Free Will and the Nature of "I"
El libre albedrío y la naturaleza del "yo"
A student raises the classic question of whether we have free will, and proposes that the answer depends entirely on what we mean by "I." The teacher responds by pointing to the deeper issue of causality and time.
Free Will and the Nature of "I"
A student raises the classic question of whether we have free will, and proposes that the answer depends entirely on what we mean by "I." The teacher responds by pointing to the deeper issue of causality and time.
Forty years ago, when I first became interested in spirituality, the first question I had was: do we have free will? For forty years I did not get the correct answer. Now my answer is that the question cannot be answered as it stands, because in order to frame the question properly, we must first define what we mean by "I." Do I have free will? Depending on the nature of "I," depending on what you take "I" to be, the answer will differ.
If we take the "I" to be the personal "I," the illusory personal self, and ask, "Do I have free will?" then no. Zero free will. But if an awakened being asks whether he has free will, then he has one hundred percent free will, because his will is the divine will. He and the divine are one.
You can refer to that also as "I," because the word is the same, but it means something entirely different. When I say "I," I mean the ego, the personal self, and it has no free will. But for the enlightened master, when he says "I," he means the divine, because he is one with the divine.
The question behind the question
Causality. Time does not exist, though for us time exists.