Is there Free-will?

We live every day thinking that we are the writers of our lives and we are in control of it. And that we could have done something differently if we wanted. Let’s assume that you love your father, meaning you don’t want him to die, which everybody does, and that you wouldn’t want to be in a romantic relationship with your mother. Maybe Oedipus also saw his parents in the same way.

According to the ancient Greek legend, When Oedipus was born, a prophecy was foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother. So to prevent the prophecy from coming true, his father takes the baby Oedipus to a jungle and leaves him there assuming that he would die and the prophecy will not be true. But, a couple finds the baby Oedipus and raises him as their son. Oedipus comes to know about the prophecy when he becomes an adult and runs away from the house assuming them to be his family. While he thinks he is running away from his destiny, he kills a man in his fit of rage who turns out to be his real father and marries the man’s widow who is his real mother, without even realizing it. We all think that events like these should never happen in our lives. But the pith of this story is: There is no free will.

We live in a society where free will is regarded as the central pillar in our everyday lives. Our legal system assumes that everyone does what they do independently according to their thought and desire. Similarly, our societal, economic, and political theories are based on the assumption that individuals have free will in deciding their lives like whom to vote for, what kind of clothes to wear, what kind of job to do, etc. So it becomes terribly important to understand whether there is such a thing as free will or is just an illusion and things happen because of cascading causes and their effects which in turn become the cause for other effects and so on.

So before talking about “free” will, let’s start by discussing will. What is will? It essentially is the desire or the determination to do something. We can see that will is the result of desire. We all desire something and work on it to make that desire a reality. So, can that desire or will ever be independent or free? There can be no desire unless it is attached to an object. The objects of the desire may vary every day or every moment but the desire is always constant. The desire for “something”. Hence it can never be independent. Even desire for no desire is also a desire. So the will can never be free.

But we say that we have free will because we have a choice between different things. Like we can go from one place to another freely or choose from this or that. So then, free will is dependent on the freedom of people to choose freely, which is freedom of choice. What is choice then? The choice is needed when we are confused about the options to choose from. But when something is seen clearly, there is no need for choice. So, is it possible to have an action in which there is no want, no desire, and no choice? In order to find this out, we need to clearly understand what is desire and choice?

We perceive our world from the sensation received from the 5 sense organs. And desire being part of that sensation, our thought process identifies that sensation with “I”, the ego, and then that ego says ‘I must’, or ‘I will not.’ Now, why have sensations like sexual sensations, sensation of power whether it’s political, economic, or personal? Why has thought yielded to this pressure?

Let’s take an example. There is perceiving a pleasurable lake, seeing a beautiful lake, there is not only optical nerve, seeing by the eye, but also the senses are awakened, the smell of the water, the trees on the lake. The next step is thought comes in — how beautiful that is, I wish I could remain here. Our autopilot thought which subconsciously interprets the sensation says it is this because in that there is pleasure. Because it is pleasurable, when the senses begin to enjoy, say, ‘How nice’, then our rational brain begins to identify itself with it. In identification, there is duality, the identifier and the identified. In seeing and the delight of seeing, thought comes into operation and says, ‘I must have more, I must build a house here, it is mine’.

Our thought has made an innocent mistake in identifying with something that brings to it pleasure. And thought tries to take over it to make it permanent which means memory. A remembrance of the lake with the daffodils and the trees and the water and sunlight, and all the rest of it. So we are trying to find out if there is an action not based on the principle of motive, desire, or will? Because most of our action has a motive, like — I want to build a house, I want that woman or that man, I am hurt psychologically or biologically and my motive is to hurt back — so there is always some kind of motive in action, which we do in daily life. So, then action is conditioned by the motive. The motive is part of the identification process. If there is a perception of the truth that identification builds the whole nature and the structure of the self, then, is there an action that doesn’t spring from thought?

This means the mind has to find out an action that has no cause, which means no motive, an action that is not the result or the effect of a series of causes and effects. If that doesn’t exist, then action is always bound, chained. So is there such an action? As long as identification with the sensation exists that action is not possible. So, thought has made a mistake and later it discovers this mistake, but it seems to be too late because it doesn’t know how to stop because it is already conditioned by that identification. The thought cannot drop it because when it drops the image there is nothing left. Our brain has evolved to want security and fears uncertainty or unknown because our life depended on it in the past. We had to know whether the rustling of the leaves was just the wind or was there a predator lurking there.

So thought being evolved through centuries to be unable to face the pain of uncertainty, clings to the pleasure of certainty till there is a better reward for pleasure. In this way, the thought seems to have fallen into a trap which it has made because it has innocently remembered pleasure, and then gradually made it important, and then it has become too painful to give it up. Because any change from the immediate removal of pleasure is very painful. The instinctual response of a human being is to feel secure. Hence, our brain recording through millennia has conditioned itself by continual memory of the image of pleasure, the unpleasantness of giving it up, and the fear, clinging on to what it knows. And eventually, it starts to become irrational because it creates pressures that make the brain irrational and unable to get this straight falling into this continuous cycle of pleasure and pain and every action springing from this continuous chain of events.

We started off by asking if there is an action in which there is no will, no desire, no motive, no choice the self doesn’t enter into it at all? Of course, there is. This can take place when we break the chain of identification and do not bring the self in perception. Then, perceiving a beautiful scenery with all its colors and glory and beauty will be enough, and not bringing in memory cultivated through identification, better there is something else to look at which is equally beautiful.

So one must start with oneself. Oneself is already second-hand, living in the shadow of the memories. So here I am. From there I begin. So I begin to enquire, I begin to look in the mirror, which is myself. The mirror says, your reactions are these, and as long as you have these reactions you are going to pay heavily, you are going to suffer. So that is all. So now how am I, an ordinary human being, knowing all my reactions, ugly, pleasant, hateful, all the reactions one has, to bring about an observation in which there is no motive to restrain those reactions or to expand it? How am I to observe myself without a cause? The cause generally is punishment and reward. Which is obviously too absurd, like a dog being trained. So, can I look at myself without any motive?

Either we have an insight into the entire thing and end it immediately or we take time which again means cultivating, identification, the ‘me’, and the moment we allow time, it is the cultivation of the self because time means the memory of the past. This insight is devoid of time and memory. Insight is timeless, it just happens. You can’t gradually come to it, as it is not a thing cultivated by thought. So if we have an insight, that insight wipes away the self. As insight is devoid of time and divorced from memory, therefore is there an action born out of that insight? If there is an insight into the self, then action will inevitably follow from that insight.

Let's get back to the central issue of our question: what is action without this enormous complex of motives, reactions, regrets, pain, and sorrow. Can a human being live in action without all this dreadful confusion? And we say, yes, we can live. And you tell me, if you are a Christian, believe in God, believe in Christ, he will save you from all this. And I am so unhappy I say, for god’s sake, and I cling to it. And if you are X you say, I believe in all the things that the Buddha has said, that to me is good enough. I will take comfort in that: Buddham Sharanam Gachchami. So my actions are based on reward and punishment. If I do this I will reach nirvana, if I don’t, I’ll go to hell, which is the Christian and Islamic idea and all the rest of it. One has thrown all that overboard, being fairly intelligent and educated one says, that is all nonsense. I want to find out if there is an action without any shadow of effort and regret. It is important to find out, not theoretically or casually, it is a burning question for me, a passionate thing I must find out because I don’t want to enter into the cage, in the rat race of cause and effect. So what shall we do? What is right action under all circumstances, which doesn’t depend on circumstances — my wife says, do this, I love you but you must do this, or something else. I put away all those influences or pressures, but I want to find out if there is an action that is complete in itself.

So I must understand an action which is total, which is complete, whole, not partial. Which means can I observe myself wholly, not in fragments? Or through the fragment instantly see the whole? So is there an action that is whole? First of all, can I see with my eyes the tree as a whole? Can I see my wife, or my husband, or my girlfriend, or boyfriend, as a whole entity? This, ‘seeing as a whole,’ really it means that the self, or the fallacy of the self, has clearly been seen into and has broken down, because otherwise however much I see the tree as a whole it is still my thought. So, can I see humanity as myself? Because humanity is like me, suffering, miserable, confused, agonized, terrified, insecure, sorrow-ridden, like another. I am not separate from humanity, I don’t say, I am an elite, I am this; I am like the rest of the people in the world. So I see the world as myself, which is the whole.

By seeing wholly, love comes in. If I love somebody, love not as possessive, acquisitive, and all the rest of that nonsense, if I love, the whole thing is there, the totality of that man or woman is there. So can I see myself wholly — myself being humanity? I am not different from humanity. Psychologically, I am not a separate individual. I am the rest of the world, I am the world. To look at me, I can only see myself as a whole when I am actually the rest of mankind. Because essentially I am the same as the whole. When one sees oneself as a whole, the parts disappear. But we think by collecting the parts we make the whole. So when I see myself as a whole then the parts disappear, therefore the self is not. When I see that thing, that tree, completely, I can only see it completely if I don’t condemn or praise, if I don’t say, ‘It’s my tree, it’s my garden.’ So when I love that tree I see it as a whole and care for it. And, if I see myself as a whole I am the same as all mankind and love and care for mankind.

The question of seeing wholly has been raised because what is an action which is not fragmented, not broken up as a businessman, as the artist, as a lecturer, as a professor, as a priest, an action which is total. As long as I have a self, one is caught in the self; or rather the self is there. But seeing the self as the whole, the self will not be there and the process of identification stops and with it action from the will, desire, motive, and choice stops and every action becomes complete where free will has no place.