Do We Have Free Will?

It is being suggested here that we have only one real choice in life:

To let go of fear and resistance and be taken by the flow of life, or, to fight, screaming all the way, as the flow of life takes us anyway.

Life is. It moves.

The only way we can avoid that is to die - either to our awareness of ourselves (insanity), or physically (death).

To let go of fear and resistance is, of course, not easy, and there are many different approaches to life that attempt to help us with that.

The central confusion around this is exemplified by the two views:

That we have no choice whatsoever – that life is pre-ordained
Or, that almost all of life is choice – that we make good or bad choices depending on our level of self awareness or luck.

There is a “middle” way.

That we do have choice, but just one:

To recognise that we are going with the flow of life no matter what, in the same way that a twig in a stream is taken by the water and that to fight the water only brings pain and suffering – the twig cannot of its own volition, go up-stream.

A wise person, seeing this, lets go and enjoys the ride – the multi-textured roller- coaster ride of life.

This takes an extraordinary willingness to see through and let go of the (perceived) safety of our day-to-day views of life.

Our day-to-day life is a complex mix of trauma, fear, mistaken ideas about life, inherited beliefs, competing “truths” about life and unmet childhood needs.

All of this makes the roller coaster ride of life look like a terrifyingly uncertain and dangerous thing.

We deny, we hide, we fight. We do everything we can to hold onto the sides of the roller coaster and not go on the ride – no matter how painful and unsatisfying this is.

How “free” is any action of ours anyway if we are unconsciously and blindly driven by all of these fear and confusion-filled survival motivations?

In this situation our every next action is determined by the limited current state of our unconscious psyches, rather than the by the all of life.

So, the challenge is, will we make the only choice we have and let go of all of our self-imposed limitations so that we can immerse ourselves in the free-flow of life?

To become life.

This challenge is deeply terrifying to our beings, because it means letting go of our deep-seated need to be in control of our lives.

We need to believe that we are in control of our lives because we feel, in our earliest unmet childhood place, that we have no control and that’s very scary.

We need to decide for ourselves what kind of life we want to live:

Being dragged along by life, terrified (but hiding it well), kicking and screaming,nor, to leap onto the roller coaster and glory in the ride, exhilarated by every twist and turn, delighted by all the beautiful textures and experiences along the way.

No one else can do it for us. It’s up to us.

Go well.