Sooooo… there’s this whole thing about free will going on right now. Do we have free will, or do we not have free will? It’s actually an argument that’s been going on a really long time, but lately, a professor has written a book saying that we don’t have free will, so now everybody’s all worried about this.
I would like to relate it to Pluto. Pluto was discovered as a planet in 1930, and it was this really big deal, “Oh, we found a new planet! There’s nine planets now!”
For most of my life (I’m really, really old), Pluto was a planet.
Then all of a sudden, one day, they decided that Pluto wasn’t really a planet. There was a big controversy about that too at the same time, right? It’s Pluto! They can’t take Pluto away!
But they did. So now, Pluto isn’t a planet.
But think about this: before Pluto was discovered as a planet, we were just living here, walking around, being human beings. After Pluto was taken away, we’re still just living here… walking around being human being. It hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference in human beings’ lives. It hasn’t changed the way the earth is revolving around the sun or the way that the moon is revolving around the earth. It’s made literally no difference; it’s just a designation. It’s a concept.
We don’t know— they might turn around and decide that Pluto’s a planet again. “They”… whoever’s in charge of planets, right?
It makes literally no difference to human beings here on the Earth living our lives. Even if there were human beings living on Pluto, it wouldn’t make any difference to them whether we think they’re a planet or not, right?
Same thing with free will—the idea of free will is just an idea. So, the fact that some Stanford Professor has decided that nobody has free will makes no difference at all to you and me, because each of us defines these things for ourselves.
You were walking along, living your life, believing you have free will. Maybe you never thought about it? Maybe you already believed that you don’t have free will—whatever you were, you were that.
Then this guy decides none of us have free will, and you’re still just walking around, living your life exactly the same. Nothing has been taken away from ‘You.’ Free will has not been taken away from you just because he says it doesn’t exist.
One thing that has changed, maybe, is the way that you’re thinking about this idea of free will. Maybe it’s expanded your idea of who you are. Maybe it’s made you a little less fixed and gripping onto your ideas of what a human being is. Maybe it’s opened you up a little bit. Maybe you’ve started questioning “This idea we have about free will—does it even exist?”
Maybe we can start wondering how useful this idea is to us as human beings?
Maybe it’s had the opposite effect and made people more fixed and fearful. Maybe having free will ‘taken away’ from you has made you clamp down more on your belief system: “I have to have free will, or what’s the point of living?” Clamping down makes us more fixated, less free.
Perhaps it’s made people start to worry more, “What are we going to do in the future? What did we do in the past if we didn’t have free will?” Clamp! The ideas clamp down hard and fast.
That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? What if refusing to believe that free will doesn’t exist actually takes away your free will!?
So, that’s the thing that really matters: has the conversation opened you up to a more fluid experience of being a human being, or is it clamping you down into fear and angst about what it means to be a human being?
The designation of free will doesn’t affect me at all, doesn’t affect you at all.
Maybe it affects the culture, because if we all start believing we don’t have free will, how are we going to behave? Or if we all believe we do have free will, how are we going to behave? So, that might be a thing.
But the real question, as far as Nonduality is concerned is: can this open your concept of who we are more and more?
So, my advice? Study into the idea as much as you can, talk about it, consider it. How does it feel inside of you? How does it open things up? How does it clamp things down? Use it as a self-awareness tool, rather than as a dictation from somebody outside of you telling you who you are.
You are not what that guy says you are. You are you. Bottom line.