Free will, God's will

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Blogging live from retreat...

For quite a while I have been struggling with the concept of free will and all its euro-philosophical connotations. The basic idea seems to be that man is superior to all other things since man can set his (free) will to do anything he or she wants. This level of control puts ego / mind above all and into the driver seat. Cogito, ergo sum. For me this works OK when you are asked if you want vanilla or chocolate ice cream. One can decide freely and pick whichever one prefers.

Or can one? If freedom of choice is truly enacted by the mind, why is it that I cannot decide during meditation to hold my mind steady on the breath for more than 10 seconds? Invariably it wonders off to play monkey mind. The level of continuous attention I can place on an object is short. If I had free will, I should be able to do it as long as I chose. So is "free" will not a thing of the mind? Does my mind want to focus on the breath and run after random thoughts at the same time? Do I have two minds? If so, who is watching them interact?

Or a better question might be: What makes me do the things I do? What decides vanilla or chocolate ultimately? What decides if I make up my mind to help the poor or to start a war? Is it really personal will? Putting aside the fact that freedom of choice is always governed by external constraints (is the even ice cream available), what/who in the case of full availability makes the choice?

Is free will a combination and interaction of personal will (by the mind) and ultimate, impersonal will? By ultimate will of course I mean the will or direction of the Universe, God, Spirit, the Infinite, the Big Self, pick your term. If the relationship between the Creator and the Created is like the relationship of the Speaker to Speech, then the Universe's will is coming through us in our decisions. All we have to do is get out of its way. So thinking of free will as a personal choice is a delusion that will hinder us in our search of Spirit. Hundreds of years of conceptual philosophical baggage ingrained in our very self definition keeps us from realizing that our true purpose is to let the God shine through us. All we need to do is stop and listen....

So in the end, God's will is not if something bad happens to people we love and we cannot explain it to ourselves any other way. God's will if we respond to the world in an open, loving and compassionate manner. That's quite a difference, isn't it?

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