Free will and such...

[Guest guest]

At 05:33 PM 5/20/99 -0600, you wrote:

>Jelke Wispelwey <wispj

>

> As part of the world, as bodies, we do not have free will. Freedom

>'belongs' to Spirit (=consciousness). A sage is called 'liberated'

>because he identifies with Spirit and not with a body.

 

That's certainly the truth. Ask someone who's suffering or depressed or

seriously ill to "will themselves" to happiness, and let's see if there's

anything like free will :-)... From a dual perspective, people are at the

mercy mostly of karmas from this and other lifetimes, from the way I see

it. There is limited "freedom of movement" within the prison of duality,

but to call this free will would be like saying that a prisoner has freedom

to do what they wish.

>The physical world has no absolute reality. I see matter as 'condensed'

>awareness which, during the process of evolution gradually changes into

>consciousness (consciousness: being aware of being aware(ness)).

 

That's a nice way to look at it. The opposite can also happen;

consciousness can "become" matter - the two are not separate at all, as

"matter and energy" are not separate. I see consciousness as a type of

energy or force (divine force, if you will). There is some sort of

correlation between light and consciousness, but I don't think this

correlation is well understood by any of the traditional nondual religions

(the Tibetans may have come closest to understanding it with their

into-death-and-back experiences), and I really don't understand the

correlation very well myself.

>E.g. I see gravity as a (very dim!) kind of awareness: matter aware (but

>NOT conscious!) of matter.

 

I see gravity as the (dual) attractive principle between matter and matter

("matter" being freely exchangeable with "consciousness"). It is matter

trying to "know" its own nondual nature (a miserable attempt to express

what's going on, please forgive me). The larger the body of matter (and

consequent 'quantity' of consciousness), the greater the attraction. By

this definition, a planet is infinitely more conscious than we are, but as

you stated, the 'quality' of this consciousness is low (a very dim sort of

awareness).

>Awareness is everywhere: in the look of my

>dog, birdsong, atomic and chemical reactions, you name it!

 

Yes. I believe the human mind can endow the "inanimate" with additional

awareness as well (in a manner of speaking). For example, there is a

saying among techies that computers seem to "like" certain people better

than others. I know (intelligent) people who can work at trying to fix a

computer problem for days and just make the problem worse, yet someone who

likes or is talented computers can come along and touch a couple keys, and

the problem is fixed in minutes. The same goes for talent with automobiles

- it seems that cars break down far more often when certain people are

driving them (given similar driving styles). To me, this indicates that

the objects we construct through our own creative principles (illusory

though they may be) have a consciousness of their own by virtue of the

"separateness" we have endowed them with. I think certain Native American

tribes believe that every object has a "manitou" or a soul of some sort).

 

Hari OM,

 

Tim

 

-----

Visit The Core of the WWW at:

http://www.eskimo.com/~fewtch/ND/index.html

Music, Poetry, Writings on Nondual Spiritual Topics.

 

Tim's Windows and DOS Shareware/Freeware is at:

http://www.eskimo.com/~fewtch/shareware.html