Do we really have Free Will?

Lao Tzu, the great Chinese mystic and philosopher, said: “Tao is always impartial, it is always on the side of the just man.”

At first sight, “impartial” and “always on the side of the just man,” seem contradictory. They are not. Not if we accept that there is no such thing as good and evil.

The concepts of good and evil are part of the dualistic reality, which is an illusion. In the East, for thousands of years they called it Maya. For as long as we think of the material world, which according to scientists is mostly empty space, as real, we suffer from dichotomy, in which we are little more than cogs in a universal machine turning the axis of Awagawan—we continue to walk in circles, hardly moving forward to free ourselves from the illusion of duality. Until we accept our “spiritual nature” as real, we are subject to the indomitable Universal Laws which rule the animal kingdom.

And what is “spiritual nature”? It is the attribute of an entity that sees itself as an individualization of the Omnipresent Consciousness. Once this bridge is crossed, we can endow this entity with any gamut of qualities, which do not deny the intrinsic oneness.

Only after we awaken, to use the Buddhist expression, to this realization, do we discover that we can share in the free will with which pure consciousness is endowed. Only then we can move mountains, heal the sick, create beauty to enhance the world for others. But first… we must wake up. Others have done it before us.

It is our choice.

Until we do, our free will is limited to puny and temporary refusal to obey the Universal Laws, which in the physical reality will never be denied. We shall be limited to pushing the Sisyphean rock up the eternal mountain, to repeat the same mistakes, tread the same paths, for eons and eons.

But, as it happens, we are free to stop. We are free to open our eyes, to open our ears and accept the Truth. This alone is within the realm of our free will.

The subject is also discussed in Beyond Religion I.

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