How free is our will?
N. L. Vas
Today we are going to attempt to find out whether we have a free will. To do this we will first try to find out what is the will, who or what exercises will, and what else is related to the will. To get a better understanding of it we will have to include other faculties, such as intelligence, desire, imagination and discipline. When I first came to live in Holland some 25 years ago, I received a birthday card from a good friend. What I remember most about the card is, not who the good friend was, but the words written on it. They went as follows, “The important thing in life is not where we are, but in which direction we are going.” I always remember those words. The subject of the will has a lot to do with which direction we are going.
Will is found, according to the dictionary, to be a mental power that is deliberately used to decide what course of action to take. In philosophical reasoning it is described as a faculty of choice, and that we have decision making capacities in which to exercise our freedom of action. This sounds reasonable to me and in the world of today it could be better to decide, when not to act. The theosophical description of will is quite elaborate; it is described as a colourless, neutral power and it can be directed upwards or downwards by the mind. When I think of colourless and neutral I think of water and try to compare it with that element on the physical plane. Will of course belongs to a higher plane than the physical, the plane of the consciousness and intelligence. For example, where we find faculties of altruism, compassion, love and forgiveness, on this plane we will find Will. Such faculties we can’t touch, but we know they are a part of all of us. In theosophical literature we find that will is not limited to humans, the microcosmos, but is found everywhere in the universe, the macrocosmos. It is a force of the higher spiritual faculties, and life is the result.
The ancient wisdom tells us that the Absolute periodically differentiates and then periodically withdraws the differentiated into itself. To do this the Absolute uses the force of divine will. Everything in the universe or infinity, is the absolute, and has the latent powers of the Absolute (will), but on various levels. We and everything around us have a divine heritage. Plato says that the Absolute brought everything into being through its free will. Free will exists for every monad how ever great or small in infinity. What is a monad? To explain this we have to go back to the ancient Greeks, Democritus, Lucretius and others. They gave us the atomic theory. They taught that the atom cannot be divided, it is indivisible. This atom that they taught is not the hard little object of European science. That atom, the physical atom can be endlessly divided. The atom that the ancient Greeks taught is a center of consciousness which we call a Monad. A monad is an immortal undying emanation from the heart of the universe or the Absolute. It is centre of consciousness. The universe is ensouled consciousness and consciousness is ubiquitous.
When we look at the smallest living organism, we are astounded by life’s riddle. Even the simplest monad, embodied in a microscopical mass of protoplasm, shows growth, feeding and breeding behaviour and motion. Compared to that small quantity of protoplasm, humans are complex entities and the only way for man to solve life’s riddle to examine himself, to observe how far the will penetrates his consciousness, revealing itself to his inner senses.
When we observe ourselves we find that we are not only flesh and blood, but also a “complex of desires, passions, interests, ambitions, opinions, prejudices, judgments of others, likings and dislikings and affections.” This complex bundle of qualities belongs to the mortal man. When observing ourselves further through use of the will, we find the immortal man in us who is “pure, passionless, measuring rightly the relations of things, for whom there is no present with its falsities and half truths, and who has nothing personal in the sense of being opposed to the whole: who sees the truth rather than struggles logically towards it.” Both the mortal and immortal consciousness or man, have free will, they are not two different entities but one monad. “Free will is the amount of spiritual energy and intellect that the evolving monad has been able to grasp through inner growth. It can be increased and the monad can change his future through use of the free will, by modifying his conduct with regard to the future.”
There is an old Hermetic saying: “Behind will stands desire.” This means that will is a colourless force, set in motion by desire. Will is a spiritual force but desire is a force that stands central in the human constitution, and depends upon the amount of spiritual development the monad has evolved, it can either ascend to the higher spiritual or descend to the lower bestial principles. For example, desire in animals is an instinctive force because they have not yet developed their self-consciousness, and in humans it can be either an intuitive force or a intellectual force, when we develop our intuition. Humans generally use their desire intellectually rather than intuitively.
The majority of mankind lives in and by desire, mistaking it for will. Desire is continually changing and unstable, whereas will is steady and constant. We are misled by our weaknesses. We don’t even have enough willpower to follow one path for a week at a time, or a month, let alone a year. Our wills are asleep and our minds are weak due to lack of exercise, we depend too much on outside help so that our inner self or spirit has no chance to come out and soar. Therefore to succeed in life, it would be wise to separate desire from will and to make the will the leader.
Both will and desire are creative forces, making man himself and his environment. The difference is that will creates intuitively, and desire with reason and intelligence. Man makes himself in the image of his desires, but he could create himself in the likeness of the divine through use of his will.
“We have a twofold duty, first to awaken and strengthen our will by taming and using it, making it the absolute ruler within the body; and secondly to purify our desire.” BCW, vol 8, p.109. To achieve this we need tools to work with. Knowledge and Will are our tools. Nothing can grow on air, we need ground and space to achieve growth. Knowledge gives us ground to grow attaining wisdom and Will when applied unselfishly stimulates spiritual growth.
The difference between man and the gods is, as stated earlier, a chasm of developed consciousness. For example, man needs to sleep, have the weekend of or go on vacation; his consciousness is not yet fully developed. During sleep, he is not conscious of what is taking place with his mind. The Gods on the other hand are fully conscious throughout the aeons and aeons of time. Take the Sun for example, it radiates light and life, day and night for billions and billions of years without resting.
Is it possible for man to imitate the gods? Yes it is, Jesus, Buddha, Pythagoras, Apollonius van Tyana, and others made a start. So what’s holding us back from becoming like them? Well here are two answers. The Buddhist say that ignorance is the root of all evil, the theosophists emphasize that selfishness is the root of all evil. To imitate the Gods we have to learn to be entirely unselfish, to forget ourselves, to live for others and apply our will for the good of humanity. Unselfishness should be performed with discrimination and justice. A difficult job, one would think, and hardly possible in one-life time, but fortunately there is re-embodiment. Difficulty should not be an excuse for not trying. Follow the path of right thought, right feeling and right action. Thus, we have to get the knowledge of what we are, our consciousness and its future. Consciousness is ubiquitous and the universe is ensouled consciousness.
Besides the will and desire we also have other important faculties to examine, such as imagination and discipline. Imagination is a creative power which, used together with the will, calls forth creative forces and their productions. It can be used for spiritualization and also for the materialization of images conceived in the mind; to bring about the results we desire, whether good or evil. It may become our master, chaining us to the illusions we have created; or we can direct this power and resist its suggestions of fancy, it then becomes a powerful instrument in shaping our lives and destiny. Encyclopaedic Theosophical Glossary. Pythagoras called imagination the memory of preceding births.
Two thirds of our ailings and fears are the result of our imagination and fears. We should try to get rid of the strange “original sin” idea that man is naturally bad and cannot help himself. We have a divine heritage and can bring out the divinity within us, by being altruistic and by loving our fellowmen. Love “is the cement of the universe; it holds all things in place and in eternal keeping, its very nature is celestial peace, its very characteristic is cosmic harmony, permeating all things, boundless, deathless, infinite, eternal. It is everywhere, and is the very heart of the heart of all that is.” Golden Precepts, p.111. “The only God we should serve is humanity and our only cult should be the love of our fellow man. Doing evil towards him, we wound God and make him suffer. When we deny our brotherly duties and refuse to consider a refugee as well a European as our brother, we deny God.” BCW, vol, 8, p.88. The dream of brotherly love is not new, for centuries man has been trying to establish brotherly love. Jesus and Buddha tried, the Theosophical Society is following them and I am certain it WILL be achieved. Where there’s a will there’s a way. “Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, . . . we shall harness . . . the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” Teilhard De Chardin.
Discipline is a word we associate with training in self control, and detriment to our freedom, but, “It is the slave who resents all discipline; the free man welcomes all opportunities for self discipline. It is the way to achieve strength of will, breadth of sympathy, loftiness of character and all-round social and spiritual efficiency.” The message of the Upanishads, p.202. Swami Ranganathananda.
Everywhere we see adverts and billboards selling this or that. Have you ever stopped to think what’s driving the propagandists? Well it’s the will subjected by desire that drives them to get us to buy their products, but will is truly everywhere for all to use. We have to use it with intelligence and learn to repress our desire. For who is responsible for the way we are? No one but ourselves.
To recap on what I’ve already said.
• Will is colourless, neutral force
• Free will exists for every monad how ever great or small in infinity
• The difference between Will and desire, desire is continually
changing and unstable, whereas will is steady and constant.
• Discipline frees us from slavery of our desires
• Imagination coupled to the will can create a better future for
the human race.
It is universally desired to practise high morals for their own sake, they bring real good into the world and bring out the god-like powers of the human soul. Preaching and sermons are good enough for the hour or half an hour that they are listened to, but the teachings of the ancients, i.e. the practise of pure morality and the development of the will-power lies the key to what we call the “Unknown, the Absolute.” This ought to be a revelation to this materialistic age. Now that we have found out that we have a free will and we have to discipline our desires by using our imagination in altruism and brotherly love.
To conclude here is a quote;
“Watch over your thoughts,
or they will become your words
watch over your words
or they will become your deeds
watch over your deeds
or they will become your habits
watch over your habits
or they will become your character
watch over your character
or it will become your destiny.”