Who Is Ultimately the Decider - Free Will?
Written on July 13, 2008 by Tom Stine
I recently received an email from Ariel Bravy that I really enjoyed and couldn’t wait to answer. With his kind permission, I’m going to answer it here. Ready? I’m going to break the email down section by section and respond to each part. Here we go:
Hey Tom,You seem to be a pretty spiritually advanced seeker as well and I was wondering
if I could bounce some ideas off of you. Perhaps you could help bring some
clarity to something I’m looking at…
I’m going to start off with one of the first things Ariel mentions, not because I’m nitpicky today, but because it is something that I feel should always be addressed. And that is the idea of “spiritual seeker.” While I’m grateful for the compliment I’m given, I also want to point out that letting go of the spiritual seeker is an important thing. We spend so much time seeking that we rarely find. So much of the spiritual journey requires that we stop, just stop, right where we are, and let what is be what it is. No seeking. No pursuing. Just stopping and looking at what we’ve already found.
None of which addresses Ariel’s email, but still, it is important to make this point over and over again as it relates ultimately to spiritual awakening.
Following the self-inquiry of Who am I?, I’m finding that there is no decision
maker. With that understood, how does decision making and free will operate?
You got it, Ariel. There is no decision maker. I know that will be a tough one for lots of people to accept, but that has been a central teaching of Buddhism, for example, from the beginning (and many other -isms for that matter). It just keeps getting brought to our awareness century after century. And yet, a careful looking within will always demonstrate this simple fact: there is no self. Self-inquiry is such a marvelous tool. Useful in more ways than just for spiritual awakening.
The way I see it now is that the ego is like an automated process that takes in
all data, memories, desires, experiences, and so on in order to calculate the
most likely choice which will lead to egoic satisfaction and pleasure.
Ariel, you are a lot more generous to the ego than I am. To be honest, I don’t know how the ego works. I simply know that thoughts arise, they pass through my awareness, and then they are gone. The vast majority of them have virtually no useful purpose as they simply are commentary on my experiences.
You know, I love what Eckhart Tolle said about the ego: “It is no more than … identification with form, which primarily means thought forms.” In other words, the ego is simply a thought about who I am, what I am, a placing of my identity in things and thoughts. If that is true, which I submit it is, then giving the ego any attributes or characteristics doesn’t quite work for me. I prefer to see it for what it is, a chaotic, conditioned collection of mostly subconscious thoughts, and then always look beyond it, realizing it is nothing more than the “noise in my head.”
The higher self, on the other hand, doesn’t really make decisions either. It
simply knows the “best” path to walk to head towards the highest truths. It’s a
knowingness, not a decision, per se.
Okay, to be honest, and again this idea won’t be palatable to some, I don’t believe in a higher self. I go with Ramana Maharshi on this one: there is only Self. Period. Who is looking out of my eyes right now? Who is typing these words? Who is thinking my thoughts? Who am I? Self. One Self. Undivided. One with everything and everyone. Self. One without a second as Ramana used to say.
Now, that Self can appear to be unconscious as it expresses itself as Tom Stine, Ariel, Madonna or George Bush, but it is still the same Self, One, whole. I know that this seems contradictory, but my experience would say that it is true. Always One Self. Spirit. Life. God.
And this, my friends, points to what spiritual awakening is all about. It is awakening from the delusion that I am a separate self, an ego, a Tom Stine that is a body in this world. That is the sum and substance of all of spirituality right there: awakening from the dream called “me.”
Let me go further with Ariel’s email before I discuss further the points he makes above.
The ego may consider listening to the higher self if it is understood that by
following this process, one could reach the bliss, joy, freedom, and security
associated with enlightenment, again using practices such as releasing or
surrender for its own egoic desires.
Again, given what the ego is, a collection of conditioned thoughts filled with misplaced identity, I don’t think the ego “listens” to anything. It just reacts. It is a gigantic reaction to what is being experienced.
The Self that I am, that which you are, the One, is simply being deluded in a sense by placing attention on these condition thoughts. What we are is temporarily lost in thought you could say. Lost in a dream of judgments and reactions.
So there is no decision maker making decisions. There is a higher self as well
as a false mentally projected self who has the thoughts and emotions of the
mind attached to it.Who is ultimately the decider of how we use our free will? Who decides if we
listen to our egos or our higher selves?Any ideas?
Now we come to the heart of Ariel’s email. Who decides, then, how to use our free will? Who decides? Well, first of all, I have no free will. You have no free will. It isn’t that free will doesn’t exist. It is just that “I” don’t exist and “you” don’t exist. There is no separate self. There is no one here. If you do inquiry, and look within, and discover there is no decider, there is also no self. No one home. In Buddhism it is called the Doctrine of No Self.
So who decides? The Self, which is synonymous with Life, the Universe, God, Spirit, Buddha Nature, whatever you want to call it. The entire totality of Life, that is what makes the decisions. The fundamental ground of being, that’s the decider.
But even calling it decision making is missing the mark somehow. It isn’t really decision. Life simply flows. It arises from itself. It gives forth. It loves. It experiences. I think you could really say “It Operates,” but that doesn’t seem poetic enough. It simply IS.
But then, is there free will? Well, not in any human sense can it be said there is free will. But does the Self have free will? Does Life have free will? I think the question to ask would be “free of what?” Life is all there is. From what is it free to make decisions? It IS all decision making. There is nothing outside of it. It not only makes the rules, it IS the rules!
Answering your email, Ariel, was fun, and I’m deeply grateful for not only the questions but allowing me to answer them publicly. I hope all the above is clear to you and to everyone. And I hope I answered your questions! If not, hit the comments and let me know. I would love to hear from everyone. I always enjoy answering more questions. Namaste my friends.
on July 13th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Another case of think less be more
Question I have is where do these thoughts/feelings come from, are they separate from ‘Self’?
They seem more separate from ‘me’ than say the laptop in front of me.
Jarrod - Warrior Development’s last blog post..How to Not Hate your Job
on July 13th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Hey Tom, thanks for taking on my question. Instead of calling you a seeker, I’ll call you ___________ because there is no you.
So would you say that like the experience of physical reality, free will is something that we experience despite the fact that it doesn’t truly exist?
I agree with you in that there is only one Self. Higher and lower selves are both aspects of one “YOU” in the same way that you and I are unique aspects of one Oneness. It’s a way to talk about “us” as we vibrate on multiple frequencies simultaneously, not necessarily a way to break up Oneness into separateness.
Your/Ramana’s model certainly does simplify things, however.
It seems that in essence, the way you describe the ego reacting is the same way I’m describing it as listening. Input/output. It’s reacting to what it listens to. The intuition (one method we use to communicate to the ego) is one thing the ego could react to.
I’m not sure I can understand that there is no deciding taking place. There are emotions, but no one to actually have the emotions. There is decision making, but no one to make the decisions.
Maybe the flow of Life model is somewhat limited. For example, a droplet in a river doesn’t decide which side of a rock to flow around. It just flows along the pathway of least resistance. On the other hand, the body/mind has the ability to decide which side of a rock to swim around. There is a decision-making process going on on some level.
As for what “free will” is free of, it’s free of all limitation. Like Life, free will is limitless. It has the capacity to limit itself by believing it is limited, but that is just one of the infinite possibilities. There exists the capacity to believe or choose anything and thus experience it, regardless of if it’s ultimately real or not.
Free will is not free from something that doesn’t exist. It’s free from limitation. It IS freedom. Life is freedom. Freedom is analogous to Life, God, Love, Truth, and Joy.
It still feels like decision-making is happening despite the fact that there is no one to make the decisions. Thus, if there’s no one there, it must be happening autonomously…
on July 13th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
@Jarrod I agree: be more. You can’t help the thinking, but you can let it be, too.
As for where thoughts and feelings come from: now THAT’S another interesting question! Short answer: they come from Self because ALL IS SELF. There is and can be nothing else. However, they are conditioned by the “mind” or ego as they arise, and take form similar to what has arisen before. Ever notice how your thoughts get stuck in a groove? But again, all that is still occurring in and on the background of Self, or Spirit, or the One. I think another blog post is coming! See, this stuff is fun! Thanks for the great question.
on July 13th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
@ Ariel
Most of us accept that freewill is a voluntary choice or decision. At least, that is how the term is generally used.
There are many questions that arise from your wonderful comment.
Can the ego, the self, or whatever it is called, listen? Listening implies an active movement. If one is listening, he or she gives attention to sound. It is something that is unfolding from moment to moment. But can the ego unfold, or flower? Or is it only capable of referencing what it already knows? If it only references old material, how is it possible for it to react to anything outside itself? Does this make any sense to you?
If you are speaking to me, and I am “listening” with the ego, am I hearing you at all? Or am I referencing my own old material to see if I agree or not? If you say something and I disagree and become angry, is it because of you, or is it because of what the self has referenced within it self?
It is simple, really. The divided mind believes it can make a decision. But this is based on what happens within; its reaction to itself. None of this is good or bad, right or wrong. Find out for yourself what is there. Don’t believe me, whatever you do!
Some have said it is an identification with whatever the self comes into contact with, but that is not quite right. It is an identification with itself. If I see something and identify myself through it, is it due to the object, or my idea of the object? The self can only work with what it already knows, so how can anything outside of us be responsible for anything?
Freewill is decision making. Are we together here? Decision making is the domain of the self that believes it has a choice. I choose this, and not that. I choose her, and not him, and so on. Now, can you choose something you do not know? If you have no knowledge of something, no experience, no memory, can you choose at all? Are we still together here? So, is choice, freewill, etc., based on what has come before? Go into it and see.
If freewill is based on memory and all its devices; thought, the self, the center, etc.; is it limitless? Thought itself is limited, so how can the design of thought be limitless? We may have made a jump here if you do not see the limitation of thought, but look into it and find out what thought is, how it moves and operates. If freewill is based off of thought, what happens? If thought is limited, and freewill is built from that limited matter, can it ever be unlimited?
I am not saying yes it is or no it isn’t. One has to be curious enough to see it all without accepting it from anyone.
I’ll stop here as it is becoming rather long.
Takuin Minamoto’s last blog post..What is Your Point of View?
on July 13th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
@Taukin: Very interesting comments on free will, Thanks.
@Tom: So you are saying that SELF ‘appears’(thought) is then conditioned by SELF (ego) and then SELF(observer) lets SELF(thought) go.
I don’t know if I agree. When I was totally identified in thoughts/feelings I would feel unconnected with the external world. Then I discovered the ability to observe thoughts/feelings and started discarding them. I felt a connection to people and the physical world but a different connection to thoughts/feelings.
I’m not saying they are ‘not’ me, but maybe more that they are a different me. Like a layer of complexity on top of me. When I strip everything that makes a thought a thought away rather than being left with nothing I find an element that feels like me the observer remains where the thought was.
That reads very confusingly
Jarrod - Warrior Development’s last blog post..How to Not Hate your Job
on July 13th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
@Tom
“As for where thoughts and feelings come from: now THAT’S another interesting question! Short answer: they come from Self because ALL IS SELF. There is and can be nothing else.”
Well sure. Everything in the universe is energy, the energy of Self. It’s characteristics vary depending upon its frequency of vibration. The ego is simply a collection of thoughts and thoughts are pure energy. So in essence, it is made up of the same “stuff” but the experience of the energy and what the awareness is aware of is very different whether the energy is filtered through the ego or not. Love and fear may be made up of the same energy, but the experience of them is radically different. The musical note A sounds different than the musical note F, despite them simply being vibrations of sound waves.
@Taukin
The term “listening” was not intended to be limited to sounds only. It was meant to be what’s taken in by all five physical senses as well as the sixth nonphysical intuitive sense. “Listening”, as discussed in this context, is an awareness of the way energy is input to the body. Sorry for the confusion.
The ego can not “flower” the way a flower literally does because it is representing a separate human mind, not the consciousness of a flower. It is representing a different aspect of Allness yet it is made up of the same “stuff” (energy) as the flower.
“If you are speaking to me, and I am “listening” with the ego, am I hearing you at all? Or am I referencing my own old material to see if I agree or not? If you say something and I disagree and become angry, is it because of you, or is it because of what the self has referenced within it self?”
That is an excellent point. Its reactions are certainly a projection of its own state of being and it mistakenly labels external events as “causes” to its state. Pure ego takes in data, compares it to what it already knows in its memory bank, and then produces a reaction based on its own internal programming. What you pointed out is accurate in the sense that it’s really dealing with its own narcissistic self, not so much external reality. All of the “good” and “bad” things in external reality are simply egoic projections based on its judgments.
“The divided mind believes it can make a decision. But this is based on what happens within; its reaction to itself.”
Awesome.
“It is an identification with itself. If I see something and identify myself through it, is it due to the object, or my idea of the object?”
Bingo. It’s dealing with its own mental boxes of external reality, its labels and judgments. It’s dealing with the appearances of objects, not the essence of external objects themselves.
“The self can only work with what it already knows, so how can anything outside of us be responsible for anything?”
We are responsible for what happens outside of our selves in the sense that we created it within our reality. We’re certainly not responsible for the choices and actions of others, but only for our own actions and who we choose to be. Who we choose to be an our actions lead to an inevitable creation of consequences which are neither good nor bad, but similar in vibration to its sponsoring thoughts.
“If you have no knowledge of something, no experience, no memory, can you choose at all?”
Yes of course. The paradox is that it’s free to choose whatever it wants, but ONLY within the context of known possibilities.
Yet even within the limited realm of possibilities ,and assuming we are closed off from the infinite creative Source of all creation whereby new ideas and concepts can flow into us, so assuming we are coming purely from the ego and its known number of (seemingly finite) choices, there is no limitation on which choices can be selected. Which choice is selected is determined by a seemingly infinite number of variables that the ego processes in parallel, with some variables being more important than others.
It’s much like a car that can go up to 100 mph. It can do any speed between 0-100mph. It has an infinite number of selections and is thus unlimited despite apparent limitations.
I hope this makes sense.
Ariel’s last blog post..My God can beat up your God
on July 14th, 2008 at 9:30 am
@Jarrod Yes, I get the confusion with SELF as everything. But there really is no escaping it. As every layer is seen through, we always end back at the fundamental. It is inescapable. No matter what layers appear on the surface, they are not real. We experience those layers, sure, but that is all. Notice that when you peel away all that makes a thought, only you remain. That’s how it seems to work.
@Takuin Too much to make one little comment!
Basically, you and I see free will in the same light.
on July 14th, 2008 at 9:36 am
@Ariel “So in essence, it is made up of the same ’stuff’ but the experience of the energy and what the awareness is aware of is very different whether the energy is filtered through the ego or not.” My main comment is that we should never lose site of the fact that all comes from the same “stuff.” The mind would have us so quickly and easily start looking for explanations and understandings about how all the experience is layered, how it works, how it functions, how it is structured. And on and on. But in a certain sense, there is only Heaven. No preferred seats, no better locations, no paradise here and not so great there. Just One.
Notice that the Buddha, Jesus, various Zen masters, you name it, they all keep bringing us back to the fundamental. Always the fundamental. We notice, we experience, we allow for what passes across awareness, but we always know we are the awareness. We find ourselves acting, we notice thoughts, we feel feelings, but again all that is experience. My main point is that wondering about the different notes is more of the ego’s game. We simply notice A is not F sharp, we love the difference, but we have no more invested in it than that. Does that make sense?
on July 14th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Great post Tom, and awesome comments everyone!
It’s like when I lose my keys and search for it actively it seems to elude me even more. Only when I stop looking that it reveals itself to me. Always under the couch (On second thought, maybe I should start looking under the couch from here on out^_^)
RJ’s last blog post..The Joy Of Now
on July 14th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
@John: So would you agree that it is necessary to make the effort to strip away those layers? A matter of piercing to the heart of things.
Jarrod - Warrior Development’s last blog post..Life is Simple
on July 14th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
@RJ You got it. The search is a part of the very thing that keeps us stuck.
@Jarrod It depends on what you are after. For waking up to the truth, stripping layers is completely unnecessary. And a hindrance, to be honest. There are always more layers. If you simply want to have a better functioning life (that will still screw up from time to time), then stripping layers is useful. But you will always be stripping layers. Waking up to the truth in and of itself strips away all the layers in sense. At least, you see behind them. And as the awakening progresses, you keep getting called into action to see past all the layers. It is really more of a “seeing past” than a stripping. Things like the Sedona Method and Byron Katie are good at stripping layers.
on July 14th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
“Waking up to the truth in and of itself strips away all the layers in sense”
That is the sense that I meant it. Not a mental activity of stripping away things, more of a direct perception.
I’ll check out the methods you mentioned. I find direct observation to be very useful. Thanks.
Jarrod - Warrior Development’s last blog post..Life is Simple
on July 14th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Great discussion. Here’s my two cents on free will:
We have free will only if we are totally identified with the Self, the egoic Self. When we begin to awaken, free will goes out the window. We are caught up in the flow of Life and our choices, consciously or unconsciously, are the result of our awakeness. I’m not saying that Life (or Presence or God) guides us because that may imply that our destiny is predetermined. The choices I’ve made after reading _The New Earth_ a couple months ago, and practicing the Method for the past few weeks produced some profound outcomes, not only for me, but also for the ones I “let go” on. If my ego-driven self was practicing free will, I don’t think I would have purchased the _Sedona Method_, and I certainly wouldn’t be offering my opinion to the internet sages on my views of awareness.
@Jarrod I read the Sedona Method that Tom is touting and am having some amazing results.
@Tom Great site! Lots of good stuff here.
on July 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
@Dan: I looked up the sedona method and tried the sample method on the website. I can see why it works, but it seems like a rather round about way to go about it. You don’t need to use the thinking mind to release. The questions help us understand the separation of feeling and ‘us’, from that it explains that as separate we can let go.
If you watch for feelings you can see them as they arise (or you look back into your past), once observed you can let go. No need for the mind, just consciousness. This is probably what it is getting at (I don’t own it myself so I don’t know). I don’t really want to turn this into a Sedona Method comment thread so I’ll stop.
Jarrod - Warrior Development’s last blog post..Life is Simple
on July 15th, 2008 at 4:41 am
@Tom:
This is true, but it seems searching gets an unnecessarily bad rep.
People know there’s something more to life and start searching for higher level Truths, perhaps in books, teachers, ideas, concepts, exercises, meditations, and so on. It turns out the search leads them to looking within and finding out the Truth of who they are and the seeking/searching turns into self-inquiry and taking a deep look within, but it’s generally the searching that helps lead them to this stage.
So yes searching is something to eventually be dropped, but it’s not necessarily something that should be avoided by all. Searching is just one stage, a stage that’s eventually transcended.
That’s a really good way of putting it!
Coming back to the appearance of free will, it seems that instead of there truly being a doer, it’s more like Consciousness continuing to attract like energies unto itself. The more it makes a certain level of decision, the greater the likelihood to “choose” something and flow energy into an aspect of life that vibrates on a similar frequency of vibration.
So it’s more about Consciousness abiding at a particular level and attracting like energies than it is a decision maker making decisions based on this or that.
Ariel’s last blog post..Struggles Cease When You Cease Struggling
on July 15th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Wow, lots of comments today!
@Jarrod Don’t worry too much about the Sedona Method. It is a very useful process IF you are still identified with the “me” or ego. It works wonders. However, once you see beyond it, no need to do it. Actually, the point of the method is to take the mind to the point where release naturally occurs. As they like to say: “you give the mind something constructive to do so it doesn’t chew up the furniture.”
@Dan Hmm…. what if I said that the egoic self has no free will? What if it were just a conditioned to the hilt series beliefs that had no more choice than the man on the moon? I don’t know if that is true, but my experience has led me to a conclusion like that. Who knows if it is right or not. The only freedom seems to be freedom FROM this conditioned thing called ego.
@Ariel I’m not down on searching per se. It seems for most people to be an inevitable part of the journey. The usual advaita line “there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go” is often quite useless. However, that said, when the searcher drops away, so does the search.
As for how Consciousness operates, to be honest, I have no idea. It just does. Stuff happens. As I open to it, as I realize that I am that (to borrow from Nisargadatta), Life begins to just happen. I like it that way. Endless happening. Not trying to be vague, but it seems to me that it is a mystery, unfathomable.
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