The freedom of will

Crevy,

When we are speaking of freedom of will, our ego obstructs us from going with our will to do something, ie. it is what makes us go against our will to do something. When our more negative egotistical side prevails, we always go against our will because we have little control, we just burst out of anger or whatever emotion even though our will is strong. If our sense of will is strong enough, we can free ourselves from the bondage of ego.

Your example of complete love, the person does not have complete love, because if he had complete love, all of his actions would be completely lovely. One can never be at an extreme of a positive emotion or negative emotion.

When we have an intent or a desire to do something, whatever it may be, we are WILLING to fulfill this desire to manifest, but depending on how FREE we are from our negative ego we are, our will is strong enough to manifest any desire to manifest in reality.

Regards,
Fajin

Hi fajin;

If I understand you, free will is the ability to be free of the negative ego? If yes, than its just a matter of what is an effective method to do this? If you say yes, WOW, all our talk to finally agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bagua

Bagua,

Free will is only free if the negative ego does not constrict willpower or will to do something. So yes, will becomes free if the negative ego does not stand over it with a club! On this I agree. It is only, like you said, the how we disagree with. The how to be free of the negative ego. My say on it is to transform on it, by your say is to attune to the center and have a healthy role for the ego. This is where we disagree.

Although, I like you Bagua. I do like your approach of integrating Chan and Dao. It’s a very interesting approach! I just prefer my way of it much better, which is why I do it because I am convinced it has a higher level of free will. To me, this is what sets different paths, or roadmaps of getting to the absolute goal, the level of free will. So, it’s all a matter of what to do about the ego that allows free will.

And so this leads us back to the beginning of the ego discussion of what to do about it. Fusion or cultivating your Buddha space or whatever other method is better at solving the ego problem. I don’t want to begin this again as Michael will do the honours of beginning round 6 with soul completion and immortality, I’m just recalling back to the beginning of this whole lengthy debate-like discussion of ego and where we got to now in round 5, free will. It looks like we finally agree on this! Negative ego blocks free will!

Smiles away to you Bagua,
Fajin

As mediator on this site, I am going to have to step in here and blow the whistlle.

You guys are getting a little too friendly, and that threatens to undermine the creative tension in this dialogue.

Please be warned. We will not tolerate an excess of harmony of this site.

We know that any extreme leads to its opposite. So please stop now before its too late.

Inner Frowns,
Michael

I think Crevy is making an important point here, that Fajin did not address.
I think this argument from Crevy is at the core of his thesis:

Crevy: You see now that free will is a contradiction. “Being” itself is not logically consistent with free will.
It is the same for all people. You can not fail to BE either! You are always you, you can never be free from your function.

Fajin: “You always have a choice to do anything you want. This is freedom.”

Crevy: Yes, i agree that it is freedom, but is not freedom of will! What you actually choose is based on your identity, and hence not free. Even if you from your will would change your identity, the choice to change your identity would have it’s orgins in your identity! You can never be free from who you are, you can never fail to be you.
————-
Winn: to simplify and restate my understanding of Crevy’s Conundrum:

we cannot choose to “be or not to be”, but are in effect FORCED TO BE by the inescapable fact of our being – then how can the actions flowing from our Being be called free will? Whatever level of freedom we have, has been granted by a higher or more original level of self.

He is saying if the ” first cause” of Self is not free, then all subsequent actions or even whole shifts in its identity/personality cannot be truly said to be expressions of Free Will.

Crevy’s logic is sound, but there is a hidden false assumption which I will shortly explain.

First, let’s recognize that this is an argument for determinism, i.e. our human fate is cast from the beginning, including each of our thoughts and actions. That at the Source is a great Controller, who is ultimately controlling our free will, so its really just an illusion of free will, not really free.

It is a position that is echoed in similar thinking by many Hindus and Buddhists – that there must be an absolute state beyond all the relative shifting “selves/identity” that is really controlling the whole show, if only we could get into that state. It is also the basis of much Christian theology, that only God creates, so God holds all the Free Will.

It is the basis for the Hindu caste system, i.e. you are born into a certain class, and are stuck there, unless you behave virtuously, and then the Original Cause/Source/Top Deity will bump you up a class according to pre-determined standards.

Most detrminists allow a little bit of free will, i.e. your fate is cast, but you behave accordingly as that fate dictates without resisting it, then your lot may be improved in the next life. It’s a hierearchical belief, that your “karma” controls you. You can speed up the process by awakening/meditating, but not escape it.

Eventually you will progress in this way from an insect attracted to shit piles, through all levels of creatures, through various levels of human consciousness and its heavens and hells, until by hard work and behaving well and agreeing to give up all desire to incarnate – i.e. give all your illusion of power back to the Hierarchy – you will eventually be admitted back into the Source/Absolute/Supreme Nothingness where there is No Cause causing you to exist. Then and only then will you be free. Not necessarily free to create, but free from being created by Other.

THE HIDDEN FALLACY: it lies in Crevy’s assumption that the original state of Being has NO FREE WILL.

But if Being-ness itself is the embodiment of Free Will by some kind of non-being (wuji in Tao cosmology), then every thing that flows from the Original Being is in fact an expression of Free Will – including its first movement as yin-yang, divsion three times into bagua/8 trigram-tones, stabilization as Five Phases, embodiment within the 10,000. things.

Then a tiny speck of that free will is at the core of each of those processes and inside every being – not necessarily accessible to the same degree, but nonetheless it is there. I think human beings have a greater degree of Free Will than other creatures on this planet, and hence have a greater responsibility to realize it and use it effectively.

Taoist cultivation is about achieving freedom both over one’s worldly destiny and in the inner planes, one’s spiritual destiny.

happy to entertain counter-arguments by Crevy or others.

michael