In the Old Reality, things were seen as opposites - black or white, hot or cold, good or bad, this way or that way. In the expanded view of New Reality consciousness, life is seen in a unified way. Opposite sides of the coin are viewed, not as polar opposites, but rather as just being different aspects of the one coin.

In the New Reality view of the world, the opposite extremes of black and white become, instead, endless shades of gray. Hot and cold become variable degrees of warmth. Good and bad become different shades of human nature; free of the judgment, resentment and fear that comes with Old Reality, polarized thinking.

In the Old Reality, destiny and free will were seen as mutually exclusive. The reasoning was that, if destiny exists, then it controls everything and, therefore, free will does not exist. On the other hand, you can prove that free will does exist by making a choice. So, as the thinking goes, if free will does exist, then there can be no destiny.

But, wait. Perhaps that choice of “free will” was really a pre-destined one. Perhaps the person was destined to make that choice all along, so the experience of choice was just an illusion. At this point, people usually give up on the whole question because it has turned into one of those brain teasers, like asking which came first - the chicken or the egg. Brain teasers keep your mind in an endless loop until you try stepping back from the situation and seeing it in a wider perspective. The new, wider perspective allows for the inclusion of non-materialistic factors. In deciding whether the chicken or the egg came first, for example, you just have to step back and see that the chicken was designed to be self-perpetuating.

When you step back and see destiny and free will from a wider perspective, you realize that nothing has to be absolute. If every event in your life were pre-ordained, there would be no such thing as free will or selfdetermination. As we do have free will, destiny cannot be fixed.

Destiny is therefore variable, not fixed. Destiny and free will both exist as interwoven facets of your life. Like threads in a tapestry, they interact with each other and blend to form the outcomes that are the events in your life.

Your destiny is created by plans that you made at a soul level of consciousness. Before you were born, you made your main plan for this life. Then, the minute you were born, the rules of the game demanded that you also get a case of amnesia about the whole arrangement. Such is the game of life in the physical realm.

However, at night when you go to sleep, you can go to the deepest levels of human consciousness, review how the original plan is unfolding and make changes to your plan if desired. When you return to your physical body and awake in the morning, amnesia strikes again. Within seconds of your conscious mind returning into your physical brain, you forget both the surface dreams and the deep experiences of the night.

Amnesia may be a part of the game we are playing in this life, but inner guidance is always available to anyone who pays attention to it. Your intuition is your link to your soul, or inner being, which is also linked to the rest of the universe and all levels of Creation.

You are never left alone to fumble in the darkness of a purely physical life. Your inner being is always there with you, expressing itself through the quiet whisperings of intuitive information. Thanks to this inner compass of knowing, you can always sense which choice feels right. You can always tell when your life is running on plan, and you can tell equally well if you’ve become temporarily distracted from your plan. You always have the means to be right on course, or get back on course, and explore the fascinating themes that make up your life plan.

The most productive use of free will is to explore your true potential within the themes of your life, thus gaining the greatest possible experience from your life plan. Destiny is an influence that comes from your inner plan. There is nothing absolute about your destiny. It’s a pressure that constantly seeks the best route to unfold into manifestation.

Free will provides the means to manifest that destiny in a way that provides the learning that you came here to acquire in this life. Destiny is variable. It adapts to the circumstances of your life every second of the day. As destiny unfolds, you feel it within as a sense of being a part of the flow of life, of manifesting your potential in the way that you planned for this day and that you planned for this life.

Destiny is the plan. Free will is the action. Experience is the result.

Owen K Waters started his search for spiritual truths in 1963 when his interest was awakened by an out-of-body experience. In 2005 he wrote his first book, The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness. Owen works to enable other spiritual seekers to step forward with relative ease into a more enlightening and purposeful life in this bright new era. He writes a weekly newsletter at www.SpiritualDynamics.net.