July 29, 2026
There’s a question that has divided philosophers, theologians, and scientists for centuries: does free will really exist? Do you actually choose, or do you only believe you choose, while acting on autopilot, driven by forces you don’t control?
The answer I propose is neither yes nor no. It’s more uncomfortable than that.
Free will exists. But most people rarely use it. Not because they are weak. Because they are asleep.
It sounds absurd. But think with me.
That relationship you entered knowing it wasn’t good for you, but entered anyway. That sharp reply that came out before you could think. That career choice that, deep down, was never yours — it was what others expected of you. That pattern you swore you would never repeat, and yet you did.
In none of these moments were you fully awake. You were being led by something that began long before you were aware of it: a collective dream that settled in before you were born. The patterns of your family, the stories you were taught to believe about yourself, the fears inherited without knowing, the automatic reactions that seem to be you but aren’t.
This dream makes decisions in your life. And as long as it governs, free will exists in potential, but not in practice.
Existence could lead us. It could determine every step, every choice, every outcome. But it doesn’t. It places before us the opportunities, the challenges, the lessons, and waits. It trusts that at some point we will make the choice that carries us one small step forward. And when we don’t, it doesn’t give up: it sets up a new situation, a new chance, a new invitation to awaken.
But the Divine’s trust is only completed by our part. And our part doesn’t happen in the big decisions. It happens in the small moments, in the fraction of a second between stimulus and response.
Someone lets you down. Anger arises. In that tiny instant, something opens: you can act from the old pattern, or you can breathe, observe, and choose differently. That one-second difference can change the course of a relationship, a job, an entire life.
Free will is not the absence of patterns. It is the capacity to create a gap between what arrives and your response. Cultivating this gap is the work of being human. Meditation, self-knowledge, the honest willingness to observe yourself in motion — all of it slowly makes you more awake when it really matters.
Waking up does not mean being at peace all the time. It means being present enough to choose.
An invitation for today: throughout the day, whenever you notice yourself reacting on autopilot, pause. It can be a deep breath. It can be a word said only to yourself: Wake up. A simple gesture that interrupts the cycle, that opens the space between what arrives and what you choose to do with it.
The Divine trusts that you will get there. The question is: do you trust yourself?
Namaste,
Sri Prem Baba
