Lucky7Strikes

If we truly had free will, then it seems like everyone could just choose whether or not to feel pain, but that's not how it is, rather we have been programmed with this ability, without our consent, in order to ensure that we can survive. The notion of no choice frightens us, as I've already mentioned, but what we sometimes fail to take into account is that the choice isn't actually an option, in other words the human race would not survive if we had the choice, in fact it would've probably died out before it even began.

 

In the same way simple choices like being kind to another person or not, seem to be a sign of free will, but in actuality, even in this circumstance it is an illusion. Our connection to others, the way we interact with others is always preconceived dependent on how we have learned to respond to certain conditions. The option for free will is reduced every minute we are alive, because everything we experience dictates how we will respond to something in the future. In fact it is the notion of free will that must be dismissed if one is ever to fully understand Tao and the process of harmony, because harmony is not born of free will, but with giving up free will and accepting that certain actions are natural. It is when we try to buck our actual destined action that we bring disharmony to the world. It is going against the way things are meant to occur and trying to find another way, that brings disharmony in our lives.

 

So this is the real gist of it, free will exists, but in exerting free will we are behaving contrary to how we are supposed to behave. When we deny what we have been created to be and decide to be something else, then we are denying the very nature of who we are. The idea of giving up free will and turning our will over to the care of something greater than ourselves seems like it is akin to slavery, but is it?

 

We do not have free will in the sense that we can determine who and what we are, but we do have a limited form of free will when we determine the actions we take. However, how many of us are willing to sacrifice what we want to do, in order to do what is beneficial for others? The Tao Te Ching actually says that this is a requirement for those who would be the caretakers of the world. If we exert free will and put our own desires first, then we are going against the way of nature. Nature hasn't programmed us to be greedy, selfish, or self-absorbed. In fact it programmed us to do the opposite. Our original nature was one dependent on the primary virtues of compassion, self-restraint, and group harmony.

I suggest you try to live with an abandoned free will for a period of time and see if your life falls into harmony.

some science perspective:

 

http://exploringthemind.com/the-mind/brain-scans-can-reveal-your-decisions-7-seconds-before-you-decide

 

 

It appears the 'me' parts of the brain reverse engineer why it has 'decided' or 'chosen' to do whatever was already in the process of happening...

 

So there is no real self making decisions and all that, just a figment self taking responsibility for actions that were going to happen anyway, to convince itself of its reality....

 

:lol: :lol:

As I wrote above, I believe that's just the brain. In my experience will does not belong to the brain, it can, but usually that is a conditioned reaction in a chain of mind processes from previous thought. Free will is a spontaneous will that arises from being completely present in the moment.

Yes!

In the past five to six year I have been studying spirituality I have not come across anyone with as much clarity and relevance as Sadhguru. I am on day seven of the inner engineering program of Isha, and I can vouch that it is one of the most profound teachings I have come across.

Everything he says is like a nectar that settles every conflict I have within me. He is incredible.

I generally choose not to get involved in Free Will debates.

 

But

 

If you believe there is no free will, does that change the way you live and make decisions?

Actually it does! You become like a blob. A wave in the ocean. Until you get smacked up side the head.

>>I have always struggled with the idea that if there is no-self there is no free will.... But in direct experience it is not like this. The less you identify with a self, the stronger your sense of choice is. Why?

 

 

There have been plenty of scientific studies suggesting that free will does not exist, but individually, people do perceive free will - just as you say. The reason is that perceiving free will is necessary, because without that belief, people become selfish, and selfishness does not benefit the species as a whole. This 2011 study confirms the need to believe in free will - EVEN IF it is an illusion:

 

Free Will May Be An Illusion

 

>> if your mind is always afflicted by anger, by desires... we can terminate them forever.... So it is not saying 'these conditions are fixed'. They are not determined or fated in the sense that "that's just what is going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it".

 

In classical Taoism, it is always balance that matters, not too much of this, not too much of that. Even desires have their purpose, because we use them to perceive and navigate the real world, the manifestation of Tao (see this article Recognizing The True Form Of Things). In cases where a person polarizes, the treatment goal would be to restore balance with wu wei training.

This is only if you believe you are limited to the brain organ. Do you make choices just in your head? Because sometimes I choose to use my brain and other times I don't.

Me: my understanding of will is rather similar to richard, an entirely impersonal and causal having nothing to do with a thinker, I, or mine, but nonetheless a necessary process of all (empty) body-mind organisms, but nothing to do with a disembodied universal will. it is an intimate thought happening without a thinker as part of a mind-body process.

 

 

[Co-Respondent]: ‘Apperception is awareness without any motive, it is immediate.

[Richard]: ‘I would not say ‘without motive’ ... but it is certainly immediate. It is immediate and direct, unmediated by any feelings whatsoever. The bodily needs are what motivates will and will is nothing more grand than the nerve-organising data-correlating ability of the body and it is will that is essential in order to operate and function ... not a self. Will is an organising process, an activity of the brain that correlates all the information and data that streams through the bodily senses. Will is not a ‘thing’, a subjectively substantial passionate ‘object’, like the self is. Will, freed of the encumbrance of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, can operate smoothly, with actual sagacity. The operation of this freed will is called intelligence. This intelligence is the body’s native intelligence ... and has naught to do with Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s disembodied ‘intelligence’. [endquote]

 

 

 

Thusness: Yes...what u hv to understand is how such an interdependent thought becomes isolated and made believed to be independent.

Will is immediate, it's not part of a process, just as presence is not part of a process. I would go as far as to say that presence and free will are inseparable, just as they say emptiness and infinite potential are inseparable in dzogchen. It doesn't belong just to the body and mind. The body and mind just function according to the conditions, more like a machine. But you can alter it. Will is only part of a process when it is a conditioned reaction within the mind and the body. It is certainly not a brain process. I can be outside of by head-mind at will. My brain is within my will and not the other way around.

As for your second post, imo, you can't change patterns while admitting that your will is also part of a cause-effect chain. You just develop another pattern at best, which is like changing bad karma to good karma. It's better to just drop karma altogether. Just drop the patterns and live immediately as everything is. Then whatever you do emerges from clarity.

I have always struggled with the idea that if there is no-self there is no free will, which seems like the most logical conclusion. And often you will encounter teachings that say, "there is no one, and therefore was no one to choose in the first place." Ideas such as, "there is just things happening with no one there," are abundant.

But in direct experience it is not like this. The less you identify with a self, the stronger your sense of choice is. Why? Because when you believe you are something, such as the body or the mind, you are constantly reacting as that object you identify with. For instance, patterns build up around a mental personal identity and form a personality. When you are engrossed in a personality, an idea of a self stuck to these thought patterns, or in attachment to the body, actions don't arise from a conscious choice, but a conditioned reaction.

So the purest way to express free will is when I am perfectly present, and without identification with any "thing" in experience as a self. How can any-"thing" in existence have any choices anyway? It will always be conditioned. But if I begin to see life in it's immediacy, seeing everything as they are, then the choice is true. You are creating a new situation that is not a reaction, but a creation.

Note: I'm not saying there is no-self or a Self or a background consciousness or whatever. I am speaking from what I perceive. And from what I perceive, acting with this sense of free will is much more rewarding than convincing yourself there is no free will and only scenery of life happening.

That's not true. You have the light as your constant, faithful companion. The illumination of day-to-day life is the greatest and most powerful tool.

I said "at this point."

And no, day to day life just shows day to day life, it doesn't show that consciousness is eternal. Mundane day to day awareness of mind, body, and inner energies should be seen for what it is and nothing more or less. It surely doesn't tell you that consciousness is eternal.

Whether or not it can be illuminated or expanded to a greater degree to reveal ourselves is a different question. It's like if you have a binocular you shouldn't conclude from what you see of the stars their reality just by pointing the lens at the sky. But it doesn't mean there isn't a possibility to improve it to a telescope from the principle of the lens construction.

Alaya vijnana is a clever way to try and fit a round peg in a square hole

It explains nothing, only muddies the water. I find infinite streams of eternally flowing consciousness interconnected with each other a far more complicated and therefore inadequate explanation of the eternal consciousness experienced, that is simple in its solitariness

It only muddies the water of your beliefs. In the end to you or me at this point neither the idea that there are streams of flowing consciousness or one eternal consciousness mean nothing but theories, because we don't have the means to prove sufficiently to ourselves their reality. Theses ideas mean just as much as believing in a spaghetti monster or a man with a beard who made each one of us. Have any such theory only appeases our past upbringings or identification with a religion/belief system. That's what the mind does most of the time anyway: make imaginary alliances and problems only to struggle to justify itself and finally appease a self-made burden.

To have a strict idea of the world, as you might believe there is an eternal consciousness, is a great hindrance to direct seeing of reality.

? Are you playing some kind goofy role here? Who cares what I think, such is a very tiny grain of sand; while the subject matter is something bigger.

Hm? Bob, I care what you think. That's why I'm engaged in a conversation with you...

I wanted to simply know your knowledge and experience behind that statement: Osho was demonic. So is what I wrote above as an assessment of your statement right? I assumed you had an in depth knowledge of him, or possibly met him in person, especially since you mentioned eyes. Osho was known for his stare.

Demonic is a powerful word to use when describing someone. So I wanted to know why you used it in this context. That's all.

Yes it is about discovering the nature of mind.

That sounds a bit limiting. Once you figure out the mind, you will be satisfied?

I don't understand what you mean by reconstruct from what one sees... reconstruct = forming a coherent image of things?

Deconstruction of your entire karmic conditioning and the ability to reconstruct one's actions. Like how they say bodhisattvas can choose where to be born, or some able to construct their entire bodies for a certain purpose.

What was said: "in looking into the eyes our own potential demon such is revealed..."

 

simply meaning that at some point one will meet the potential 'eye to eye' inside of themselves of becoming demonic like and falling to it, or in overcoming it; further when we wrestle with our demon like potential the same reveals some of it ways and means to us, ways and means that are not very picky about or exclusive in their negative effect on human beings and thus can often be recognized. (aka "judge the tree by its fruit")

So basically you think Osho is demonic because the negative effects he had on people around him.

that was still not said, (obviously) go fish.

No need to be condescending. Did you mean maybe you meant that somehow your view of Osho's eyes made you think he was demonic. That his eyes reveal some demon potential in him (and all of us as well)?

In that case, I'd like to ask if this is a particular ability you have, as in how you know a demonic eye vs. a non-demonic one and what you mean when someone is demonic.

No, but it relates relative to perspective on death or bardo states. I have talked independently with three different people who have been at the stage of "building the golden body" and were "graced" with going in and returning from the light. Each, coming from different traditions, described with different words knowing the same thing about death or bardo states. Hence, my belief that it is possible to know before death of the body.

 

Cool! Yes, I also believe that it is possible.

Can you share their accounts? And was one of them a Kunlun practitioner?

In Thusness's words, there is no ultimate reality, but the ultimate truth in buddhism is emptiness. Everything is realized to be empty, including consciousness. There isn't even dependent origination (dependent origination is empty). Thusness: "No body, no mind, no dependent origination, no nothing, no something, no birth, no death. Profoundly deconstructed and emptied! Just vivid shimmering appearances as Primordial Suchness in one whole seamless unobstructed-interpenetration."

What do you classify as beyond physical realm? I think in Buddhism only the 4 formless jhanas are considered beyond physical, (I am thinking that perhaps samadhi/absorption in oceanic I AM and in nothingness would correspond to jhana of infinite consciousness and nothingness) as well as utter cessation of nirodha samadhi. In these states, there can be utter oblivion of the body, the five senses may be shut, and yet there it is - infinite consciousness, nothingness, etc. Also he has plenty of experiences, including visiting other planes/realms, seeing Buddhas, etc, do you consider these beyond body and mind? Again he does not reveal too much to me, and even if he does, I cannot reveal too much as well.

Let me put it this way: Anatta as a realization clears up all delusions, grasping, projection, confusion, views, etc... that which obscures the effortless, total, seamless experience of Presence.

 

For, as long as there is the slightest view of duality, of inherency, there will be no seamless, effortless and liberating experience of Presence.

 

Just an example: the holding on to a Self, a background (which is only a dead image of a previous non-dual experience being reified), prevents effortless experience of Presence as foreground sensations. (and this is only part of it, not all)

 

Being very clear, luminous, present, may not necessarily lead to anatta realization... it also requires a certain form of investigation and contemplation.

 

Non-conceptual presence isn't all there is to the path... even a conceptual right view can also help, in fact it is a good 'raft'.

Is Thusness omniscient? If not how can he conclude about reality. I always thought Thusness was just sharing his experiences and what he has seen, not making a claim about the nature of everything. At least I've never seen a post of his saying that the world is like that or like this. It's always centered around experience. No?

Can you share what Thusness has shared about other planes and realms and the Buddhas? I don't see why you can't share them. Also if he sees the deconstruction of things, can he also reconstruct from what he sees?

From my perspective, anatta is the deepening of the direct experience of presence. As long as you don't conceptualize presence, it naturally obliterates the sense of individual self or objective selves. Also isnt being in presence contemplation? Or do you contemplate by thinking? So imo non-conceptual presence is probably all there is to the path. Everything goes from there. You can conceptualize all you want for a million years. But it won't get you anywhere. You conceptualize so that you no longer conceptualize. Realization doesn't happen in the head does it?

I don't consider that either Bentinho or Thusness are authorities on advaita and I can't discuss Nisargadatta because I've never studied his writings in any depth.

 

Just to reiterate: either Bentinho was teaching from a position of having seen the Truth of non-duality himself or he was not.

 

Clearly if he changed his mind about it, he was not.

 

It really is that simple.

Uh, or maybe his understanding deepened. People can you know, learn more stuff.

I would not say so. Anyway this is not new - Nisargadatta basically teaches the same thing, to discover the pure consciousness before moving beyond it into the Absolute which is the ultimate state of non-being, oblivion even of existence, the origin even prior to consciousness itself.

 

Bentinho was teaching from true insight and experience previously, but he had new discoveries which made him change his position with regards to 'non-dual awareness'. Even though he did not deny 'non-dual awareness' (which he himself realized and experienced previously), he now treats a state 'beyond consciousness' as even more freeing. In other words, Bentinho is shifting between 1, 2, 4, to Stage 3 of http://awakeningtore...experience.html

 

Thusness Stage 3 becomes most important to him now, more important than non-dual awareness. Stage 3 becomes treated as an ultimate to him (same for Nisargadatta and many others).

 

To me and Thusness, these are true experiences, but the conclusions formulated about these true experience are wrong. The framework which substantializes - either awareness, or nothingness, into an ultimate, is wrong. There is no hierarchy.

 

As Thusness pointed out recently (and in fact many years ago he said a lot of similar statements):

 

 

7/8/2012 11:32 PM: John: The intensity is focusing on the essence (clarity) of mind....it is important to understand for a practitioner to later let go of the grasping of presence and be natural. Otherwise practitioner will have sought after the state of oblivion to get beyond presence. A practitioner that releases the grasping of presence has no such issue. But to see how the grasping of ultimate One Mind is but an attachment that prevents clear seeing and releasing is crucial.

 

 

Here are some quotations from him a few years ago which are relevant to Bentinho's (recent) issue: https://www.box.com/...21dfa62ccd0ca7b

I think one thing you should really clarify is that it is your thoughts, reactions and attempts to analyze experiences of presence that objectifies presence experiences and basically gets you stuck there. This includes Self and no-self and dependent origination or whatever. They are all limitations to what may be revealed in one's experience. I'm not saying they are true or untrue. But the mind saying anything in those lines is bound to be a limitation.

You will probably disagree because you worship Thusness's experiences like it's a religion, a fact set in stone, but Thusness is only sharing what has been seen by him so far and there only seem to be these "stages" because they were when the mind decided, "hey this is it, this is how it is." I doubt he believes what he knows now is an ultimate truth or the structure of reality or whatever.

Has he experienced beyond the body and the mind? I'm not talking about concentration states, but literally beyond the physical realm.

These so called "realizations" are revealed to the mind with the deepening of direct awareness experiences and not the other way around. Like how you can see the process of attachment and karmic functioning happening in your head when presence becomes clearer. So to say Self, no-self, impermanence are "realizations" is a problem because when one's vision ultimately deepens is when these realizations are loosened and everything is again seen directly. So the base must be presence. One cannot say to have experienced what thusness calls anatta without presence. The mental understanding of anatta may get you to direct presence, but it is not the same.

That's why discussions like this are almost always detrimental because it is with the head-mind we are trying to conceptualize reality. It feeds the mind's tendencies to finalize, an almost opposite reaction to what you are really looking for.

that was not said, suggest 2nd read.

Sorry, I guess I exaggerated a bit what you wrote.

So Osho's eyes revealed potential demons in people? I'm really interested if that's the case. Can you share an experience or a source where you got this from?

There is no one, nothing that has not experienced this. It is just to what degree, frequency, vibrational level/awareness that we vary, though we all eventually return to the Source.

So have you experienced oneness with all animate beings? And seen the "Source" you will be returning to?

Like, are you able to shift you vibrational level to a degree outside yourself to include others to know that we are One dreamer?

Before you can really have this conversation we need to decide what we mean by consciousness. Are we talking about quantum consciousness, the akashic records, or simply the fact that we know we exist. In the case of quantum consciousness and the akashic records, then they are eternal, and may have existed through the lives of many universes, in the case of our own consciousness, well that obviously ends when we die.

 

Aaron

Can you elaborate on quantum consciousness or "akashic" records?

Do you have experience with them?

in looking into the eyes our own potential demon such is revealed...

you mean osho's eyes turned people into demons?

Me! Lived with sanyassins for a few years! Read tons of his books.

 

He was quite brilliant at telling rich white people and white hippies what they wanted to hear so that they would give him tons of money.

 

He was a drug dependent F%*k wit in my book!

The stories I have heard form people who knew him personally... wow.

 

On the good side at least he did promote meditation, and a few, very few, of his disciples took that on, in an in depth manner.

 

No one of note have been produced by his teachings.

 

But there are tens of thousands of self satisfied baby boomers, who have his picture on their walls, while they get fat and rich on real estate, or as CEO's and live in narcissistic bubbles, where having a weekly colonic followed by a cranial-sacral body work session after which they scream out any trauma of the day, and consider it to be the height of spiritual living.

 

I know he said to drop all mantras, but in reality he taught one: Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me....

Haha! Thanks. What were the sanyassins like? Did they all scream really loud every day too? I actually wanted to see if anyone on thetaobums met with him.

I personally like Osho and find his teachings valuable. It really doesn't bother me that he was drug dependent. Or left a bunch of weird egotistical followers. He meant to provoke.

On another note, are you around melbourne? If you are, I highly recommend attending this: http://australia.innerengineering.com/

(also, wouldn't mind a feedback. )

There is only One consciousness, its true name cannot be named, and it transcends all duality, all language, it has no beginning, nor end, it animates all living things, it is the One Dreamer, it precedes matter, dreams matter, dreams us. When will we wake up?

Have you experienced this? Did you experience my consciousness as "One" with my own?

Someone "new" might not get this but Osho was demonic. (wrapped in warm and fuzzy)

What do you mean by demonic?

Who here has studied Osho's teachings in depth? If anyone has, can you give an honest feedback?