This is an interesting concept. I disagree with you a bit on the free will aspect though. I do agree that once you’ve chosen a path, planted your seed, or chosen a master you flow through life in a more easily deterministic manner. But free will still exists in the space between. In the ability to choose. Much like you chose to follow Nisargadatta. There is always a choice.
I understand your disagreement to free will. Just to be even more confusing, there actually is free will - it just isn't personal. Did I find Nisrgadatta or did he find me? I honestly have no clue and it does't matter at all. These are all just mind games. Thank you for engaging lily.
Nisargadatta has been my main teacher for many years so I was surprised and touched to read your account and interpretation. I especially loved your experiment of believing what he said and what that in turn led to. This is similar to what he himself did with his teacher! Beautiful and much appreciated.
I see a problem with that, as many of us, at least at some point, would only lie/sit down and do nothing, if we would just leave everything to take care for itself by itself. .....
That is not the case from my own body-mind experience of consciously living without free will. Events cause events - a constant cause-and-effect mechanism - in the physical world. My wife calls and says: "Can you pick up milk on the way home," which causes me to stop and get the milk. Without her causing that, I wouldn't have done that. Or, I am in a rush because I promised to pick up a friend and don't want to do it. The "friend cause" overrides the "milk cause", but it doesn't matter what exactly causes what. This might be experienced as a "conflict" and a call for the "I" to decide. But that is all illusionary.
If we could switch off our sense of "I" (and I had experiences of that), all imaginary conflict would stop, and whatever needs to be done, whatever needs to happen, would be done by the body-mind spontaneously in line with the universal happening.
And sometimes, what needs to be done is to do nothing. To rest. To lie down.
What's wrong with that?
Only our illusionary ego patterns, core beliefs and habitual functioning tell us what we should or shouldn't do and when or when not.
This is the acting of the illusionary ego that only messes up the natural flow of things.
My spiritual practice is to recognise the flow in the actual moment - whatever is happening now and what it is calling for - and distinguish it from what "I" want to do. If I listen to the "I", life gets more challenging. If I go with the flow, life gets easier.
And miraculously, everything that needs to be done running a family life and holding a job down still gets done - and much more fluently and easily.
This requires trust initially, but very soon, this trust gets reaffirmed repeatedly. Things get done in much better order, style and efficiency than if it is ego-mind-driven.
No - what is his/her teaching in a nutshell? But anyhow, what Nisargadatta probably would say is this: As long the teaching doesn't humiliate us and leads us to our true Self and is resonating with us - it is the right teaching. He advocates for many Gurus, each one being a milestone to learn a specific lesson. Ultimately, the last Guru leads us to our Sadguru, our inner Guru. All outer Guru's are just refletions of our inner Guru. Only the inner Guru can take us to our true Self, according to him.
He draws from a huge range of mystic teachings... predominantly Indian texts but lots of great material for these current crazy times.. check it out if you have a spare 15 minutes or so...
I listened to a few talks. All gurus have their own style, presentation and language. He reminded me a little bit of Osho in that he talks a lot about society and politics. He uses the same non-dual spiritual teachings and pointers than most of the other gurus. All that matters, imo, is if he affects you emotionally, touches your heart and inspires you. It is a great blessing if a Guru finds you.
The scientific "proof" of there being no free will because intention occurs before conscious decision making happens, is traditionally known as intuition. Which is simply your heart making s decision based on the biosensor information provided by the mitochondria in each cell, about the environmental cues around us. The heart then feeds that sensory information back to the brain (contrary to old science, it's the heart sending info to the brain, not the other way around), where the brain then "consciously" processes it, and depending on the results, either sends signals back to the heart for fight, flight, fawn, freeze or calm reaction.
We are bioenergetic vehicles for a halobiome thst is continuously adapting to our surroundings via the mitochondrial bacterial "sensors". They are constantly sending and receiving signals to and from each other. We then vibrate according to these signals. So in one sense, yes, we have no free will because we are at the mercy of stimuli, but on the other hand our energetic thoughts form a part of the "environmental signals" being picked up by our microscopic synbionts 😉
We are both sides of the freewill coin, so to speak.🤔😉
Thank you. I like the heart metaphor. It is another way to conceptualize reality. Here is how I currently make sense of it in a very limited way: We are only creating relative simple one-dimensial cognitive maps for a complexity that is simply unimaginable. The cognitive maps have a purpose and are part of the complexity. The purpose is to filter everything out that doesn't concern the biological survival and well-being of a particular body-mind in order to learn from mistakes and improve survival. Very similar to a road map that leaves millions of territory data point out and simply foccuses on the roads because it's purpose is to get us from A to B quickly and practically. We don't need to know all the life forms and the trillions of real-time interactions that happen in the territory.
Body-mind survival is equal getting from A to B in this example. All this is not a problem and totally in tune with existence.
The only problem, if I understand Nisargadatta right, is that we totally identify with the body-mind - thinking we are the body-mind. Therfore this limited map and the struggle to survive and thrive is so important.
But we are not the body-mind. We are the awareness which can observe the body-mind doing its thing, amongst many other things. According to Nisargadatta, the body-mind doesn't need our conscious identification with a particular body-mind for it to survive and do all the right things. The body-mind can do that perfectly, maybe even better, by itself. Maye through the heart intelligence you describe.
Nisargadatta brings the example of digestion which is a totally unselfconscious extremly complex process that works totally by itself. He claims, "his" body-mind lives all of life like that.
His whole conscious awareness has withdrawn from the body-mind and it is just a tiny speck in the field of his univeral awareness running the show all by itself without his conscious intervention. He denies the notion, for example, that he (as pure awareness) answers any questions. He claims that what hears the question answers it. But because his ego has disolved, the answer is in tune with existence and therfore always right.
This is an interesting concept. I disagree with you a bit on the free will aspect though. I do agree that once you’ve chosen a path, planted your seed, or chosen a master you flow through life in a more easily deterministic manner. But free will still exists in the space between. In the ability to choose. Much like you chose to follow Nisargadatta. There is always a choice.
I understand your disagreement to free will. Just to be even more confusing, there actually is free will - it just isn't personal. Did I find Nisrgadatta or did he find me? I honestly have no clue and it does't matter at all. These are all just mind games. Thank you for engaging lily.
Nisargadatta has been my main teacher for many years so I was surprised and touched to read your account and interpretation. I especially loved your experiment of believing what he said and what that in turn led to. This is similar to what he himself did with his teacher! Beautiful and much appreciated.
Thank you, very kind.
I see a problem with that, as many of us, at least at some point, would only lie/sit down and do nothing, if we would just leave everything to take care for itself by itself. .....
What do you think?
That is not the case from my own body-mind experience of consciously living without free will. Events cause events - a constant cause-and-effect mechanism - in the physical world. My wife calls and says: "Can you pick up milk on the way home," which causes me to stop and get the milk. Without her causing that, I wouldn't have done that. Or, I am in a rush because I promised to pick up a friend and don't want to do it. The "friend cause" overrides the "milk cause", but it doesn't matter what exactly causes what. This might be experienced as a "conflict" and a call for the "I" to decide. But that is all illusionary.
If we could switch off our sense of "I" (and I had experiences of that), all imaginary conflict would stop, and whatever needs to be done, whatever needs to happen, would be done by the body-mind spontaneously in line with the universal happening.
And sometimes, what needs to be done is to do nothing. To rest. To lie down.
What's wrong with that?
Only our illusionary ego patterns, core beliefs and habitual functioning tell us what we should or shouldn't do and when or when not.
This is the acting of the illusionary ego that only messes up the natural flow of things.
My spiritual practice is to recognise the flow in the actual moment - whatever is happening now and what it is calling for - and distinguish it from what "I" want to do. If I listen to the "I", life gets more challenging. If I go with the flow, life gets easier.
And miraculously, everything that needs to be done running a family life and holding a job down still gets done - and much more fluently and easily.
This requires trust initially, but very soon, this trust gets reaffirmed repeatedly. Things get done in much better order, style and efficiency than if it is ego-mind-driven.
Give it a try.
I love your bedside manner. Or maybe it’s my body-mind which appreciates it? I just know something feels embraced when I read your responses. Thanks!
Thank you. That touches my heart.
Do you know of Shunyamurti of the Sat Yoga institute? I haven’t found anyone else whom his teachings resonate with... apart from my partner
No - what is his/her teaching in a nutshell? But anyhow, what Nisargadatta probably would say is this: As long the teaching doesn't humiliate us and leads us to our true Self and is resonating with us - it is the right teaching. He advocates for many Gurus, each one being a milestone to learn a specific lesson. Ultimately, the last Guru leads us to our Sadguru, our inner Guru. All outer Guru's are just refletions of our inner Guru. Only the inner Guru can take us to our true Self, according to him.
He draws from a huge range of mystic teachings... predominantly Indian texts but lots of great material for these current crazy times.. check it out if you have a spare 15 minutes or so...
https://m.youtube.com/@satyogainstitute/featured
I listened to a few talks. All gurus have their own style, presentation and language. He reminded me a little bit of Osho in that he talks a lot about society and politics. He uses the same non-dual spiritual teachings and pointers than most of the other gurus. All that matters, imo, is if he affects you emotionally, touches your heart and inspires you. It is a great blessing if a Guru finds you.
The scientific "proof" of there being no free will because intention occurs before conscious decision making happens, is traditionally known as intuition. Which is simply your heart making s decision based on the biosensor information provided by the mitochondria in each cell, about the environmental cues around us. The heart then feeds that sensory information back to the brain (contrary to old science, it's the heart sending info to the brain, not the other way around), where the brain then "consciously" processes it, and depending on the results, either sends signals back to the heart for fight, flight, fawn, freeze or calm reaction.
We are bioenergetic vehicles for a halobiome thst is continuously adapting to our surroundings via the mitochondrial bacterial "sensors". They are constantly sending and receiving signals to and from each other. We then vibrate according to these signals. So in one sense, yes, we have no free will because we are at the mercy of stimuli, but on the other hand our energetic thoughts form a part of the "environmental signals" being picked up by our microscopic synbionts 😉
We are both sides of the freewill coin, so to speak.🤔😉
Love your work, keep it coming.👏👏🙏
Thank you. I like the heart metaphor. It is another way to conceptualize reality. Here is how I currently make sense of it in a very limited way: We are only creating relative simple one-dimensial cognitive maps for a complexity that is simply unimaginable. The cognitive maps have a purpose and are part of the complexity. The purpose is to filter everything out that doesn't concern the biological survival and well-being of a particular body-mind in order to learn from mistakes and improve survival. Very similar to a road map that leaves millions of territory data point out and simply foccuses on the roads because it's purpose is to get us from A to B quickly and practically. We don't need to know all the life forms and the trillions of real-time interactions that happen in the territory.
Body-mind survival is equal getting from A to B in this example. All this is not a problem and totally in tune with existence.
The only problem, if I understand Nisargadatta right, is that we totally identify with the body-mind - thinking we are the body-mind. Therfore this limited map and the struggle to survive and thrive is so important.
But we are not the body-mind. We are the awareness which can observe the body-mind doing its thing, amongst many other things. According to Nisargadatta, the body-mind doesn't need our conscious identification with a particular body-mind for it to survive and do all the right things. The body-mind can do that perfectly, maybe even better, by itself. Maye through the heart intelligence you describe.
Nisargadatta brings the example of digestion which is a totally unselfconscious extremly complex process that works totally by itself. He claims, "his" body-mind lives all of life like that.
His whole conscious awareness has withdrawn from the body-mind and it is just a tiny speck in the field of his univeral awareness running the show all by itself without his conscious intervention. He denies the notion, for example, that he (as pure awareness) answers any questions. He claims that what hears the question answers it. But because his ego has disolved, the answer is in tune with existence and therfore always right.
Lovely
Thx