ASR: B5: Chapter 2: The Myth of “Free-will”
Our ego will bow, not out of fear — but out of humbleness, in the face of universal truth. Then it will learn to accept and be content with the path it needed to take.
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Discovering my life is a box of unsolved puzzles took me years to realize. Unlike reading a book or watching a movie or being told a story. Those agonizing years seem like they will last forever, and yet they fly by so fast they left me breathless.
The first few pieces of puzzles that I thought are meant to fit together — does fit together. But they are not meant to be together as I later discovered. One of such many pieces are the fact that: Free will, as we name it, as we call it, is an illusion to only a privileged few.
We convince ourselves that we have free will. Yet, our “free will” is customized to our custom life. Our “free will” is limited by the choices and opportunities we are given in any certain situations. Sometimes when the choices and opportunities that appear before us are not much of a choice. In cases where people are forced into a corner, and it comes down to “do or die”. Where does that leave free-will? Many people who believe in the illusion of free-will are often privileges and given choices that are pleasant to make and opportunities that are possible to accomplish by their status and position.
For example: It is easy to believe in something when you are surrounded by it. But what happens when you are not? What do you say to those who does not have any easy options? No little girl born will be taught to say she should desire to be a prostitute when she grows up so that she can support herself or take care of her family. No child borne will be taught to say it wish to live in poverty, then to die from lack of food and medication. No child will be taught to say, “I want to be homeless when I get older.”
So, if “Free will” exist, and it is within our mean to decide. Why are there so many people suffering poverty and are homeless? Do you think that is a choice they have? “Free will” without the permission of the greater design is an illusion. It is easy to believe in free-will when it is written in your destiny. Many people who can convince themselves and taught this illusion to others are often privileged. What does privilege give birth to, if not arrogant and a touch of self-righteousness?
I have learned that nothing blind humanity more than our own ego. Ego will allow us to hear one inspiring story about someone making their way out of poverty and into riches and some of us will think they are right to feel entitled: “People deserve what they get. So, I deserve what I get because I worked ‘hard’ for it.” Someone I knew once told me they believed they worked hard for their degree and office job, so they deserve the luxury in life that they are given. They believe that those who suffers are because it is their own fault for not working hard enough, or not being smart enough, or because it is their karma.
When I clarified by asking if they think they worked harder than someone in a third world country, who is outside in the burning sun. Working 12 hours days on an onion field, to earn 50 cent a day until they are blinded. All so they can feed and support their family — the person responded with a confident “yes!” When I asked if the person honestly think in that group of field worker there is no one with an IQ beyond them — they responded yes. The “confident” and arrogant answer baffled me; how someone who is this shallowed could be so decorated and celebrated for their “intellect”. That is the first time in my life, I questioned our social system and it direct effect upon me.
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Back when I was lost to myself, I look to the world around me to tell me who I am, who I should be, what I should be, and what I should do. What I am told and what I am taught does not feel right, but because there is no one to testify otherwise. Other, than an insistence “voice” inside my head, some strange unexplainable events; that I am also taught I cannot trust to guide me. I am forced to live in constant disorientation and doubts of higher truths. My doubts allow me to attach myself onto illusions and allow my ego to rise in the form of determination. I believed that where the will is strong enough, where I am determined enough, I can set my own path. This is what I have learned from what I am taught by others.
Being a learner, I love to learn, I am once asked if I could be student forever, would I? I did not hesitated to answer yes. Thus, I was devastated when life circumstances and financial situation forces me to stop my academic pursue and enrolled me full-time in the ‘School of Life’. Growing up in a culture were getting a “good” education and what was marketed as the “good” job — was ingrained into you as the most important things you must accomplish in your life. Not only was I devastated on a mental level, but I also felt devastated on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Because I have attached a lot of effort and a lot of my beliefs, hopes and dreams on accomplishing what everyone tells me was “the ultimate success”.
Devastated, but determined not to give up, I have tried time and time again to believe I have “free will”; that my path are mine to decide and no one else. But the determination of a mere moral was nothing compared to the greater force of the universe and its will. When cornered and forced to submit, I have no other choice but to surrender over what was left of my ego and allow the illusion to fade to dust.
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Hence my quest in search of “free will” resulted in staggering revelations. I clashed wills with the higher power times and times again. Being stubbornly ignorant, with nothing to lose — I fought the will of destiny with everything I have got. As a result, my life was ripe apart, and I was forced to submit and surrender what was left of my ego again and again. In place of my ego, I learned to accept, to adapt, and to adjust my life according to the constant tests that rains down upon me. I learned lessons and made realizations that can only be understand by one who have experienced it first-hand. By one who have fought it with everything she has.
Thus, having gone on the quest for “free will” with many epics fails behind me, I can confidently and humbly now say what I say in this book. For those who think I do not know what I am talking about. Those who insist that “free will” exist: Open your eyes! See, not just look. Really see what you are looking at. See the obvious evident of all those around you, make a trip to a third world if you have too. Before you get too offended and insist on calling me delusional or any other names that you may like.
Do you seriously think it is “free-will” for a girl-child or boy-child to be kidnap or sold into sex trafficking? For an elderly to die alone on the street in a third world country — forgotten? For someone to come down with an incurable disease because that is what they want? Do you think it is their physical conscious self that will and forces them into those condition and situation?
Seriously, all those who think they are so “strong” and “confident” now. If time is reversed and you are stripped of all the accomplishments, all the opportunities, and privilege you are given. Being an innocent child again and you are placed in such situation. How “strong” can you be stripped of your ignorant, stripped of your experiences that gives you the confidence you have now and faced with such reality? Do you think an innocent, defenseless child can fight back against heartless parents or the scumbags that lost all their humanity?
Do you think it is fair to belittle this child who grow up surviving the horrible conditions and traumatic tragedy of being kidnap and sold? Even if she/he grew up and end up on the street, what right do we have to our place of looking down on them and call them weak, pathetic, and beneath us? In their place, we might not survive long enough to grow up to be the snob we are.
So be mindful to not disrespect others for their trial in life. Be thankful that they are strong enough to survive to be the example that we need to be who we are. Be thankful it is not us who must live that life. Because we might not be strong enough to survive it to fulfill our mission set up by the source.
It takes a different kind of strength and a different kind of power and sophistication on to be trusted by the source to perform the kind roles that we are superficially taught is beneath our pretentious standard. So, let us not shame ourselves by looking down on those that are advanced beyond us. If they do not judge us for our ignorance, we should not disrespect their gifts to us by being ungrateful.
