Do we have free will?

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen

I'm free to do all the things a puppy would or could do on a leash..

What can we add to this sublime orientation?

[Unseeking Seeker]

Swami Sarvapriyananda on free will ~ https://youtu.be/VzbyeU3dK4g

[Altair]

Yes, I believe we have free will. Though at the same time I see it more as a flow that doesn't necessarily means ''I can do whatever I want''. Just like freedom in society comes with certain responsibilities I think it's the same on a larger spiritual scale. There is freedom but within boundaries, you can call it ''chaorder''.

[Redchic12]

Yeah a good point Altair. Have to agree with that.

[hazada guess]

No one judges us apart from ourselves. When we pass, we may have an urge to reincarnate to put our mistakes right.(In my opinion).

[HopelessHermit]

A person I once knew said they believed there was a bit of each. On our day to day minor decisions like what to wear, eat, what to do for recreation we have free will. However, on our life path and major things we need to experience and lessons we needed to learn then there is more of a degree of determinism. I am not really sure myself. Determinism leaves me somewhat unsettled, though.

[lemex]

Very nice Altair. We are suppose to observe and see through experience.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

One question yet remains: what triggers the choiceless choice of identity-less Self in singularity to descend into duality? There is then, it seems, another veil to be pierced, even in that superlative state of being-ness.

Certain spiritual philosophies teach that the identity-less Self is one with the Absolute, the drop in the Ocean, beyond which there is no other. Which naturally gives rise to the questions of how and why this Self comes to descend from the Absolute into duality in a state of apparent separation.

But certain schools of esotericism have a different approach. They teach that on the overall scale of Consciousness we humans are fairly low down. Our consciousness exists within a still greater Consciousness, that of the Being whose physical body is our planet Earth. And there is a still greater Consciousness beyond, that of the Being whose physical body is our Sun. And so on.

And the highest aspect of the human is the Monad, the unit of Being which we call the Self. Human enlightenment is not the realisation of the Absolute but is instead the identification with Monadic consciousness. So the identity-less Self for humans is not one with the Absolute but is instead one with a relative absolute (if I can use such a term).

So the Self does not choose to leave the singularity. Instead all human Monads are swept into activity by greater forces way beyond the Self in cycles of unimaginable length. These are part of the natural cycles of manifestation and dissolution.

And in one sense the Monad does not descend into duality. Instead it remains on its own Monadic plane, sending out an extension in the form of Consciousness which then sends out its own extension into the human vehicle in the worlds of form.

And our entire human journey is the journey back to identification with Monadic consciousness. Which does not mean that we cease to exist in Absolute non-existence, but instead we move on to a greater sphere of learning and experience.

This is what is taught by certain schools of the Ancient Wisdom. Which makes more sense to me than the idea that a human being becomes one with God as the Absolute.

And I appreciate that these ideas from esoteric philosophy may be of limited appeal to most people, but it always seems worth putting them out there.

Peace

[kris]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

Being what we always were and are, the eternal self-existent light of Self, in ineffable peace, feeling complete, renewing itself within itself, with no doing or going or coming to be done ~ a singularity, which we may metaphorically call heaven, as of choiceless choice, there is a descent, so to say, into duality, wherein remembrance of our true Self is soon forgotten, as we enter hypnotic trance in a form constituted of matter belonging to that realm, in our case here, from earth, water, fire, air and ether.

I doubt it was a choiceless choice. What would drive a choiceless choice?

Theoretically ‘we’ disappears when we enter Nonduality…..we become ‘I’. Free will is operative in this world..bit not there. I view as the freedom from choice which paradoxically is pure freedom.