Free Will and Enlightenment

About Free Will

Choices

The illusionary self, which is the feeling of “I am a person”, imagines itself to have the ability of free will.

Even if you adapt the belief or a certain philosophy, that there is no free will, the self will still not quite be able to get it.

This is because, like the sense of separation, the illusion of free will is a fundamental characteristic of the self.

“I decide!”

You might try to challenge this statement with examples of when you clearly made a choice in your past.

"It was ME who decided to do that!"

The truth is, that everything just is as it is.

The process of making an apparent choice, the experience of “I could have done something else instead” also is what arises in awareness.

The self imagines parallel realities in which another decision would have lead to other events and so on.

It is able to dream up the story of different possible choices in the past and future and constantly evaluates if it could have done something differently or what its next choice will be.

The famous “What if?”.

The truth is that everything that arises is what it is and can not or could not have been any different.

Purposely spilling your drink to prove me wrong here would also just be as it is ;)

Something that arises.

No choice made, nobody there to make a choice.

“So does enlightenment provide free will then?”

No, sorry.

What is difficult (better say impossible) for the self to grasp is, that enlightenment has nothing to do with whatever person seemingly is the enlightened one.

The person sitting here writing this and thinking about this stuff, how to express it in a good way etc. is also just an experience arising in awareness.

There is nobody here doing anything.

Of course, in practical language, I decide what to eat for dinner etc.

What enlightenment “does” is that the illusion of the self is dropped.

That which remains is just pure awareness. “Oneness” if you will.

The content of awareness, “made of” awareness is still the same visually etc.

This knowing, of course also permeates the body/mind-structure because the self was such a strong factor in behaviour. But it doesn’t even mean there has to be anything different about practical matters of everyday life. Conditioning of the body/mind, reactions of apparent separation and so on still arise. Thoughts that “pull you in”, it can all arise in awareness.

There seems to be the belief in some people, that the enlightened “person” wouldn’t want to eat, sleep, breath, earn money or enjoy a good movie anymore. This is of course just a nice fiction for the mind of enlightenment as something exotic or a personal experience that makes you resistant to cold weather.

It changes nothing and everything.

To make sense of this paradox you have to go there. This is where the mind (itself arising in awareness) can not go.

Luntrus

[wstein]

Originally Posted by luntrusreality

The illusionary self, which is the feeling of “I am a person”, imagines itself to have the ability of free will.

Originally Posted by luntrusreality

So does enlightenment provide free will then?

So does enlightenment at least free you from the "illusionary self"?

[charly233]

For me free will does exist. I can see nothing in existence outside of myself. I see no external reality. Everything is within me. There is nothing outside of myself that is doing stuff to me against my will. Thus I am free.

Plus for me I like to believe that what I believe is so. That my beliefs legislate the nature of the universe that I inhabit. If I believe I am free then I am free.

Having said that I agree that there is no free will for the partial, conditioned self. It is the universal self that is free. I create all realities. I am the universal self although at times I find it hard to really sustain this belief.

Thank you for reading.

@wstein

Originally Posted by wstein

So does enlightenment at least free you from the "illusionary self"?

Yes, it does in a way. It is more like you see that there is no such thing as a self in the first place (only seemingly from its own perspective, which is temporarily arising in You-Awareness).
But don't get me wrong , the mind knows there has been an awakening. Obviously I (in this case body/mind) am sitting here writing about this.
But the underlying knowing is that the me (this particular body/mind) and the people reading it are made of and part of Me (Awareness).
This awareness is Knowing knowing itself. With the dropping of the self it can arise and just abide in itself.
It is complete on its own, because it is only ever awareness there.

The freeing of the illusionary self is not being enjoyed by another self.
This is the ultimate paradox of enlightenment for the self because it can not grasp an unpersonal experience of reality.

@charly233
Very beautifully said. You said some things I would agree and some I would disagree with.

Originally Posted by charly233

For me free will does exist. I can see nothing in existence outside of myself. I see no external reality. Everything is within me. There is nothing outside of myself that is doing stuff to me against my will. Thus I am free.

Exactly, the illusion that free will exists is bound to the illusion of being a separate person inside a universe.

Yes, everything is within you, that is the absolute truth. But not as a belief, as you said it sometimes is hard to sustain this belief.
Until it is Knowing Understanding, it stays a belief no matter how strong.

Originally Posted by charly233

That my beliefs legislate the nature of the universe that I inhabit.

You do not inhabit a universe.
Like you just rightly said: everything is within you.
Where is this universe?
What do you know of the universe except the knowing of it? Where does this knowing take place?
Perceiving of objects, a body, thoughts even the universe does not give anything else reality outside of Knowing/Awareness.
It is not a philosophy or a belief.
Also it has nothing to do with anything spiritual, all spirituality takes place INSIDE the content of awareness, no matter how trancendental a meditation (for example). This of course doesn't mean that these experiences themselves are not real, but they don't point to anything real outside of the experience made of awareness - unconditionend, contentless awareness.

Luntrus

[Rawnrr]

Free will exists only as a perspective, built out of the duality that we as humans can experience as consciousness.
We have the capacity to experience consciousness as an individual, and from that level we perceive life as having free will. However as our awareness of consciousness grows, we begin to see less and less of our own individual consciousness perspective and begin to experience life as part of the bigger picture.
At that point the concept of "free will" becomes a non-issue, because we are now becoming aware of ourselves as part of the bigger whole.

Rawn

[charly233]

Originally Posted by luntrusreality

You do not inhabit a universe.
Luntrus

Lol. Thanks for pointing out the contradiction in my thinking!

Originally Posted by charly233

Lol. Thanks for pointing out the contradiction in my thinking!

Haha don't mention it !

who defines free will, the one on Earrh or one's higher self? obviously, there is a clash righ there

Originally Posted by candelight

who defines free will, the one on Earrh or one's higher self? obviously, there is a clash righ there

There is no self at all.
Free will is a concept of this illusionary self as way to re-enforce it's own sense of reality.
"I am in control!"

Luntrus

[Cmt12]

Originally Posted by luntrusreality

Conditioning of the body/mind, reactions of apparent separation and so on still arise. Thoughts that “pull you in”, it can all arise in awareness.

Yet, you've reached the end? Gone as far as you can go in your evolution and development, in your understanding?

This is how the ego operates - it convinces you that you've reached the end and blinds you from what you are unaware of, of what's possible.

It says,
"Those negative thoughts, negative impulses, and imbalances? Yeah, don't worry about any of that. They will always be there but CONGRATS you're enlightened so you can stop now!"