If we could time travel back 2400 years, we might be able to sit with the wisest man in the world, Socrates, as he explained to his friend Timaeus about how the world was born. We would not have to have a Babel Fish to be able to hear what they said though because thankfully it was all written down by Socrates best pupil, Plato.

In this conversation Socrates explains that the world is made from triangles, which piece together with other triangles to make the solid objects we see today. Of course, he didn’t mean this literally (although mathematics confirms that it is actually kind of true). He meant that triangles – and the number 3 – are where things become visible and solid. Incidentally, after he finishes explaining about triangles, he goes on to tell his friends about Atlantis. But that is a story for another day…

So, let’s get Socrates to help us today, to understand life. Imagine a triangle, with FREE WILL and THE UNEXPECTED at the two bottom corners and DESTINY at the top.

FREE WILL: Your choices. Your decisions.

THE UNEXPECTED: The unforeseen. The bit of life that no reading or prediction will ever tell you. This indicates the lessons we must learn. No matter how far you travel and how much you learn this will always be a factor.

DESTINY: Your Life Path. What you are here to do. A gentle and perpetual guiding force leading you onwards. When your Destiny is revealed to you, it will feel right, because somehow you will already know it. Numerology can reveal this.

Without knowledge of your Destiny, Life is simply a seesaw between Free Will and The Unexpected. At the foot of the triangle we do what we like (Free Will) until external factors intervene to stop us (The Unexpected). We then do what we have to do (The Unexpected), until we can bear it no longer and then we do what we like (Free Will). Until the scales tip once more. Many people spend their entire life on this see-saw…

The Unexpected provides us with a hidden opportunity to learn life’s lessons, which in turn informs our choices and expands our Destiny. Many folk pride themselves on their ability to work stuff out, but The Unexpected shows us that no matter how much we prepare, there will always be something we had not considered, waiting to upset our plans. We might remember this when we shout and scream at governments for not having prepared for this, that or the other, because no government ever will…

Every single member of humanity is guided and directed every minute of every day. Through unexpected events and happenings we are nudged toward our Destiny. Our Free Will can be seen as being opposed to any kind of higher guidance. Our Free Will is what we think we want, while The Unexpected delivers what we need, or at least takes us toward what we need. In truth, the only Free Will you have is the Free Will to get it wrong, to ignore the inner guidance and to blow it. As my late teacher Arthur once remarked,

“Fate is a load of old tosh. It is always up to you. If you want to screw your life up, that’s a mystical term by the way, you can. But you’ll come back with a Karmic Debt. The snag is that everyone screws up at some time or another, it’s the only way to learn. Be careful if you are dealing with someone who doesn’t make mistakes, because you are dealing with a prat (another mystical term)!”

Our Free Will works individually when we turn against the intuition, and collectively when we refuse to move with the times.

Any form of intuitive, divinatory, psychic or magical work will rely heavily on The Unexpected to guide the practitioner. If the information received during this kind of work is unexpected, then that is a hallmark of reliability.

Generally speaking, up until the age of around 35 or 40, life is largely governed by Free Will, where we accept or refuse the guidance that presents itself. After the age of 40-ish, life tends to become pretty fixed, not by Fate but by the patterns you have already created and can’t seem to break. This explains the ‘mid-life crisis’ as people awaken to the fact that something is missing and seek radical solutions.

People commonly believe that Free Will is them stamping their mark upon life and taking power while The Unexpected is the pesky force that upsets their plans. Some spiritual people even think like this. But the strange thing about Free Will is that the more you exert it to do whatever TF you like the less free you become! Free Will is really a pretty toxic force. It’s The Unexpected, in conjunction with upward pulling force of Destiny, that leads you forward.

Life is lived within this triangle and the object of the exercise is to steadily move up toward the top of the triangle so that you exert your Free Will LESS, become LESS DISTURBED by the intervention of The Unexpected and can MORE EASILY LISTEN AND FOLLOW the call of your Destiny.

This is done in several ways, chief of which is to make sure that you know your Life Path Number. Knowing your Life Path Number enables you to align with your Destiny. Other disciplines (like astrology for example) may be able to help here but only so long as they talk about LIFE PURPOSE not merely personality and character. The Life Path is not really about personality and character analysis, because Destiny isn’t really about what you are like as a person. It’s about what you are here to do….

Life can be pretty tough, but how we response to life’s challenges makes a big difference. A good life is one where these three forces are recognised and set in context. You can do whatever you like (Free Will) but then sxxx will happen to make you stop (The Unexpected), where you will be shown what you need to do (Destiny). It’s then up to you whether to accept it or not (Free Will) and if not you will be reminded again (The Unexpected) and shown again (Destiny) until you do. How many times you go round this cycle is up to you. It may take half an hour, a year, ten years, or lifetimes. The Universe is in no special hurry, even if we are…