# Free Will > Free will operates within a structure where the **soul chooses the life theme** and the **physical mind chooses** how to explore it, with predictions reading only present beliefs and collective events remaining individually changeable - Canonical: https://sassani.app/topic/free-will # Free Will In Bashar's teaching, free will is one of the most absolute statements in the system: "You always, always, always have free will." It is not a capacity you sometimes have and sometimes lose; it is the constant condition of a creator being. What makes sense of the teaching, though, is that free will does not mean that every circumstance bends to preference, and it does not mean the personality writes the whole script. Free will works inside a structure: the soul sets the broad theme, the higher mind arranges the template, and the physical personality chooses how — and through which specific experiences — that theme is lived. Responsibility, in this model, is choice, not blame. ## No such thing as a future prediction Because all reality is created from the here-and-now moment, Bashar is blunt that there is no such thing as a future prediction — and no such thing as the future or the past. A prediction only reads the beliefs that exist at the moment it is made; if the individual chooses to change any of the factors perceived by the predictor, the prediction will not come true. This is not a hedge; it is a structural claim about how time works. Should those underlying situations not change, the prediction will seem to come true — but that is the time-wave cresting on a belief structure that was not disturbed, not evidence that the future was ever fixed. The practical example offered is a personal one: someone who had a strong predictive flash of vandalism on the car worked conscientiously to change the energy, and the next day did experience an incident on the car — but only a dead battery, nowhere near the vandalism they had seen. That is presented as a creative use of free will upon a probable future, choosing a milder version of the glimpsed event. ## Free will and destiny work together A common confusion is to set free will against destiny. Bashar frames them as partners. As a spirit you generally lay out the theme of exploration for a life — the things you wish to learn, grow from, and experience. That theme (or series of themes) is the destiny set by the soul. Once physically incarnated, however, you are free to exercise your will about exactly how you go about exploring those themes: from many angles, by many paths, at any pace. The image used is that the soul sets up the hallway you will walk down, while the physical mind determines how it will walk down that hallway — running, skipping, going backwards, forwards, upside down, sideways, or crawling. A second layer of the same teaching clarifies which part of you is doing the arranging. The choice happens in the template-level reality where you are blended as the higher mind; the physical mind is the diving mask that allows you to experience what the higher mind has arranged. The higher mind chooses windows of opportunity; the physical mind — through its beliefs and definitions — determines which specific experience is attracted to represent that choice. This is why clarifying your definitions matters so much: it aligns the personality construct with the higher mind so the experiences drawn in actually represent the higher-level choice rather than resistance to it. ## Nothing is beyond your ability to change The scope of free will extends to collective events. Even where a great deal of mass-collective momentum exists behind a probable event, Bashar states that nothing is beyond your ability to change — and each individual, having their own individual universe, can choose a reality in which they are at the right place, right time, in another location or in the same location but unaffected. The collective momentum is honored without trapping the individual: mass events need not be so severe, need not claim the lives feared, and even where they occur they need not touch the person who has chosen a different experience of them. ## Why assisting civilizations will not interfere Free will is also the structural reason Bashar and other assisting civilizations will not override human collective choice. The energy and guidance are offered, freely, to anyone who wishes to draw upon them — it is described as a gift, a non-interference energy there if you desire it and inert for those who do not. But it will never be pushed past the point that would interfere with your own mass-created decision. Taking responsibility for your creations is non-negotiable in this model; no advanced civilization will take that responsibility off your hands. ## Responsibility is choice, not blame When Bashar says you are totally responsible for everything that happens within your life, he is careful to redefine the word. Responsibility is being used in the sense of choice — unlimited creative potential — not in the sense of blame. Too many people on the planet, he notes, choose to understand responsibility in terms of blame rather than terms of choice, and that one conflation hides the freedom the teaching is trying to restore. From a relaxed state of total acceptance — I have created all of this within my life — you actually realize you have more freedom than you ever imagined, freedom to create any other reality you choose. This also dissolves the common trap of taking responsibility for other people's negative choices. Each individual creates his or her own reality; in order to experience someone else, both must create a version of the other within their own reality. They can create you right out of their reality if they choose; you do not take responsibility for their choices, and at the same time you do not become a victim by acting out the negative role they have cast you in. ## Past and future are created from the present Free will is grounded in Bashar's model of time: both past and future are extensions of the here-and-now, projected from the present moment. You change the past all the time. Whenever you redefine who you are as a person, you shift to what you would call a different timeline; what you remember as your past is simply the past relevant to the person you are defining yourself to be in the present. The past is the result of the present, not the other way around. This is why a prediction can be invalidated at any moment, and why a future that seems written can be rewritten now — the now is the only place any of it is being authored. ## Practical implications Treat any prediction — including your own precognitive flashes — as a reading of present beliefs, not a fixed future. The work is to change the belief structure now, which allows the predicted outcome to soften, redirect, or dissolve. When a theme feels predetermined (a lifelong pattern, a recurring kind of relationship, a vocational pull), locate your freedom at the level of how you explore it — the path, pace, and attitude — rather than at the level of whether the theme exists. Clarify the definitions held in the physical personality. The higher mind chooses windows of opportunity; the physical mind's beliefs determine which specific experience represents that choice, so unaligned definitions distort the translation. Where a collective event has high momentum, do not assume you are trapped by it. You can choose a reality in which you are at the right place and right time, unaffected, even while collective events continue elsewhere on their own trajectory. Stop conflating responsibility with blame. Read responsibility as choice — unlimited creative potential — and total acceptance of "I have created all of this" becomes the doorway to freedom, not a sentence of guilt. Do not take on responsibility for other people's negative choices, and do not perform the negative role they have cast you in to avoid their displeasure. Each person creates their own reality and can edit you out of it at will; your freedom is to choose your own version of them, not to live inside theirs. ## Representative passages Realize you always, always, always have free will. Always. You can at any moment you wish choose any future, or past, or present, you so desire. When a prediction is made, you are simply reading those desires, those beliefs, which exist at the moment the prediction is made.— Bashar, You Always Have Free Will (you-always-have-free-will#text) There is a combination of what you call free will and destiny… The soul sets up the hallway you will walk down, but the free will of the physical mind determines how it will experience or walk down that hallway — it can run, it can skip, it can go backwards, forwards, upside down, side to side, crawl.— Bashar, Is There Free Will (is-there-free-will#qa-1) The higher mind is working directly with the template-level reality. The physical mind is really just the diving mask to allow you to experience what the higher mind has arranged in the template… the choice is for certain windows of opportunity that can be represented by many different kinds of experience.— Bashar, The Idea Of Choice Vs Free Will And Destiny (the-idea-of-choice-vs-free-will-and-destiny#qa-1) Realize, nothing is beyond your ability to change. Nothing… each and every one of you, having your own individual universe, can for yourselves individually choose not to experience such a probable future. You can create a reality in which you find yourself at the right place, right time, in another location, or in the same location but unaffected.— Bashar, You Always Have Free Will (you-always-have-free-will#qa-2) Responsibility, I am speaking of choice, unlimited choice, not blame… from a relaxed state of total acceptance — I have created all of this within my life — you will realize you have more freedom than you ever imagined.— Bashar, You Always Have Free Will (you-always-have-free-will#text) ## Related - [Parallel Realities](https://sassani.app/topic/parallel-realities) - [Responsibility](https://sassani.app/topic/responsibility) - [Definitions & Beliefs](https://sassani.app/topic/definitions-and-beliefs) - [Mass Consciousness](https://sassani.app/topic/mass-consciousness) - [Excitement](https://sassani.app/topic/excitement) Markdown twin of https://sassani.app/topic/free-will. The HTML page is the source of truth.