We saw in the previous two blogs the limitations of human beings in exercising free will. We saw the deception of choice as an illusion that man is free.Basically real freedom means no choice and the moment there is a choice there is human bondage. We also saw that choiceless awareness cannot be cultivated as the moment there is a conscious attempt it has decided to choose. The art lies in watching intensely or deep attention in which there is no judge ,no self ,no controller. Let's revisit briefly before proceeding further.
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.
Now let's try to look at it in a very different manner. Carefully avoiding words like ego ,advaita, non duality etc can one look at the whole thing in a very modernistic way. Let's create an interesting parable about this whole matter of real freedom. Since it's the age of virtual reality and game simulation we will create a play station game. The theme of the game is that a princess is inside a large fortress and is not really free.she is apparently free to move around the fortress but cannot step out.
The object of the game is to come out of the fortress and in order to do so she has to clear many hurdles. The reward is the entry into the heaven of freedom.
Level 1 is to overcome her insecurity to venture out. Level 2 is to overcome fear of unknown uncertainties outside the fortress. Level 3 is to overcome possessiveness about existing objects of desire inside the comfort of the fortress. We can create as many levels as we want as the game proceeds. The problem starts when the princess is maneuvering her hurdles there is a devil there all around preventing her from going ahead. A small temporary victory is quickly reversed as the devil is there at every gate . The devil is ubiquitous. It is like a shadow always following. Wherever there is a gate the devil is guarding it. It was a long frustrating experience with no tangible progress. Since it is virtual reality the player feels really like the frustrating princess. At times the princess is wondering what is the need to cross the hurdle. But again when challenged she regains energy to try again.
She tries many gates, many options but the devil is always there preventing her efforts. She tries the gate of religion, the gate of political idealism , the gate of pleasure,gate of pain and asceticism but fails to crossover the gate. Much similar to various gates in the movie Matrix with multiple agent Smith always there everywhere,indestructible. In fact she seriously doubts if there is anything beyond the gate. The promise of heaven lures to try hard and in the end she gives up. Just about when she gives up she realizes that devil is missing. There is no Agent Smith to fight.There is no more devil and no more gates to crossover. She was already free out of the fortress. The secret was when she gave up she realized the shadow of devil also vanished. It then dawned on her the devil was indeed her shadow self and therefore ubiquitous. When she gave up the devil is no more. The devil lies in the choosing the gate and when there is choiceless state there is no devil at all. Suddenly she steps into the heaven of freedom and realizes that fortress was indeed a prison..
Post Script: Awareness is Non-Effort:
Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what it is not, ot what should be or what should become? We are constantly escaping from what is to transform or modify it....Only when there is no awareness of what is there is an effort to transform. So effort is non awareness. Awareness reveals the significance of what is and the complete acceptance of the significance brings freedom. So awareness is non effort:awareness is the perception of what is without distortion. Distortion exist whenever there is effort. J Krishnamurti.
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