This is all to say: All glory belongs to God. It changes nothing. There is no separate self to exercise such a "free" will. This is God's will. How do I know? Because it is.
Nice one, only one thing: Conciousness would never ask of free will bc freedom is its nature, so the question of free will only arise as ego and ego has no free will (on ultimate level). Free will cannot be free without freedom to choose between having free will or not.
Consciousness is the only thing that ever can ask or answer a question. It may pose as ego to do it. That is the freedom of consciousness. It can appear as anything, even ignorance. In fact, if you observe you’ll see that consciousness appears as ignorance, mostly by default in the human avatars. it is all inclusive. It embraces all.
@@oolala53 Reflected Con is inert therefore no free will or freedom is involved. It is in fact matter. And "original Con" is nondual therefore no freedom bc it is not a doer.
@@moksha2280 Thank you! You explained it in a way that I can finally understand. The one who's asking about free will is the separate Self. Consciousness is always free! Now this is the part I don't get: If what you said is true, then who is making people choose wars, hate, violence, etc.? Who is "thinking " those thoughts? Who is running this show? My separate Self wants to know bc it can't understand why humans are destroying the earth. Thank you 🙏
Based on my own direct experience, there is from the standpoint of Reality no free will in a person. Every happening is purely scripted, but. - the Truth is always a paradox - Reality doesn’t need to know what is going to happen. Reality is totally careless about what is happening or going to happen (in the illusory universe), because it is without cause (no dependency on anything else) and it is deathless (never dies). Imagine you are the only “essence” that exists, you depend on nothing, you are an infinite potential , not limited by anything because there is nothing outside yourself that is greater (or even smaller but independent), how could we speak of free will even for Reality? If there is only ONE, how could there be a need to will something, you are already everything, you are already Perfection (beyond description). What would be there to will? Isn’t “will” or “free will” always related to a motivation? But by what should Reality be motivated? Out of the omnipotence of Reality, there APPEARED an illusory universe. But there is no known or describable process by which the universe “happened” or keeps on happening. We call it “dreaming”, but dreaming doesn’t explain one bit. The word “dream” only offers a word and a framework by which not yet enlightened people can be drawn to an alternative paradigm in which the universe is no longer considered real. Nothing is truly known!!! Once one has had a true Samadhi experience, one understands there was nothing to understand. There is only “being(ness)”, but beingness has nothing to do with personhood or animalhood or planthood or dirthood/rockhood, … Beingness is again just a word to draw people away from the gross physical/mental identification mechanism. To conclude: how everything truly is at the level of Reality, so it is ALSO on the level of the illusion (universe). So if at the level of Reality there is no such thing as understanding what one Truly is, all the investigations going on in the illusion on any matter remain as well totally not understandable. Physics or religion show always the Next Question that needs to be solved. And it will go on forever like that. There will never be a Final Answer or a First Cause to anything. Fundamentally everything remains unknown. The same applies to Free Will. As it is not present or needed at the level of Reality, so also is it truly ALSO not present in the illusion (universe). There is simply no magic whatsoever whereby we - as Reality - have turned its fundamental Not Knowing into knowing by creating an Illusion. So we the clues about the fundamental nature of Reality are hidden in plain sight inside the Illusion. We simply have to give up all concepts, and that means also giving up the illusion of Free Will. And lastly, ponder this!!! Let’s assume free will exists. Doesn’t the fact that you could exercise free will mean you are somehow unhappy or neurotic about something, doesn’t it mean you simply cannot accept a certain situation as it is!? Ponder this deeply!!!! And contrast this with the sayings of many saints/sages/traditions that have all made clear statements that “there is absolutely nothing wrong with the world”, there is a total acceptance of what APPEARS to be happening. Total acceptance in Realty stands in total contrast to the illusory concept of free will in the illusion.
Ramana would have asked: who wants to know if there is free will. And that is exactly the point. Before there can be anything like will or freedom the has first to be a separate self to claim it. This is the expulsion from Paradise, the perceived loss of unity that's needing to control events and circumstances. 😘🙏
TLDR: "Freedom is on the level of consciousness-zero freedom on the level of the individual." Thoughts & Thinker: "If we look at the way decisions happen, they come as thoughts ... At the time of a thought, there is no thinker of the thought because consciousness is completely one with the thought. The perceiver (consciousness) and the perceived (thoughts) are one-they are indissociable. So, the thinker of the thought comes as an afterthought claiming, 'I (a separate entity) created this thought.' But, this separate entity that claims to be the thinker of the thought, itself is an object that appears in consciousness. It was consciousness that was the thinker ... Only consciousness thinks. Because decisions appear as thoughts, it is consciousness that makes the decisions, not a separate entity." Unfree (body-mind) & Free (consciousness): "As a body or as a separate mind, there is no freedom. But, on the other hand, you can say, 'Yes, but I feel that there is freedom when I decide.' At that moment, you are free, but as consciousness. So, then there is 'free will' or 'freedom to choose' as consciousness. 'Free will' means what? It means a will that comes from freedom. Consciousness is freedom. It may create a will-a will that comes from freedom ... The will that comes from freedom is always fulfilled, always executed ... The will that comes from freedom is the will of consciousness-it's the impersonal will ... It is only consciousness that decides. Our decisions come from consciousness. They are cosmic events, and all events come from freedom. The place of freedom is universal ... The place of true will is in consciousness ... We are free as consciousness. We are free, and we are consciousness." Ignorance & Liberation: "It's always consciousness that chooses ignorance because there is nobody else to choose anything ... Ignorance is a manifestation of the divine will, and liberation is also the manifestation of the divine will ... From the vantage point of wisdom, ignorance is not a problem."
One can respond to this question much more directly and simply by pointing out that the issue of free will versus versus determinism only arises for the sense of a separate individual, a person, human being, however you want to say it. Only that false sense of self (small 's') would ask this question. Just see that - what you are not - and obviously, there's no issue. Going on and on talking about "consciousness" gives the impression of it being an object, and it becomes a (dualistic) system, complex, and just more thinking and delay. However, that requires a certain “maturity”, and what’s given in this video is good for those new to the understanding who have a lot of beliefs to deconstruct, and are of a more stubborn or “demanding intellect” as most Westerners are (*I* certainly was that way. :) ). The only problem then, is one then has to deconstruct the Francis “book” haha…
