm so sorry.

You know,

I mean,

If they actually ever got in touch with their true selves,

I mean,

You know,

They would find out that what they're telling themselves that this didn't affect them was a lie.

So,

I mean,

You can't treat people like crap.

And so just because we have free will doesn't mean that there aren't natural consequences to everything we do.

If we choose the wrong thing,

There's going to be a natural consequence.

That's not punishment,

In my opinion.

That's just cause and effect.

That's just the equal and opposite reaction to an action.

That's all.

You know,

It's just physics.

It's like if you do something that is detrimental to yourself,

Others or the world you live in,

There is a price to pay.

There's a natural consequence to that.

The system is set up for that,

You know.

So we don't get away with anything with free will.

It was a dramatic shift for me when I went from,

You know,

Choosing to go down the wrong path,

Ending up in addiction,

Living feeling like I didn't have a choice,

And then all of a sudden exercising that free will and choosing something different.

You know,

It's really amazing when you go through that whole pattern.

And I think,

You know,

What I just explained was my experience with it.

To me,

It's obvious.

But I think many,

Many,

Many people have the same experience that I do.

It's just a different version of it.

You know,

When we're choosing to do things that are good for us,

We feel good.

When we're choosing to do things that are bad for us,

We feel bad.

You know,

It kind of boils down to that,

I think.

And to kind of get back to the beginning,

Why I want to talk about this is to understand that that supersedes everything.

We have the right to really destroy ourselves and the world around us,

You know,

To really high levels,

To actually endless levels.

I mean,

Look at Hitler.

You know,

I mean,

We can really take this to extremes if we so chose in a negative direction or a positive direction.

And,

You know,

Because more and more people are waking up,

It's going more and more in a positive direction.

But it's all based on that.

We have to choose.

We have to choose the right things.

We have to choose to have a relationship with our Creator.

We have to choose.

You know,

It's all on our lap.

We have to choose not to argue with other people.

We have to choose to live in love.

It's all in our hands.

You know,

We have to stop pointing out at the world and start turning into ourselves and understand that it's each one of us that has that free will.

And the more of us that exercise it and choose love,

The more people around us are going to choose love and the more people around them are going to choose love.

And the more people around them are going to choose love.

And then we'll see more and more examples of a loving world because of that.

You know,

And instead,

That's how our own life is.

We have to start living from the inside out,

Work on our insides,

And then watch our outsides get fixed.

And it's the same in the macrocosm.

We all have to work on our insides individually and then all of a sudden we'll be amazed at how wonderful the world we live in starts becoming.

You know,

Instead of pointing the finger at everybody that gets elected or all the bad things that are going on around the country or around the world and going,

Oh my God,

Did you see how bad that is?

We have to stop this.

No,

You don't have to stop all that.

What we need to do is turn back.

We all need to turn in and work on ourselves because that's within our free will.

And as more and more of us expand in love,

Our societies are going to be a reflection of the people that are in it.

Yeah,

I think to take away free will is also to take away personal responsibility.

Right.

And you need personal responsibility.

You need to acknowledge personal responsibility.

Yeah,

We all have to take the responsibility for our own lives.

And that's why it's one of the biggest shifts or one of the biggest aspects of our spiritual growth.

We have to take responsibility for our own lives and understand that we are playing a part in what is unfolding in our lives.

And as we understand that,

The other side of the coin is the empowerment.

And that empowerment goes,

Oh my goodness,

I have more control over my life than I thought.

This is wonderful.

Now that I know this and understand how things work,

I can really create a life that I want.

And what I think is a big thing about the idea of fate or God's will or God's plan and free will is,

You know,

Like God wants me to have a garden.

Right?

If that's God's plan for you,

Is God wants you to have a garden.

Or even you want a garden.

Right?

You have to have the personal responsibility.

You have to make the choice,

Which is your free will,

To go get seeds to tend to that garden,

To plant that garden,

To tend that garden,

To dig up the dirt.

You know what I mean?

Like you have to water it.

You have to do all of those things.

And if you choose not to do those things,

You're not going to have that garden.

Right.

We're co-creating.

Yeah.

And there's this thing of like,

I'm going to put it in fate's hands.

But you still have to do the work yourself.

Yeah.

And I think that that's something that we're starting to get out of.

I think like 10 years ago,

That was real big in kind of the New Age movement.

It was like,

Oh,

Just let go and let God.

And I'm putting my life in God's hands.

And we're just constantly taking our hands off of our own lives and going,

You run it,

God.

And nobody's getting anything done.

And businesses are folding.

Well,

No,

You have to co-create.

I think that really the power that actually creates anything is love.

And it's God.

I think that we just have the ability to focus our attention,

Like a flashlight or a laser beam.

And so if we take our attention,

Which is kind of us directing God's power,

And we go,

Okay,

Well,

I'm going to direct it in starting a business.

I'm going to direct it into being a good father.

I'm going to direct it into being a good mother.

I'm going to direct it into being a good friend.

I'm going to direct it into picking up trash on the beach.

Whatever we take the energy that's flowing through us and direct it towards,

That's kind of our part of,

That's our free choice.

We're choosing to direct that energy into that specific direction.

And that's what we do.

And we actually have to follow up and take action on it too.

But the power that actually is in everything and creates everything,

That I think is our higher power working through us.

So it is a co-creational project.

Everything is.

Yeah.

So that's it for this episode.

That's it.

Yeah.

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I feel like we've been hearing from a lot of listeners recently.

We have.

There's been a lot of interaction and it's really been good.

It's really enhanced everything.

I think.

I love it because you can get more personal with things.

You can help more people.

Our spiritual walk,

Of course,

It's based on taking in more information and learning different ways to look at things,

But it's really about implementing it.

And we don't want to get addicted to listening or addicted to reading books or just taking in information.

It's about really being responsible about what you're taking in and implementing it into your life.

And that's one of the reasons,

One of the many reasons that I like interacting with the listeners so much is because it kind of gets over that little hump.

It's more than just a theory that you heard in a podcast.

You're actually starting to implement it.

And sometimes we can do that with just an email exchange.

Sometimes it's about becoming a client for a while.

Sometimes it's in a Q&A.

And plus,

People help other people within the community.

So yeah,

It's really awesome the way this everything's taking off and people are gelling together.

So thanks for that.

Keep participating.

We appreciate it.

And that's going to do it.

So thanks for listening and we will talk at you soon.

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Reviews

glen, so very well said....when i have this conversation with my ‘religious’ friends, it never ends well..
thanks for being so clear and articulate.
next time the topic comes up, i’ll just shoot them this podcast 😬

Some really valuable insights here. Thank you guys. Love and blessings 💙 x

That was wonderful, thank you Glenn ! I appreciate you 😁🤗💕🙏

Always lifts my spirits to listen to you two thank you!

Good discussion on freewill.
I like your new picture, Glenn.

Great talk guys! Thank you!