The zeitgeist of our age is that we know, intuitively and consciously, that we are in desperate need of inner and outer balance; and we oppose this with an utterly irrational violence.
If you don't find the "alternative to the alternative," you are only trading one ruinous ideology for another. The end will be the same. If you don't step outside the dichotomy and dialectic, you will never possess the vocabulary and conceptual framework to take the first step necessary for your emancipation.
The subconscious mind cannot distinguish what's real from what's not real. For it, all reality is virtual; and to it, any imagery, sensory impressions, memories, imaginative and extrapolative thoughts are indistinguishable.
I found that understanding this is useful in understanding how my mind works, and in achieving mastery over the results and consequences of the use of my free will.
Free will allows one to grow spiritually to stay, or regress. It is a mechanism, not the idea of control or being able to have that feeling of union with Allah. It has to do with the ability to have the intellect override emotional response and grooming the emotional response to truly be reflective of the intellectual override. It's a tool, that is used to grow spiritually. It isn't about control of one's destiny.
Free will is the ability to do something for a greater good that they don't emotionally want to do. That is the intellect over riding emotional response. We don't have to be slaves to our emotions when those emotions are not productive or in alignment to higher spiritual "godly" behavior. We will continue to be slaves though if we don't start using the mechanism of free will to polish our hearts. Sufism isn't all feel good new age fluff-bunny talk about loving everything and abstract ideas of surrendering to God. It is also using and directing this free will mechanism to come back into alignment with Divine Will. If someone keeps doing this, their intellect / heart alignment becomes more and more reflective of each other, and one can take on higher spiritual challenges. Otherwise, it regresses or at best stagnates where it is at.