Vipul Agarwal, Delhi, 19 December 2023
The human mind has long been struggling with the question of free will vs destiny. Do we have a free will to choose or everything is destined? This question has confused humanity since the evolution of humanity.
I visited Ramana Ashram a few days ago. I also met a “Mauni Baba” (silent spiritual master) recently on the Arunachal mountain who has not spoken for years. He is engaged in his “Sadhana” (meditation) the whole of the day and looks at the people sitting there two times a day to bless them. Is this way of living destined or his free will?
Probably the question itself needs to be reframed to understand the same logically. Decisions are taking place all the time. Nobody can run away from the decisions. Even if we decide not to take a decision, that in itself is a decision. Probably the right question is who is taking the decision? Somebody would say that I am taking the decision. If that is so, we need to examine who is this “I” taking the decisions.
Generally, this “I” is the mind, both conscious and the unconscious, that’s taking a decision. It takes decisions based on what it considers to be right or wrong, good or bad, desirable or undesirable. So long as this “I” is taking the decisions, we feel that we have a free will. However, this “I” operates on the basis of past experiences and, therefore, it appears to have no free will.
Can this mind ever give way to the consciousness to manifest itself using the mind as an instrument? In that state, the mind allows certain access from the strong firewall it has built to protect and promote itself. That little access allows it to establish connection with consciousness. It starts taking decisions based on the inputs received from that consciousness.
Not that as soon as a little access is allowed, the consciousness will take over. There would still be a lot of access controls and the old conditioning will deny the access or decisions by the consciousness many times. After all, the mind has a veto and can any time deny access. This happens with many people who move along the spiritual path. The mind allows some access and then just after the consciousness manifests certain things in the domain of the mind, it starts owning even such manifestations and develops a certain amount of arrogance and possession. That’s what happens with the “Babas” who start demonstrating these powers and move away from the path of spirituality.
There Is one more possibility with allowing such access. That is misuse of these access rights by some malware. The world is full of malwares which are continuously searching for weak firewalls. They are ready to attack the minds and make them slaves so as to misuse the human minds to their advantage. They will sell fear in the name of faith and devotion.
Does it mean that the firewall of intellect should never be relaxed and the intellect should discard everything that does not make sense to it? Of course no. If that is the case, we will always remain fearful and limited. I feel that there is one critical test when we allow access. If we are a little aware, we can ask a very simple question to ourselves. Whether we are allowing access to seek what this closed mind wants? If the answer is yes, it seems we are not on the path of free will even if that seeking is spiritual. That will allow some malware to cheat us in the name of spiritual seeking.
Probably the critical point is whether the act of relaxing the access control is driven by a genuine need of this limited to expand and grow. Even if in that process, the limited loses its identity. It has to be ready to be in the tiger’s mouth. To die. That’s not easy though. This requires a genuine suffocation of this mind from its limitations. So long as something within the limited is attractive to this mind, it will always seek what attracts it and allow access to that only.
In the state when limited realises the suffocation of being limited, and is ready to grow even at the cost of letting go of that limited, the consciousness gets an access to the mind and expands it. If the mind allows the consciousness to operate freely, slowly the consciousness may start manifesting its infinite potential through the human mind. In that state the mind may have complete free will. Till that time, the will itself is not free and is a slave of the past conditioning, which is continuously struggling with the endeavour of the divine to manifest.
However, there are a lot of tricks that this mind may play in order to maintain its control. It may appear to be allowing access on many fronts while protecting a part of it in deep secret chambers with even greater force. There are layers and layers of such deep chambers in the form of the unconscious. Using morality, social service, and spirituality as an egoistic pursuit are the most difficult to understand. They operate in a disguised manner with different pretensions.
So, there appears to be a long way for the free will to be free. Till that time it’s mostly destiny with a little bit of free will allowed to peep into the window of the mind!
