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THE PHYSICS OF SPIRITUALITY
“In truth, we do not live in time and space. Time and space live in us.”
THE CASE for DETACHMENT
All actions take place in time by the interweaving of the forces of nature, but the man lost in selfish delusion thinks that he himself is the actor. But the man who knows the relation between the forces of Nature and actions, sees how some forces of Nature work upon other forces of Nature, and becomes not their slave.
Bhagavad Gita, 8.3
Essentially, the perception of “free will” is a quality like any other quality inherent in the individual self (such as intelligence, physical strength, etc) and was created through a series of chain reactions emanating from the moment of creation. As such, it too is subject to the same determinism that all other qualities are subject to. It comes, it goes, it increases, it decreases, it attaches itself to our awareness, and eventually, as the individual self matures, it slowly releases itself from our awareness and falls off. This perception of free-will is simply a matter of relative perspective. When awareness is exercised from the perspective of the individual self, the illusion of free-will appears to exist in the same way that the illusion of “separateness” appears to exist. When awareness is exercised from the perspective of the “Greater Self”, the illusion of separateness, along with that of free-will, extinguishes itself and it becomes evident that real “will” rests not in the individual self with which we normally identify, but rather, in the Greater Self which is our “real” and eternal natural state of existence. Why then is it so difficult for us to let go of our need, our addiction, to the concept of some form of free-will within the individual self ? This is simply because we have ceased to become aware of our Greater Self and hence cannot cognize any other source of the creative will that we all instinctively “know” to be our heritage.
The physical, individual self tends to “adopt”, as its “own”, the free-will and creativity of the Greater Self. The resulting disharmony between what the individual self sees, as its own desired destiny and the predetermined plan of the Greater Self is the root cause of the discontentedness and daily stress of the individual self. To go deep within, and to awaken the Greater Self is to understand the true nature and destiny of one’s self and humanity, as well as the perfect nature of each moment and event in the universe (no matter how chaotic, or tragic it may appear to the individual self), and thus lead a stress-free and contented life in harmony with the cosmos.
As we begin to learn to lift our awareness towards the Greater Self within, we naturally lose our addiction, our reliance on the need for free-will within the physical individual self. We learn to come into “tune” with the will of the Greater Self within, rather than mentally thrashing to-and-fro in trying to enforce a will which we believe resides in our physical individual selves. The result is that we begin to effortlessly move through life, guided by an infallible, ever perfect higher will.
Now, if we are not the cause of events and actions in the world, it stands to reason that we cannot covet the fruits of these actions and events, nor can we condemn others for their actions. Rather we can only, if anything, in a detached frame of mind, condemn the actions themselves. This psychological framework brings an end to the angst, hatreds, inner conflicts and resentments that we all build up in our lives as a result of the actions of others. Again, the result is Freedom. Freedom from the need for jealousy, anger, covetousness, and all the other psychological baggage which dominates our lives.
The flip side of this argument is that even happiness and contentment cannot, by definition, be an outcome of the actions of others, for those actions are predefined elements. Happiness, and contentment, if such things are to be found at all, cannot be found in the external predefined script of world events and therefore, the “search space” for the finding of such qualities is automatically reduced to “internal space”. As the saying goes, happiness can only be found within. Happiness or any other quest on which we hinge our hopes can never be banked upon in the space of external reality because this reality is, from our perspective, a crapshoot. It is entirely out of our control (although our ego would like to think otherwise, and although we are constantly grasping at coincidences, and cause-effect phenomenon to argue to the contrary) and hence will sooner or later fail us and bring into doubt our entire value system. This happens to everyone at some point or other in his or her life, if not many times.
This realization obliges us to only act without seeking the fruits of actions. If control of external reality is not caused by self-will, then all we can focus on is internal reality or “Self” and the control thereof.
When we accept that we are not the cause of the events we perceive, then Ego evaporates. It is only when this superficial self, (ego or selfishness) is destroyed that control over the inner self becomes possible. This is so because as long as Ego exists, as long as we continue to focus our attentions and energies as a function of anger, fear, happiness triggered by external events, which are events which we cannot by definition control, we can never achieve self control.