Why is there no free will? Why does god allow this?

[arlin]

I had an episode of depersonalization days ago and it was a terror. Every choice i made was not mine, was made for me like an automat. I also had this tangible sense, that i did not exist, that the world was a sort of dream, and the past was an illusion. I lived in a present of hell, trapped in my body. 

Now that i am back to normal, and i resolved the situation, i wonder to myself: "If at a higher perspective there is no free will, then why live in the first place?" 

I mean, if the thoughts i think, choices, actions are not mine, then why be grateful for this journey in the first place? What does my journey mean? 

And i think about people in bad situations, and i get sad a little. 

So how is no free will a good thing then? 

[Inliytened1]

@arlin can't you see in the realm of the relative it is based on perspective as all there is is perspectives.  So if you understand how reality works there should be no problem.   You can take the perspective that from your finite POV you have free will, because you do - from that POV.   It's actually pretty darn grand if you think about it from a meta perspective 

[MrDmitriiV]

@arlin

16 minutes ago, arlin said:

What does my journey mean? 

Simple. Whatever meaning you ascribe to it.

17 minutes ago, arlin said:

I mean, if the thoughts i think, choices, actions are not mine, then why be grateful for this journey in the first place? What does my journey mean? 

The finger might think it's a standalone thing from the body, yet it's part of the body. Every grain of your existence is intimately connected to the entire universe.

Realize you're not just the finger, but something so infinitely big it's Nothing.

 

[Stakres]

@arlin  Yes human primates have feelings which create the illusion of free will. It doesn't mean you should do stupid things.

[arlin]

@Inliytened1 ah ok, i sort of understand this.

[ajasatya]

@arlin Watch your very act of formulating such question. When you see it, you'll shit bricks.

[Nahm]

7 hours ago, arlin said:

I had an episode of depersonalization days ago and it was a terror.

Have you inspected the thoughts / beliefs? With thoughts aside, in ‘going to the sensation itself’, it is not terror.  Thought is infinity sneaky you know.

7 hours ago, arlin said:

Every choice i made was not mine, was made for me like an automat.

 You made it but it wasn’t yours? ...maybe there was the experience of choice, but no separate individual chooser...?

7 hours ago, arlin said:

I also had this tangible sense, that i did not exist, that the world was a sort of dream, and the past was an illusion. I lived in a present of hell, trapped in my body. 

Notice the subtle revealing of identification with the body...”trapped in my body”.  It’s possible that is “the terror”, and inspecting that liberates that. There’s a lot of relief in acknowledging the sneakiness. It can never be beat. Competing only flares it up more. “It takes two to tango”. 

7 hours ago, arlin said:

Now that i am back to normal, and i resolved the situation, i wonder to myself: "If at a higher perspective there is no free will, then why live in the first place?" 

To experience life, free will & to create. 

What’d that ‘resolve’ look like btw?

7 hours ago, arlin said:

I mean, if the thoughts i think, choices, actions are not mine, then why be grateful for this journey in the first place? What does my journey mean? 

Why do they have to “be yours” to enjoy the journey? 

Does there need to be meaning imposed upon you for you to thrive, love, and enjoy life? 

There might be some tango going on here. If meaning was imposed upon you, there’d be no free will. If there isn’t meaning imposed upon you, there’s no free will. You can find fault, or liberation, in either perspective, but I’d consider seeing that both are equally true & false by contemplating them more deeply. 

7 hours ago, arlin said:

And i think about people in bad situations, and i get sad a little. 

The feeling might be in regards to the way you are thinking, rather than inherent in the content, or the ‘things’ you’re thinking about. If that was the case, there’d be no sadness upon noticing it. At least not without knowing you’re creating the experience of sadness. 

7 hours ago, arlin said:

So how is no free will a good thing then? 

That’s judgement. It really doesn’t ever pan out. The first chapter of the Bible is really great for communicating just how true this is. 

[arlin]

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

Have you inspected the thoughts / beliefs? With thoughts aside, in ‘going to the sensation itself’, it is not terror.  Thought is infinity sneaky you know

Oh man, the sensation i just could not stand it. I had severe panic attacks every 2 minutes at one point. Just being with myself and breathing felt like i was going to dissolve for ever. I am not going to repeat that experience and i am glad it ended. I am only 20 years old i am looking to gain freedom in my life. Spiritual work is far too much. (Event though this episode were not intended to be spiritual work).

 

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

You made it but it wasn’t yours? ...maybe there was the experience of choice, but no separate individual chooser...?

Yes you are right. There was an experience that something was choosing this, something was thinking this thoughts in reaction to those feelings, but i was not there. I mean, i was watching it all. I was so detatched was unbearable. I felt like my identity did not exist, everything that did exist was an eternal present moment of hell!

 

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

It’s possible that is “the terror”, and inspecting that liberates that. There’s a lot of relief in acknowledging the sneakiness. It can never be beat. Competing only flares it up more. “It takes two to tango”. 

You know what? I think you might actually be right. Hahaha.

 

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

What’d that ‘resolve’ look like btw?

I was intentionally doing a process of deep connected breathing designed to bring up my past traumas so i could process them. Kind of holotropic breathwork but breathing with the nose. I did it 2 times a day.

The "Resolve", looked like that: I stopped breathing, and i did not know how to deal with what i was experiencing. After days of constant panic attacks, being scared to even move out of my bed in the morning (How much scare i was because every movement felt detatched), i was sitting in my bed convinced i would never get myself back, then my body went into a process of grieving. Inside my mind i was calling myself in third person "Arlin where are you?". I was literally grieving my death. (This is the most insane experience i have ever gone through). I processed deep emotions not only that day, but days after that. I begun remembering who i was in the past and my journey with self actualization. As i processed my emotion, slowly i begun noticing that i could think my thoughts, and then finally, that i can decide how to move my body and that it's me that is doing it.

I think i brought up severe traumas of the past. Loosing myself and finding it again, woke me up. I now am in contact with my anger, but i found a sense of self love and deserving. i feel it is lasting. I have not resolved all the traumas i feel.

 

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

There might be some tango going on here. If meaning was imposed upon you, there’d be no free will. If there isn’t meaning imposed upon you, there’s no free will. You can find fault, or liberation, in either perspective, but I’d consider seeing that both are equally true & false by contemplating them more deeply.

I think you might be very right. But in fact, i only get sad when i think that other people don't know about this stuff and are suffering. So then i think i don't deserve to live a joyfull life maybe? But those are belief systems that like you said, i should investigate and resolve further down my work.

 

10 hours ago, Nahm said:

The feeling might be in regards to the way you are thinking, rather than inherent in the content, or the ‘things’ you’re thinking about.

Wait, what do you actually mean? Could you elaborate on this further?

 

thank you.

Edited February 10, 2020 by arlin

[tsuki]

19 hours ago, arlin said:

If at a higher perspective there is no free will, then why live in the first place?

Do you realize that if there is no free will, then the decision to live or not cannot be made?
From the point of view of no free will, this question is meaningless.

19 hours ago, arlin said:

I mean, if the thoughts i think, choices, actions are not mine, then why be grateful for this journey in the first place? What does my journey mean? 

I think that you're trying to jump too far ahead in your reasoning. 
It is something akin to intuition, are you intuitive? When you want to make a decision, a choice is waiting for you, then intuition may present itself and speak to you. Even though it appears as something external, as if something was imposing a solution, you know that this solution is "special", "right" and "freeing". If you submit yourself to intuition, you feel free. This is what no free will looks like in enlightenment.

If you have free will, then try to choose to align yourself with the world instead of trying to align it to your preferences.
Surrender to the present moment, deliberately.

20 hours ago, arlin said:

So how is no free will a good thing then? 

Without sufficient purity of the mind and body, enlightenment experiences can be unstable.
They feel overwhelming sometimes, but they feel right if you are ready for them.

[Ero]

@arlin Depersonalization and nihilism are the consequence of a very low consciousness. The ego is masking itself behind the labels "not me", "not mine". This is not a "higher state" of selflessness. In fact, that's the furthest one can be from it, because you're not surrendering control, rather you have denied the responsibility in the first place. Yet you can pass through it and grow. I know, because that "episode" you describe was my experience for 2 years of my life. This state of consciousness is a consequence of a lot of unhealed trauma and impurities. Start by realizing you actually don't know. Focus first on basic self - help and personal work. Work on your life, on YOU. You can't handle or are in denial with your current experience. Learn to give it love and accept it - start from there. There's a lot of basic growth you need before you can even look to "the higher states". And that's okay. If you deny this in front of yourself and try to grapple with those experiences, the problem will fester. 

[Robert Leavitt]

22 hours ago, arlin said:

I mean, if the thoughts i think, choices, actions are not mine, then why be grateful for this journey in the first place? What does my journey mean? 

Let's assume, for a moment that the thoughts aren't yours and that they are all inspired by God...

Do you really think all your thoughts are inspired by God?  Maybe your thoughts stink...and you need to come up with better ones?

It's a tennis match at first, disagreeing with yourself, but you can do it, and change everything.

You can make any experience anything you want it to be.  Just come up with a better story than the current one your telling yourself at any given point in time.

 

 

 

[arlin]

@Ero  I agree with you. Before i start doing those kind of deep work, i have to work on my life first. I am only 20 years old. How did you get past depersonalization?

By the way, i entered this state NOT because i was working on spirituality in the first place.

[Robert Leavitt]

@Ero Man, that was an AWESOME explanation.  I loved it...thank you so much for posting that, it was amazing.   Denial is the #1 problem I think we face in this life and in this journey of "awareness" or whatever you want to call it, I don't get to big into the long winded philosophical debates about the thing.  I just know one day, I gave up all the control and started getting SUPER honest with myself.   It made the difference.

 

[Nahm]

22 hours ago, arlin said:

And i think about people in bad situations, and i get sad a little. 

The feeling might be in regards to the way you are thinking, rather than inherent in the content, or the ‘things’ you’re thinking about.

“Wait, what do you actually mean? Could you elaborate on this further?”

 

If you think about cutting your fingers off...sensation wise, feeling is “not good”. 

But, sensation is actually Good. As in, the feeling is guidance, saying, “no, don’t cut your fingers off”. So, you wouldn’t do it. 

If you think about someone being sad, it is actually your thought about someone else, which sensation is responding to. So, you would choose a better feeling thought. 

Suffering is that sneaky. 

The content of the thought seems to be true. 

The actuality is that you are choosing a thought, which does not feel good to you, and using the thought / “someone is sad”, to justify ignoring the sensation (feeling / guidance).

When we ‘go to’ the feeling, as the guidance that it is, there is simply the letting go of the thought which doesn’t resonate with us. 

When we ‘hang on to the thought’  / ‘believe the thought’, in spite of the guidance of feeling...we suffer. 

 

When the body is releasing suppressed feeling....and we believe the thought about it...we then label the feeling guidance fear...and miss the opportunity to be free of the “bad feeling”. (Which isn’t actually a bad feeling at all - that is just the thought about it)

 

 

Or...something happens, I don’t understand the feelings...so I create identity...thoughts & beliefs about who I am and how the world is...which doesn’t feel good.   It doesn’t feel good or right to me, but I did it anyways, I believe this about me anyways. Later, I am older, a bit more knowledgeable & conscious...and this old identity (beliefs) come up. If I continue to believe the thoughts, I continue to suffer. If I stop believing the thoughts, the feeling ‘purges’ via love, and the understanding about what happened, arises. 

As a testament to how sneaky thought can be....I might be thinking about “free will”, “God”, all kinds of existential stuff....virtually anything other than - “wait...maybe....I was wrong in the very first place...about how I understood thought & feelings”. Maybe this is what people are talking about when they say “attachment” to thoughts is suffering. 

Maybe, you’re sort of attempting to “detach from yourself”.....when what would end the suffering, is just not longer believing those thoughts about yourself. (Simply...because they don’t feel good to you. The real You...not thoughts about you.)

♥️

Thought could be sooo sneaky....that I get “busy” believing the thought “there is no free will”.....rather than just seeing I can let this thought which doesn’t feel good, go.  

[arlin]

@Nahm Thanks

So it's actually that you believe the thought that makes you suffer.

It's kinda like the work from byron katie

Edited February 10, 2020 by arlin

[Nahm]

@arlin I don’t know really. What happens if you laugh about it, if you were just believing a thought. How do you feel? Is there suffering there ? 

[arlin]

@Nahm @arlin

uhm, interesting. if i change the emotional feeling underlying it, maybe it would change it's meaning.

[Forestluv]

On 2/9/2020 at 9:57 AM, arlin said:

i wonder to myself: "If at a higher perspective there is no free will, then why live in the first place?" 

This is a question that gets the attention of the self as it gets a peek of self transcendence. It is essentially asking "If there is self transendence, what's in it for me?", "How will this affect my life?", "Why should I live?". . . It would be like a character in a movie asking "Wait a minute. . . if I'm not really Indiana Jones, why live?'. . . Realizing this changes the energetic relationship to the "character" that appears. And the above question becomes recontextualized - because now the character is not the main show in town. . . If Harrison Ford realized he is not actually Indiana Jones, it completely changes the relationship of Harrison Ford to the Indiana Jones character. 

On 2/9/2020 at 9:57 AM, arlin said:

I mean, if the thoughts i think, choices, actions are not mine, then why be grateful for this journey in the first place? What does my journey mean? 

This gets into the relativity and fluidity of "meaning". There is no one objective, universal statement of "meaning". Yet relative meaning doesn't suggest no meaning. For me, this felt really ungrounded and uncomfortable at first. I just wanted to find a stable sense of meaning, a sense of "this is how it is". Yet anything I created turned out to be sandcastles that can be formed, unformed and re-formed. At first, this induced a lot of anxiety in the mind and body. Yet with surrender there comes a sense of freedom, beauty, magnificence, curiosity and creativity. We create our reality each moment.  

[Inliytened1]

@arlin. The point of the journey is to discover who you really are.    Once the Absolute is discovered all will flow naturally.  Absolute Love and Goodness will guide you.

[Nahm]

34 minutes ago, arlin said:

@Nahm @arlin

uhm, interesting. if i change the emotional feeling underlying it, maybe it I would change it's meaning  my perspective.

??