- Is there a freedom in choice?
All of us now spoilt by the choice offered under free markets cannot imagine our life without freedom of choice. After all what is life without freedom and if there is no choice there is no life indeed. Our favorite store shelves stacked with different things in different colors and sizes is the hallmark of modern man's existence. But is that truly freedom? On the contrary man becomes a confused slave of choice. Ever visited an exotic restaurant with more esoteric Menu Card? A definite recipe to disastrous confusion. However such wide choice offered at material plane of existence is not really a serious bone of contention. It maybe justified or necessary or may even add some pep and jest in life.But living in the belief that choosing is real freedom is riddled with a serious logical flaw. It may not be necessarily a good idea.
When it comes to serious questions about life, freedom of choice demands a very close introspection. What are serious questions of life? We are beset with questions such as what is life all about? What are we doing to our life? What is true freedom? Freedom of choice or freedom from choice.
Freedom is negation of any conditioning of human mind by religious or political or economic or sociological divisions.What is conditioning? Is it belief system? It is all categories,thoughts,concepts,construct,myths,image that collectively reside inside a human being. It is something unreal, some kind of fantasy which passes as real inside the human mind or brain.Our main problems of life are that we are attached to conditions of past and continue living in the fantasy of future. Whether it's hope for a better future or fear of dark future specter of time never leaves it's shadow from our existence.
It was mystic philosopher J krishnamurti who prodded us to question where lies real freedom from past and future. Does it lie in choice? Or does it come about when there is choicelessness.
It's a fact that there is no choice if there is no chooser by definition. So when a man lives in choice he is constantly judging or choosing. He evades reality and refuses to see fact as fact or rejects what is. He for instance does not accept the fact that he is greedy. Instead he chooses to say that he will not be greedy in future or he should not be greedy. When he accepts just the fact that he is greedy and stops there then there is no further reaction. There is no judge or censor who acts as a controller. When there is choicelessness suddenly a man is freed from the compulsion of acting in a conditioned manner.Total inner freedom is an essential condition to see what is. Awareness cannot come without total inner freedom.
Be it greed or envy, jealousy or hurts , pleasure seeking or abstinence , regret or sorrow there is a likeable or unlikeable past, there is desire for better future and there is a constant habitual conditioned reaction to all life situation. There is a chooser who is so deeply conditioned that the art of responding freely is forgotten.He is constantly seeking permanence or continuously chiding himself for his inadequacies. Such a behavior is a enslaved behaviour living in past or projecting a better future. Obviously such life is not a free life. It is a bonded life to chains of past . And unfortunately the prisoner is not even aware that he is imprisoned and that there is a way out to freedom. As long as he is judgmental he is exercising choice and can never be outside the clutches of habitual enslaved behavior.
When we judge there is a me who judges,me a chooser. Me is the dividing factor separating him from others. Me is my country, my likes, my religion, my ideology, my sensuality, and so on. It is the complete psychological ideation about me. My ambition, my experiences, my superiorities, my achievements,my greed, my envies, my regrets all go onto become me. Me creates a conflict with external world as in me vs you as well as internal within oneself. Internal conflict create a pressure to become a better and better me. Me is self image it is total content of consciousness lying as memory. Not memory such as how to drive a car but the memory that I am a good driver. That me wants to add and subtract to the content of consciousness creating internal conflict. Me chooses to pass a judgement. Look at it differently. As long as there is a choice there is past and future but the present is really missing. span
When there is no judge, no chooser there is no past or future . It's everlasting Present. Timelessness. Real freedom is in timelessness and not in past or future. Real freedom therefore lies is in choicelessness and not in choice. In other words there is no free will in choice . Its an an illusion that there is free will. Free will means ability to respond without any compulsions or out of habit. When there is a a judge,a chooser or a ME as an idea lurking behind all motivations and human action there is no real freedom. It is there at psychological level within human brain or mind. As somebody has said there is a ghost in the machine,a voice which continuously holds human beings in it's grip. . Everything is done to protect the idea of ME and to ensure it's continuity, psychologically. That invariably predicates past and future. It only evokes known habituated reactions such as fear, possessiveness,power intoxication, self pity,envy and so on. One big time job of the judge is to keep it's radar on to pick up insult actual or imagined and another job is to lap up praise again actual or imagined from his fellow judges.All these traits involve time because either it is about perpetuation or termination of likeable or dislikeable situations. It's the same for all humans across race and levels of income. The insecurity of a ruler is no different from insecurity of a poor man. Only when there is choiceless awareness there is no dea of ME and there is free will or real freedom.
( Fully Inspired and Based on Teachings of J krishnamurti)
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