Can I Change My Destiny If There is No Free Will? | Rupert Spira

If there is ‘no self’ and no free will, can I change my destiny? Rupert explains that the consciousness that is the essence and nature of the mind is completely free, unconditioned, and unqualified. If you feel you have no free will, that is tantamount to being totally surrendered to God. Or you can take the approach: I am completely free and I want to use my mind in service of truth and love and beauty. Rupert explains that to take either of those approaches would be equally valid, true, and effective.

Rupert Spira is an English teacher of the “direct path”, a method of spiritual self-inquiry through talks and writing, and a notable English studio potter with work in public and private collections. From an early age, Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At the age of seventeen, he learned to meditate and began studying and practicing the teachings of the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr. Francis Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India, which he continued for the next twenty years. During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P. D. Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997. Francis introduced Rupert to the Direct Path teachings of Atmanada Krishna Menon and to Jean Klein and the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience.