I have spoken often about the concept of free will, and as in the "Serenity Prayer," what it actually means in the larger scheme of things, where it applies and where it doesn't. I've used the analogy of human beings as swimmers in a powerful river, said river being our Higher Self will, our destiny. One can exercise free will as a human being by swimming against the current, struggling, fighting, ultimately exhausting oneself, or one can turn around, and go with the flow, having a much smoother and faster time time of it on this trip called physical life.
The key point I've made, however, is that someone on the bank of the river would see that whether you're swimming against the current or going with the flow, either way, you're being taken downstream to your destination, which is self-actualization and awakening to the truth of your oneness with All That Is.
We are almost home, folks, almost at our destination, which is to wake up and remember who we are as conscious creators of our reality. We are coming to understand that the conflicts and limitations we've experienced for seemingly so long were just part of a mega-game we created. But now, arriving back home (And it's not necessary anymore to leave physical life to get there.), we can enjoy being human beings in the fullest, most ecstatic ways. That's why we came here in the first place.
Here's an eloquent description of the moment from "Oneness":
“There would be no exultation in the discovery of the first
tastes of limitlessness, were that experience not preceded by massive doses of
the experience of limitation. The journey was designed, by you, to deliver you back to the beginning, but not
before you were given every opportunity to experience fully what it was like to
have ventured far from home. You embarked on this adventure fully confident
that the signposts and maps would be there, at the appropriate moment, to
enable you to return safely. For, you placed them there yourself, to await your
own rediscovery, after an appropriate amount of time was provided for you to
forget, totally, where they were hiding. Since this is your game, you
structured it to be challenging and exciting, yet built in safeguards that
would insure your safe return. At the deepest level, you know that there is no
way you can fail at this. You will not be stranded for all eternity in the illusion
of separation because you did not 'get it.' You have seen to that. You have
simply programmed sufficient detours and side trips into the itinerary to
insure the greatest possible sense of gratification in discovering that you
are, at last, heading home. You are heading home whether you consciously
subscribe to such ideas in the present time period or not. For the energy that
propels you in that direction does not emanate from the limited perspective of
your conscious physical identity, but rather, is being directed from a place of
greater awareness that knows, like a loving parent, that you have been ‘out
there’ long enough.”
Here's the Serenity Prayer with some revisions I've made for my meditation purposes. See if you can spot the changes and why I made them:
"God grants me the serenity to accept the things that my ego
and lower self will cannot change; God grants me the courage and mindful intention and Higher
Self Will to change the things I can; God grants me the Wisdom in my knowing of myself
as Word to know the difference."
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Ahh...
Really?
