Chapter
5

Destiny, Fate, and Free Will

In This Chapter

• Discovering group connections
• Getting the most from the time you’re in
• Understanding today’s growth challenges
• Is the future predestined?
• Deciding your future through free will

We choose the circumstances, time periods, nations, conditions, and people in our life before birth—but we don’t choose our lives ahead of time. We create them in each moment. How we respond to and change the circumstances and relationships we’re born with is our choice. It’s not destined. The future is mutable. It shifts and changes as new potentials arise, and it doesn’t solidify until it becomes the present. The point of power is always in the present moment.

Group Karma

People who live through significant events together and share pivotal times in history have a special bond with each other. The events you’ve lived through in the past create particular conditions and karmic agreements. Although you don’t owe other people, your actions have created bonds and consequences. We need each other to fulfill our karmic goals, and we help each other dissipate our karma through the contracts we engage.

Remember from Chapter 3 that karma is not a cosmic debt and reward card. When we cause harm, we set in motion a chain of events to teach us the consequences of our actions. As soon as we recognize our error and realign our actions, the karma is transmuted. “Bad karma” is between us and our higher selves, not between us and other people.

You can imagine that men who died together in a foxhole in World War I, or people who went through the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, will share a bond and desire to meet again and help each other in future lives. The activities, institutions, associations, jobs, religions, and hobbies you’re attracted to reflect your past experiences. You can expect that the people you meet and connect with in these arenas are likely those you were with in the past.

People are drawn together to complete episodes and dramas they didn’t finish. They relive events, perspectives, loyalties, and betrayals and come together because they’re linked through history. Look around. The people you see are people you’ve known before. In all likelihood, none of them are actual strangers.

The members of our soul group are found among our families, best friends, colleagues, church groups, and so on. Typically, there are between 3 and 25 members. Obviously, you know more than 25 people and have likely gone through significant events with hundreds of people. The members of your soul group are the ones you feel a strong and immediate connection with. These are people you’ve explored many lives with and with whom you’ve completed many missions of growth and discovery.

A soul group is a group of souls who come into being at the same time and share many reincarnations together. They are like a soul family and are dedicated to helping each other grow. Soul mates are derived from members of your soul group.

The connections you feel with soul group members are not always positive. They’re direct and deep, but that doesn’t always mean happy. You may meet someone you immediately and intensely dislike. You may feel you know them, understand their deeper intentions, and distrust them. This may be someone from your soul group with whom you are intimately linked. Every strong emotion is a connection. Alternately, you may live in a family where none of the people are from your soul group. How lonely a feeling is that?

Friends and Company

Typically, we reincarnate with our soul group not only to fulfill personal missions but also to fulfill larger social missions. Each of us has personal objectives to meet; however, they’re not independent of the society and times in which we live. The people we associate with in groups are those with whom we have agreed to work on larger issues and with whom we share common ideals.

If you feel yourself pulled toward specific causes, churches, or political movements, these are clues to what you’ve done in your past. The more passionately you feel, the more likely it’s a continuation of a past situation. You may want to consider whether this ideal is still active for you or whether your continued involvement is due to a past-life pact.

Pacts

Pacts are agreements we make with two or more people and are held in the Akashic Record. Usually, they involve groups of people and are made during emotionally intense situations. They always involve larger ideals that we feel are worth dying for, such as patriotism, loyalty, religion, honor, freedom, justice, discrimination, revenge, and of course, love.

The pacts we make with others in previous lives can have dramatic impacts on the choices and directions we make in this life. Pacts made out of love and a desire for higher ideals can be uplifting and growth enhancing. Pacts to uphold social justice, for instance, may compel you to a career as a county prosecutor. Don’t be surprised if the judge, defense attorney, and court stenographer are all part of the same pact and maybe even the same soul group.

Pacts made from lower impulses, such as the desire for revenge, can seriously retard your growth. There are reports of souls who spend lifetimes seeking revenge for a past betrayal. You can waste lives going backward in your development until you realize everyone is trying to grow and everyone makes mistakes.

Lower-level pacts will fill your path with obstacles and obstructions. If you allow conditions to continually throw you into cycles of negativity and vengeful thoughts and/or actions, you will continue to be plagued. However, when you are able to meet obstacles with an enlightened perspective of seeking the highest good for all, you will begin to free yourself of the effects of this old agreement.

Breaking free of lower-level agreements requires two actions. First, you need to be able to forgive those against whom you have created the pact. Second, you need to break ties with the people with whom you made the pact. This can be very hard as the forces that brought you together are strong ones. However, lower-level pacts are often responsible for disabling behavior that destroys people. For example, alcoholics are frequently people who are unable to break free of a past pact and seek obliteration over disappointing or abandoning their fellow pact-mates. They may spend a lifetime trying to get their mates to change, to no avail. Breaking ties may be the only way forward. Higher-level pacts are often made between people who want to represent an ideal and bring it forth in the world. These are sacred agreements that can’t be ignored. It would be nice if higher-level pacts were free from obstacles; however, bringing something new into the world requires replacing something old, and this is not easily done. People are attached to the old, either because it profits them or because it’s safe. A group of people with a higher-level pact of this type may meet as many obstacles as those with lower-level pacts. However, they will always have spiritual support and feel uplifted by the battle they’re engaged in—no matter how difficult it is.

Vows

Vows are promises we make to ourselves. Although not necessarily involving a group, they are played out within group dynamics. People often make vows of love and may hold themselves to these vows through lifetimes. Soul mates make vows of love that are mutual and fulfilling. If you suffer from unrequited love, you may have made a love vow in a past life when your partner didn’t. It may be perfectly obvious to you that this relationship won’t work, but because of your vow you’re unable to let go and move on.

Other types of vows people make are vows of poverty, chastity, loyalty, service, and of course, revenge. As with pacts, vows can enhance your growth or retard it. This depends on the ideals behind the vow and whether it still serves you or not.

For example, a man who was a monk in his past life made a vow of poverty. In his current life, everything he owns fits in one suitcase and he can move out of his house easily, leaving no trace he was ever there, within 15 minutes. As a monk, this vow demonstrated a spiritual commitment—but now, it’s keeping him from making a spiritual commitment to his family and being able to provide for their needs.

It’s easier to break a vow than it is to break a pact. It requires that you acknowledge the vow and its original intent. Honor it and declare it complete. Then orient yourself to new values and ideals.

Nations

Nations, just as every other group, share a collective karma. Remember from Chapter 2 that karma is the law of cause and effect. It’s not punishment; it’s a mechanism of growth. Nations have a destiny and purpose and a referendum to grow socially, and as with individuals, their histories are held in the Record.

It has been said that the destiny of the United States is to be the world’s experiment in citizen-controlled democracy. Manly P. Hall, a famous mystic, author, and reader of the Akashic Record, declared that the entire American continent was destined for a “world-shaking experiment in enlightened self-government and religious liberty.” To that end, every citizen as well as every leader is entrusted with the failure or success of this experiment.

Manly Hall believed the karma that prepared the way for the inception of the United States was established before the Christian era. Many recognize the United States as a continuation of the Roman Empire, and many people living in the United States were present during the fall of Rome. The issues that brought down the empire—corruption among the government and people—are said to be the forces at work today.

Timing Is Everything

What you’re here to learn, experience, and contribute is intricately linked to the place and groups into which you’re born. It’s not surprising that the time you’re born in is also important to the contribution and challenges of your soul growth.

Certain times in history are pivotal and more highly charged than others. We can look through history and see that centuries can go by with very little change and opportunity for growth. Then all of the sudden, there’s massive change. Society is hurled into unrest, and huge opportunities are available. The Industrial Revolution, the technological revolution, the Space Age, and the computer age are a few examples of fast and revolutionary changes. Wars, famines, and Earth changes also provoke huge change. In terms of growth, prosperity may be comfortable but not always growth promoting!

Pivotal times offer a heightened opportunity to redeem your karma. In extreme times, we can rise to our highest selves or fall to our lowest selves. The stakes are high, and people born in such times are here on a mission—willing to risk everything for major advancement. Whether you advance or fall will be determined by how well you can hold your alignment with higher ideals and maintain your soul’s mission.

The Challenges of Today

This is an exceptional time in history. The challenges we face today represent the collective karma of our nation (and, in fact, the world). What the times are calling for is the reevaluation of the core values of humanity. Readers of the Akashic Record indicate that this is one of the most significant, pivotal times in the history of the planet simply by virtue of the magnitude of damage or good that can come from it.

The Mayans predicted this time period with the end of their Long count calendar. They predicted a time of social unrest, famine, and economic collapse as the old is transformed into a new and magnificent era. We are creating the new era in the choices we make while facing the peril of today. Present-day Akashic Record readers suggest this period is a cleansing of the inhumanities of man against each other and the planet. The more society resists the adjustments that need to be made, the harder conditions will become until either we grow or we collapse. The thing to remember is that it is a choice. It’s time to reassess the basic assumptions we have about the world and shift our paradigm. If we can do this—if we can expand our compassion—we have an opportunity for a great and wonderful advancement.

Some readers of the Akashic Record believe humanity will have spiritual help transmuting the karma held within the Record. Help is underway in the form of higher frequencies entering the earth, providing people with the necessary wisdom and upliftment to shift the current paradigm.

A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

It’s important to remember that the readers of the Akashic Record are not final authorities. In Chapter 2, we explained that what is received from the Record is tainted to varying degrees by the reader’s own bias and limitations of perspective. The extent to which the reader can be neutral determines the depth of truth in his or her reading. Never trust anything anyone says if your gut says it’s not right.

Being born in this time with these challenges provides you with a unique arena of opportunity. How do you want to use this opportunity, and what do you need to adjust to deal with the times to come?

World Economy

It’s no secret that we’re in the midst of a world economic crisis. Many think it was an inevitable reconciliation as spending and credit went out of control. Although there are many factors in any situation, especially one as complicated as this, it’s also clear that an element of greed and entitlement entered the social climate—an element that requires rebalancing.

Economists have sought to understand the money needs of today through computer models, past investment theories, and most importantly their gut feelings. Computer models are based on the best past records, but unlike the Akashic Record, they don’t hold all the dynamics that are at work.

Channeled messages from the Akashic Record predicted the current trends. They declare the economic crisis to be an opportunity to “eliminate dynamics that no longer serve the nation and humanity as a whole.” It’s a cleansing process meant to eliminate wastefulness, dishonesty, and greed. Readings suggest our economic practices have increased pain and suffering in the world and have caused damage to the planet. What we produced is returning as an opportunity to grow and change.

Ecological Challenges

The Akashic Record is clear that all life is part of its quantum hologram and is sacred. This includes the consciousness of humans, animals, the planet itself, and spiritual energies. Ecological harm causes diminished vibrations within the akasha and like everything else incurs consequences according to the law of cause and effect. The term “carbon footprint” is a useful metaphor speaking to the fact that every one of our actions, good and bad, leaves an imprint in the akasha and affects the ecology of the planet.

Being unaware of a consequence doesn’t mitigate its impact. We didn’t know the full extent of the harm of smoking cigarettes in the past, but people still died of lung cancer. Trees are the lungs of the planet, and as corporations cut down the rain forests, the earth’s ability to restore the atmosphere is being destroyed. We rarely consider the importance of individual trees, plants, and animals in the ecology of a park or neighborhood—but they are part of the conscious whole and are important.

According to information channeled from the Record, it’s time for humanity to think in terms of sustainable and humane lifestyles. The adage “what goes around comes around” is true. When we pollute our rivers and streams, more than the animals are poisoned: we are, too. When we torture people or animals, it brings the vibration of the entire Akashic Record down. We’re being asked to live the truth that the health of the planet is our health, too.

AKASHIC WISDOM

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

—Thomas Edison, inventor

Changing Paradigms

Throughout history, major social and technological changes have been preceded by changes in paradigms, or sets of assumptions. For example, people once thought Earth was the center of the universe. Those who disagreed, such as Copernicus and Galileo, were imprisoned or killed. When science proved that Earth revolved around the sun, the paradigm shifted. This opened the door for new scientific observations and changed how we thought. There was a similar shift when Albert Einstein established the theory of relativity and the continuity of energy and matter, breaking free from Sir Isaac Newton’s physics of causation.

We’re currently in the process of shifting from the paradigm of duality to the paradigm of quantum holography. Quantum physics has demonstrated that our ideas of time, space, and the separation of energy and matter are illusions. Experiments in the 1980s established the ability of particles to communicate with each other simultaneously from the other side of the world. Quantum science has revealed what the Akashic Record has said: that we’re all part of the same whole. In addition, each part has access to the information contained in the whole.

Also known as consciousness singularity, this new paradigm changes everything. If you really believed that what you do to another you do to yourself, how would your actions change? For example, if someone asks for a favor, do you immediately wonder how it will benefit you to help him or her? In this paradigm shift, you will know that doing something for someone else benefits you, too.

Living in the Quantum Paradigm

The paradigm we’re entering suggests a more humane society. Akashic Record readings say that how we relate to money, science, governments, people, and religion is changing. We’re learning our place as citizens of the universe and each of us is contributing to raising the planet to higher levels of awareness. As we embrace this paradigm, we can transmute old karma and rise to greater understanding and responsibility in our actions and relationships.

Another aspect of the changing paradigm is the expansion of human abilities. The experiments of quantum physics break down the separation between mind and matter. Unexplained phenomenon such as bending spoons and mental telepathy are understandable abilities in the world of quantum physics. As the new paradigm unfolds, telepathy, extra-sensory perception (ESP), and other forms of expanded awareness will be commonplace. The ramifications are astonishing and herald a time of increased honesty and transparency between people, nations, and governments.

TIMELESS TIPS

For more information on quantum holography, check out The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot (HarperCollins, 1992). To understand the implications for expanding the abilities of the human mind, read Conscious Universe (HarpersEdge, 1997) and Entangled Minds (Paraview Books, 2006), both by Dean Radin.

Possibility and Probability: Looking at the Future

The fact that the Akashic Record stores the impressions of the future as well as the past suggests we’re living in a predestined universe. This rubs against all our beliefs about free will and the ability to choose our path and actions. According to the Akashic Record, is the future really fixed in advance? Actually … no.

Akashic Record readings say the Record holds the past and present along with all the possibilities of every conceivable future. In every present moment, you have multiple possible actions, thoughts, feelings, and intentions. The Record holds each one as a vibration. The strength of each vibration increases as the likelihood of you doing, thinking, or saying something gets stronger. When you choose your actions and words, all the other possible things you could have chosen disappear. The choice you made is fixed in the Record and becomes your past.

Akashic Record readings that tell of future events are not reading the future. They’re reading the future possibility that has the most energy going toward it in that moment. It’s the most probable of the future possibilities and the one that will happen if nothing in the present is changed. We’ll talk more about this and what it means in Chapter 16.

Dean Radin

Dean Radin is one of the main scientists studying presentiment, or the ability to sense that something is going to happen. In double-blind controlled studies, he can demonstrate that a person’s physiology changes seconds before he or she is confronted with different types of stimuli. He has found that there is typically an increase in physical reaction about three to eight seconds prior to an event happening. This explains things such as knowing who is calling before you pick up the phone or having a sense that something is going to occur before it does.

ETHERIC ADVISORY

It’s important to remember that when we focus on future predictions, we’re sending energy toward that outcome. Prophecy is often self-fulfilling, so submerging yourself in negative outcomes is never wise!

The three- to eight-second interval is described as the “bow wave” of an event approaching. The higher degree of emotion in the event, the better able we are to feel it. This implies that while each of us affects the Record, the Record may also affect us. For example, as you approach a decision, you’re putting energy into the choice you’re going to make. More of your energy is going in one direction than another. At some point, the energy going in that direction is great enough that it begins bouncing back toward you as the bow wave of the decision you are about to make—thus influencing the decision!

Web Bot Project

The Web Bot Project is a computer program that detects the bow wave of coming events. The project was developed in the late 1990s to assist stock market predictions. If you’re a computer geek, you’ll get how this is done. For the rest of us, it’s new language!

The Web Bot uses a system of “spiders” to crawl the Internet and search for key words, much the same way a search engine does. Web Bot is different, however, in that when it locates a key word, it takes a snapshot of the text before and after the key word—thus putting it into some type of context. Sent back to a central computer, the project aims at tapping into the collective unconscious. What the project has discovered is that when enough buzz happens around a key word, there’s a tipping point where probabilities become reality.

In this way, the Web Bot predicted that an event would happen on September 11, 2001. In June 2001, the program detected a “life-altering event” taking place within the next 60 to 90 days that would be of “such proportions that its effect would be felt worldwide.” This conclusion was arrived at after analyzing the text before and after the key words. It represents the expression of the collective unconscious, or Akashic Record, through our subconscious minds.

Princeton Global Consciousness Project

This project, initiated at Princeton University, is an “international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others.” Based on the use of random generators, the 10-year-old program seeks to examine correlations between events and random generator activity that indicate the presence and influence of consciousness. Random generators are devices that throw balls into the air, allowing them to randomly fall into different slots—similar to a lottery machine. The project maintains 65 generating sites around the world.

The theory is that events with high emotional content and significant human impact will affect the randomness of the data and the balls will fall into slots in systematic patterns. The project has demonstrated that seconds before a significant event happens, the generators become less random.

Actually, free will does have limitations. It’s defined by the time and place we’re born, the conditions we’re born into, and the cultural values we hold. All of these conditions are influences from the impressions of our past karma. We could say that we have free will within the constraints we have created from the past.

This doesn’t mean we can’t overcome our conditioning with free will; it just means it will take effort and dedication to break from the past. You can look at obstacles in your path in two ways. Either they’re messages to tell you you’re off track, or they’re messages to tell you that you have to reconcile your past before you can go forward. Obstacles are then simply indicators that you’re working against past patterns. Instead of signaling that you should give up, it may be a message to put in more effort or face and account for your past deeds. In this way, obstacles can guide your present actions and help direct your choices.

What we know from the Akashic Record is that fate is not outside ourselves. It is the sum total of our past actions. Fate represents our past choices while free will represents our current choices.

Power of Choice

Power exists in the present moment. The power to create our future exists in the decisions we make in each moment. The experiments of Radin, the Web Bot Project, and the Princeton Consciousness Project imply that the future fixes slightly ahead of the present. This means that in every thought, we’re building the energy for the next thought until the weight of our direction becomes so heavy it begins to steer us. The thoughts you are thinking are steering your ship. Train yourself to think with an open mind and a generous heart. Look for what benefits the many, and act upon that. Demonstrate the world you want to live in.

The Least You Need to Know

• You reincarnate with groups of people in the same time period to fulfill past ideals.
• Pacts and vows from the past can help or hinder your current path and may need to be dissolved.
• Nations have karma that involves the combined action of individuals within the nations.
• Future predictions are not written in the Akashic Record as fact; rather, they are probabilities based on the current situation.
• Fate created the conditions of your life; free will creates your future.