The Logic Behind Evil Acts

Throughout history, people with malicious intent have exercised their free will to hurt others. That such cruelty is allowed to take place does not mean that God does not exist or does not care. The logic that explains such brutality can be expressed in two words: free will. We either have free will or we don’t. God does not directly interfere in human affairs because, by definition, free will would be rendered meaningless if it were interfered with.

The ability of every individual to exercise their free will is the X-factor that

The Logic of Surrendering to Divine Will

Lots of people are repelled by the idea of surrendering to Divine Will because they believe that doing so means that they will be relinquishing their free will and diminishing their capacity to reason and act. Just the opposite is true. Essentially, surrendering means attuning your will with Divine Will, which strengthens your resolve to live purposefully and reinforces your capacity to do, to achieve, to become. What you are actually surrendering is your self-centeredness and the belief that you are alone and unprotected in an uncaring, unforgiving world. Surrendering is nothing more than a homecoming, a recognition that your will aligns with Divine Will as naturally as a child’s hand fits into its mother’s.

If you subscribe to the ancient wisdom that a supreme, loving intelligence governs all of existence, then it follows that you are being guided with infinite wisdom and inexhaustible love at all times. And that means that life is unfolding in a way that has your best interests in mind. Therefore, every situation you are presented with is a gift, an opportunity for you to learn and grow and move closer to realizing your potential.

Ultimately, surrendering to God, to life, to the Universe, or whatever you wish to call it, puts you on the fast track to living the best life you can possibly live. Of course, implicit in that statement is the expectation that you are

How Free Will and Divine Intervention Coexist

"Earth Angel" by Josephine Wall (josephinewall.co.uk)

If you wonder why God allows people to do evil things to other people, what you’re really saying is that you don’t believe in free will. Throughout history, people with malicious intent have exercised their free will to hurt others. God does not directly interfere because, by definition, free will would be rendered meaningless if it were interfered with.

Yet, Divine intervention is also at work. The Divine is always speaking to you, guiding you, nudging you toward your highest good, but it is up to you whether or not you choose to listen. Both free will and divine intervention come down to this: You

Life Is Like a Game of Cards

In the chess game of life, you are faced with a particular universe of choices at any given moment.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharlal Nehru

With every move, that universe is reconfigured, creating new possibilities and eliminating old ones.

Every turn in your life, every time you decide, you become

You Will Cast Just Two Votes

Aligning your free will with God’s will presents an intriguing paradox. On one hand, the more attuned you are to divine consciousness, the more accessible are the riches of the universe. On the other hand, the material things you longed for before you put God first in your life now seem like insignificant trinkets.

Riches, like glory or health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleased to lend them.
Michel de Montaigne

Your soul yearns not for what is external but for what

The Consequences of Consequences

Karmic consequences are certain but unpredictable. The same cause may affect two people’s karmas very differently based on their previous karma, their sacred contracts, and an infinite number of other variables that all coalesce into effects that serve the highest good of each individual.

Thus every act or thought has consequences, which themselves will have consequences; life is the most intricate web of interconnections. This is the law of karma . . . (which) states simply that every event is both a cause and an effect. Every act has consequences of a similar kind, which in turn have further consequences and so on; and every act, every karma, is also the consequence of some previous karma.
Eknath Easwaran

Reincarnation explains why God’s plan for you

The Troubling of a Star

If God is guiding each of us with infinite wisdom and inexhaustible love, it follows that God is an organizing force bringing divine order to the universe, and that you are loved and supported no matter how you choose to exercise your free will.

There is a force of love present everywhere, and it can be trusted to bring your own life into order and peace.
Deepak Chopra

The universe, as self-empowerment author Wayne Dyer so poetically noted, is

As You Wish

What is devotion? It is the unceasing practice of acknowledging God’s presence, with the ultimate goal of living your life as one long prayer.

Devotion requires complete immersion in divine love. In the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s definitive guide to the science of self-realization, devotion is referred to as shraddha, the natural inclination of the heart quality to turn toward its Source in faith and surrender.

Surrendering means you recognize that whatever is, is. Accepting that you cannot change what cannot be changed enables you to deal with whatever is in front of you more objectively, free of judgment and emotional resistance.

The word “surrender” raises a red flag for some people, especially for those who believe that they can manipulate the universe to suit their own ends.

Attempting to exert control over every aspect of your life is like swimming upstream—progress is slow and difficult. When you surrender to divine will, you begin swimming with the current. You are in the flow, and life gets easier.

Surrendering to divine will does not mean you are sacrificing your free will. You