I have a longstanding practice of observation, which has helped me to develop my capacity to observe my inner world as it relates, reacts and responds to Life without the need to judge or change what arises. A big part of my practice has been to observe how the mind offers endless constructions of my inner and consequently outer reality. And how easily we mistake constructs for reality/truth.
One construct that have surfaced in my experience is the construct of free will and my relationship to this construct. At a certain stage of development, we learn that we have free will and that we have governance over our experience and what we can do in life. Among others, we realize that we can change our thinking, which gives birth to the experience that we have the free will to choose to ‘think the right things’ and thereby influence – have control over – our destiny.
If we deepen our inner observation, we gain deeper awareness of the mind’s need to construct reality and how many constructs that we have created and agreed on as reality, and how easily the mind can just create new constructs to create new realities. None of which takes us to the direct experience of Life, the Divine, The Universe…whatever your preferred construct is.
Eventually this brought me to the observation of the construct of free will. As I stopped reacting and creating meaning of my experiences, and instead began to just be present to my experience and observe how things unfolded, I began to experience that I really had no free will. All that arise in me, arises whether I want or not. I cannot control it. All I can do is to be present and observe.
My free will to change now transformed into the will to be in full acceptance of the moment.
I consequently began to have the dual experience that there was ‘my personal will’ of the mind, as well as the experience of something ‘other’, which we can call the ‘Divine Will’ that worked through me regardless. The more I surrendered my free will to the ‘Divine Will’ the more inner peace I had, but the less control I felt I had over life. And the emptier my mind became.
As we surrender to the construct of ‘Divine Will’, what I believe we partly surrender is our personal identification with having free will, thus control over life. A really obscure idea to the part of ourself that clings to the idea of personal will, and is fearful of not being able to exercise agency and control over its own destiny. However, my experience was that this shift brought a leap in the calmness and stillness of mind.
Since the meaning we give to our experiences keeps changing as we change our experience, I am always finding myself in a dilemma of concluding on my experiences. The alert reader will notice that even in the giving up of free will, a construct is present, although it takes on a more subtle, complex and refined form. Thus, it takes me years of observation before my experience has become so pregnant that I dare birth a stand.
However, I feel I have come far enough in my observations to dare say, that I do not believe that free will exists.
It raises a lot of questions; is it then not my own decision to be rich or poor? Sick or healthy? Happy or Sad? Do I have no influence over my life and experience, when I experience myself as being able to influence my life? Oh, the mind does not like this idea of no free will.
The way I have resolved the paradox within me for the time being is that we have the experience of free will, and that it is a necessary part of our evolutionary journey. It is, among others, tied to the inner duality we experience ourselves and grow through. It allows us to experience the difference between our personal mind and its will and the power of the Divine Mind and its will. It also teaches us a sense of responsibility for Life; our own and others’. And it protects us at times.
When we take away free will, all there is left is experience and the observation of that experience. I have observed in myself and others that the only thing that can truly change people is experience. Either we become tired of an experience and want a new one. An experience has become so uncomfortable that we do something new. Or it simply cease to exist as we do not act on it. It burns out. I think we believe that we have had a free choice in that, but I doubt that we ever did.
As we are meaning makers, it soothes the fear that then arises in us to surrender to ‘something’ – and we can call that something a Divine Will; a loving power existing beyond our grasp that ultimately support us in thriving – whether we call that God, the Divine or Life Intelligence.
It is only the mind that separates us from the direct experience of life as it truly is. It takes a softening of mind and a release of fear to be present with the duality of life, to be able to be with the full experience of our inner and outer life, without a need to distract ourselves from it, or distance ourself from the fullness of the experience. Paradoxically, it takes both a great capacity and stillness of mind and brings a stillness of mind.
The mind’s reluctancy to surrender to the experience of nothingness, and hence needing to create a new construct like God itself, raises a lot of fun questions to explore about free will. It serves a valid purpose to engage those questions.
Though, as I step out of the questioning, what I sense is the freedom that lies beyond the grasp of needing meaning, free will, and to even know whether they exist or not. I sense that in transcending the need for meaning, first then do we experience true meaningfulness. The true nature of just being alive and enjoy the ride, and to not be held captured by the mind’s endless constructions.
Consequently, if we wish to return to the essence of our true nature, we are bound to journey into the experience of the existential discomfort of being alive and that we ultimately have no real choice in our experience.
What we are evidently and ultimately left with is just experiences. I believe all experiences eventually serve to guide us into giving up our personal will – i.e. surrender the mind. What changes as we surrender our personal will and need for identification is our ability to just be with our experience.
This gives rise to new ways of constructing meaning, but from a place where we are no longer bound by the ideas of the past, but are free to form new and unique creative constructs, directly in communion with what we experience as “Divine”.
I sense that we eventually disappear into an inner realm where there is no longer even an observation of the experience, and hence the mind ceases to construct all together. The experiencer disappears, and all that is left is the experience. And then we will know that consciousness is all there is and what that truly means. Just at the time when we no longer care.