UpperMaster

After thorough contemplation and research, it is clear to me that free will doesn’t exist at an individual dualistic level. @Leo Gura's opinions on free will in a dualistic sense seem to be in line with mine. In many of Leo’s videos, he discusses the importance of not taking your life for granted and taking complete responsibility for your life. He also refers to life as this “ultimate sandbox game”. Sandbox games give the player a lot of freedom to explore without being tied to completing any particular objectives. This advice seems to be completely contradictory to the absence of free will. As no free will implies that there is no freedom to explore anything, and that your life already has predetermined “objectives”. Additionally, the idea of no free will implies that it is not up to you whether you accomplish these "objectives" or not. This stream of logic effectively makes life being an "ultimate sandbox game" incoherent. I suspect that I might be misunderstanding something, therefore I'm looking for alternative viewpoints and objections in this forum. I'd appreciate if you reply to this post. Cheers.

Can you describe your awakening? Like how did you awaken (psychedelics, self inquiry), what did you see?. I'm very curious to how its is similar/different to others. I would appreciate it man!

@Loba This is both fascinating and motivating. I personally haven't had a spiritual experience, therefore I have no idea how it must have been for you. I appreciate you sharing. I recently decided to be agnostic on the idea on free will, as I don't have spiritual experiences saying otherwise. I do have some additional questions though, if you are willing to answer that would be great: 1. What are the implications of "no free will" in you daily life? 2. How much priority do you put on trying to improve your life? If everything in life is predetermined, what is the sense of doing anything? Why not do nothing?

Nice. I am very curious to how you've experienced this? Through psychedelics? Questioning?

Holy shit bruv, didn't know this forum had backstories like that damn

Don't who this nahm guy is. Is he some spiritual teacher or smth?

lmao

@Someone here . Very interesting theory..How did you come to this conclusion? Is it something you experienced through phsycadelics/spiritual experience?

@undeather alright! Thank you for taking time again.

@undeather and @Inliytened1 . First, I'd want to start by thanking you for this list because I'm really interested. Not intended as a criticism or anything else, simply an observation. I've looked over the list you've provided and briefly researched each spiritual master. I couldn't help but realize that most masters don't disagree with each-other like you say, but actually say something very similar. The only masters that vote for free will are Jesus, Meister Eckhart and Rumi. All other spiritual masters not only deny free will, but have almost the exact same implications: You cannot escape destiny, the only real choice you have is to transcend determinism by searching for god. Have I missed something?

@undeather Out of curiosity, can you point me to these enlightened masters that disagree with each-other when it comes to free will. Just curious to see how much they conflict with one another. I would really appreciate it.

Were you human?

So the player in this case is "god"... and we are supposedly "god". This puzzle gets infinitely more interesting..

@Nilsi ahahaha yeaa thats true bruv. However, my question wasn't denying the experience of free will.

Yea, I understand your point here..damn that's nuanced! I was contemplating the difference between illusion and reality. Free will might be an illusion in the same way your perceived reality is supposedly also an illusion (although I'm not yet aware of this, so I have to be careful here). Just because the world around you is merely an illusion for most people including me it is nothing but THE REALITY. Please let me know if it appears that I didn't grasp what you said. Thank you for your time man, I appreciate it

Yes, I do recognize your point here. In particular, the idea that there is no yes/no answer to the question given its nature. I'll still look at other perspectives on this but your argument here makes a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time man. Really appreciate it.

that's a way of looking at it ig.

I won't pretend that I comprehended everything you said, but based on what I can make out, it appears to me that you are highlighting the duality between being free and being bound.

How so? As per my understanding, it makes no difference what you are "capable of" doing because what you will do has already been predetermined. I'm sorry but I don't see freedom of will in merely judging your capacity to do things.

Yea alright, I think I see where your getting at. My ideas seem correct, but they don't make sense because I don't have a nuanced understanding yet. I've thought about this for a few hours, and what you said does make sense. It is impractical to combine spiritual and practical guidance because my understanding of the spiritual guidance is incomplete. I assume that I can get a better understanding through awakening or whatnot (haven't had any mystical experiences whatsoever lol) thanks for the reply!

I understand where your coming from, however..(correct me if I'm wrong), it doesn't seem appropriate to me to divide spiritual and practical guidance to the point that they are incompatible with one another because, in principle, reality doesn't follow these distinctions.

To sum up, there is no free will and we are a part of God's complex creation that aims to produce a form that will completely awaken. If I understand correctly, what your saying is basically that life is only god's sandbox game and not ours. I'm confused on your last statement. What do you mean by "fulfill their (its) purpose"? what purpose are you talking about?