Mathew Naismith
We
must remember, non-material evidence, like faith or intuition, is not going to
be accepted as evidence of existence by a material consciousness. I often
produce material evidence to consciousnesses of materialism, but I have more
faith in non-material evidence that is from a consciousness of infinite
consciousness, not finite consciousness like material consciousness. However,
in a material reality, non-material evidence can become distorted, like our
faith or intuition can become overly influenced by materialism.
I
have recently been asked to supply evidence or give an example of free will.
Giving material evidence to free will is easy. Giving non-material evidence of
free will is not easy, not if you want a material mind to comprehend this as
evidence. I did find an interesting
article on this which I passed on to the person who asked for evidence of free will.
"Over the years I have revisited
this paradox many times. In my mid-twenties I wrote a magazine article entitled
“And the Opposite is Also True.” There I argued that it was not a
question of whether free will or determinism was correct. I postulated that
they were like two sides of a coin; two very different perspectives of the same
reality. From one perspective determinism is true; from the other free will is
true. But as to what these two complementary perspectives might be, I wasn’t
clear.
Then last year, in one of those
moments of insight, it all fell into place. I realized that the two
fundamentally different perspectives stemmed from two fundamentally different
states of consciousness."
Two fundamentally different states of
consciousness, not one. One consciousness driven by ego (motion), the other by
egoless (motionless) but all the same, still of consciousness. You cannot
define that there is no free will by deriving at this fact while only
considering one type of consciousness, a consciousness of motion (soul) as
opposed to motionless, a consciousness in the absence of a soul to start with.
"They
find that what we take to be a sense of an omnipresent “I” is simply
consciousness itself. There is no separate experiencer; there is simply a
quality of being, a sense of presence, an awareness that is always there
whatever our experience. They conclude that what we experience to be an
independent self is a construct in the mind—very real in its appearance but of
no intrinsic substance. It, like the choices it appears to make, is a
consequence of processes in the brain. It has no free will of its own."
There is no separate experiencer
which gives us the perception there is no free will, however, when many
consciousnesses become one, which creates a state of motionlessness, free will
is evident. You probably need to experience this to know this. This is like giving
birth, how many blokes exactly know what it is like giving birth? When you have
not yourself experienced a motionless state, you will of course never know or
even want to know that this state is of free will.
"Free will and determinism are
no longer paradoxical in the sense of being mutually exclusive. Both are
correct, depending upon the consciousness from which they are considered. The
paradox only appears when we consider both sides from the same state of
consciousness, i.e, the everyday waking state."
"I
remember hearing a statement Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said something like: ” We
can choose whatever we like, eg plant an orange seed or an apple seed, but once
the choice is made, the result is already determined by that choice”. This to
me resolved the paradox and made both sides compatible as you suggested."
Try
to understand free will though; your environment often determines your actions.
In saying this, you are often a reflection of your environment, an environment
of your choice or a choice of another within your environment!!
