O great twisty math of the universe, please reveal yourself to me. My mind cannot fully absorb the subtleness of the infinite mysteries of reality, yet please aid my quest as I try to grow and better myself.
Here I sit, in a room of human creation, and yet I must ask, does not the rest of the universe deserve some credit for our deeds? Don’t galaxies light-years away that are influencing us in unpredictable ways show us our hubris in declaring our inventions as “human”?
Aren’t we each awarenesses in a process of bending back, yet fundamentally beholden to nature?
If so, how can free will be at all sensible or appealing? Isn’t this sense of control merely an illusion, built up because of evolutionary advantages? What evolutionary reasons could these be?
Perhaps this feeling of volition is really a meme that spread, like the idea of a flat Earth. Like what happened with the idea of the Earth at the center of the Universe, hopefully we will develop better models and see the benefit in not being tricked by the illusion of control.
This benefit comes by easing the pain of suffering which is caused by resisting what Is in favor of what one thinks Should Be.
It’s silly, isn’t it? We blind ourselves to the simple truth of our minds being imagined ideas, which causes suffering when who we think we should be doesn’t match what is.
This trick of a persistent self may help us cooperate with others in a consistent way, but when we fail to stay in our imagined bubble of acceptable living we beat ourselves up, as if the process of awareness requires an identity.
You don’t need an identity any more than you need a belief in invisible pink unicorns. The universe happens — and you’re in it.
The ego, the sense of an identity, is fundamentally an imagined idea. If you want to turn your attention on the experiences of living rather than the illusions of thinking, you can.
Your body is a force of nature in the universe, and your sensation of mind and awareness proceeds from the natural processes of your neural wetware.
If nature wanted you to be different, you would be.
If the math running the universe rolled out for you to be different, you would be.
So should you feel alone? Should you feel broken? What about bliss or comfort?
It turns out that these emotions are created by your brain. This is a natural brain, not exempt from nature’s mathematical laws.
The processes of thinking and emoting and worrying are created by nature, you don’t need to try to control it.
This is why the ancients, in texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao Te Ching, constantly speak of developing motivelessness and detachment to desires.
It’s because these desires are imagined ideas! Wrapping yourself in the comfort of the fruits of purposive actions only serves to strengthen the trick that you are in control!
Instead, shake off that yoke of identity which causes suffering. You are neither the watcher nor the watched, you are nature watching itself.
Your body is an observational tool. It is an instrument that was built up by the processes of reality.
Let yourself break from the idea that you need to do something. When the time comes, it will either happen or not. There is never a good time to worry.
While life is not like a movie, where it all works out in the end for you, it does proceed by the impartial rules of nature. You don’t need to try to control that. To do so would be like trying to rewrite a movie that’s already been filmed.
Belief in free will is optional. If the circumstances work out where you realize identity is just a belief, not a fact, you can learn to live without the pain of imagined suffering.
Regards,
Jesse