CREDIT: GOOGLEDo we have free will or is everything predestined?
Someone may say, yes I have free will and I will travel tomorrow to X destination, this is my choice.
Right, your choice and not your will because you reached the airport to learn your flight got cancelled due to bad weather. Then whose will was it that you did not get to travel, as you had willed? A coincidence or a predetermined destiny you encountered? Or perhaps you got on the flight, to the beautiful island, and you fell ill with a fever. Where was your free will when the virus of Honolulu crept into you? Or was it bad luck? It is not your bad luck because you learned later on that had you not fallen sick and went on with your preplanned hike you would have been caught in a scam… So, is it luck, is it you, or is it a Higher Power that made and saved the day?
Someone else may say, if everything is predestined then how am I responsible for my life? I should just relax and be passive.
How can one be passive with their life, when we are faced with choices and decisions to take everyday? In the end, life is full of uncertainty and we are dealt with choices, and the choice is up to us.
New Age Spirituality says: your neurological organization (nervous system) is creating the external world so therefore one is creating their reality, and so – in the words of Alan Watts – one interprets their experience as godly because one believes one is controlling everything that happens in their life. While it is true that what you focus on grows, as you think you become, your intentions set you reality … but to have the arrogance to believe that I can manifest my reality through a few steps, taught incessantly by Esther Abraham Hicks, Alan Watts and their like, is one tiring path. Believe me, I lived it, the steps weren’t enough so naturally I did more research on manifesting my desires and consequently became more involved with other practices. Still, it was not enough, so I beat myself thinking I keep messing up. Doesn’t this sound like another means of growing the ego instead of diminishing it? Whereas the number one rule of spirituality is to get rid of the ego.
Islamic teachings say: the first thing God created was the pen, and He ordered the pen to write and the pen wrote everything that was going to happen, then the pen is laid down, the ink is dried, and then God created everything. Certainly one of the basic articles of faith in Islam is the belief in predestination or fate, we must never forget that God’s will and human effort come together in Islam, meaning one needs to seek and strive, as opposed to relinquish endeavour. All the Prophets and their companions, the people closest to God had to face terror and pain for the relief and guidance of God to come, so what does this mean for us? It means that we have to put in the work, and we have to take responsibility for our actions because we are choosing how to live our life. How? Through our daily choices. We have freedom to make a choice.
In the end, it is your choice: live a life being self-sufficient with your affairs or take the Divine as a sufficient for your affairs, while always, always remembering that there is no reward without some effort.
Know that if all the people get together in order to benefit you with something, they will not be able to benefit you in anything except what Allah has decreed for you. And if they all get together in order to harm you with something, they will not be able to harm you in anything except what Allah has decreed for you. The pens have stopped writing (Divine Preordainments). The pen has been lifted and the ink has dried. – Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
