05-19-2019, 02:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-19-2019, 02:46 PM by redchartreuse.)
(05-19-2019, 01:58 PM)Stranger Wrote: redchartreuse, there are two meanings of "free will". One is the conventional meaning: you are free to choose.
The second meaning of free will, as used in the Ra material, is: not knowing the truth of the oneness of all, which enables entities to make choices which would not be made if the oneness of all had been self-evident (as it is when we are not veiled).
You seem to be speaking about the first meaning, so let's focus on that. You are correct that free will is always constrained: we are Infinite Creator bound within an enormous number of conceptual "shells", which include everything we perceive around us, as well as our bodies, minds, emotions. We exist within a world designed by our Logos. It comes with laws, including spiritual laws, emotional laws, laws of physics. He created this game, and we are playing as characters in it. This is infinitely more interesting than if we had been left to stare at a blank screen and use our free will to doodle on it as we wished.
However, within the game, we are absolutely free to choose how to respond to all the stimuli presented to our awareness. Yes, of course we have impulses and biases - most obviously, the biological drives for food, water, sex, etc, and a myriad psychological drives and biases, many of which come from our unconscious as a result of unresolved trauma (old unprocessed catalyst). As a result, we can find ourselves experiencing strong anger, or sadness, or fear and anxiety, etc., and various personality configurations and traits; and each of these will "pull" us toward (or away from) particular choices. This seems to be what you're describing when you argue that we do not have free will.
The most important thing to understand here is none of that is deterministic. When a true second-density animal experiences an impulse, it has no capacity to reflect on that and choose to go against it; we do. We can have very strong lust, or fear, or sadness, and yet force ourselves to act against them: ie, refrain from cheating on our spouse; march forward into the line of enemy fire in a war; force ourselves to get up and get dressed and go to work, etc. We can work "smarter, not harder" and, instead of choosing to use willpower, find love in the situation, find peace, work on changing our emotional state.
This is free will. It is the capacity to go along with, or against the various pushes and pulls on our various natures (physical, emotional, mental). Adding in the second meaning of free will: with the help of the veil, it is the capacity to either become part of the harmonious original plan created by the Logos, or go against it into hate, aggression, further separation. It is up to us. Our impulses do not drive us. They make very compelling suggestions.
Hiya stranger!
I'm actually breaking my word responding to you here, as I said I would only make one more post here, as the torches and pitchforks have won the day once again, and it's time for me to rejoin my actual life, already in progress, which has become infinitely more joyous and harmonious since I began rooting out the many erroneous and self-serving interpretations of the Ra material that get passed around as incontrovertible truths in communities, such as this one.
You are 100% right, and have succeeded in restating the OP much more eloquently than I did. Thank you.
The issue I am raising is how so many LOO students, and "new agers" (for lack of a better term) in general, read "free will" in terms of the conventional meaning you suggest.
This, in turn, is used to justify all manner of heartless and selfish actions, not the least of which is the constant reinforcement that anybody who is suffering "chose" to suffer, and needs to "learn how to love" by simply rolling over and accepting any suffering which comes their way. This type of attitude, by ANY human definition, is abusive. Plain and simple. It is extremely damaging for people to treat each other this way, and bordering on psychotic.
I know, because I did it for 20 years before coming around to the error of my ways. And if I sound broken and angry and pained for it, that's because I still have some healing to do. My bad.
It plays right into the negative agenda, and directly feeds beings who have denied their direct connection to the Creator, and must instead feed on the energies of suffering.
Another equally, if not more harmful, result is how so many think they are "being spiritual" when they turn the other cheek on those who are committing harmful acts toward themselves and others. So the trope goes, those people "have chosen at the soul level" to behave that way, and therefore it is not our place to try and intervene because that would supposedly be an abrogation of free will. Of course, it is nothing more than sloth and cowardice. And I would know because I have been that too.
The only thing I might counter from your post is that people who are not aware that they are being led around by their impulses, and who have come to believe that blindly following impulses and subconsious biases IS THE SAME THING as exercising their free will, effectively have none. And more importantly, they are us. And it is our honor and duty to do our very best to help them see the light. It often is not pretty, and they often go kicking and screaming just like a drug addict who is called out on their addiction. But we are here to serve their indwelling souls, and not their personality shells. And that's how the cookie crumbles.
Cheers to you. And hello and goodbye.
[EDIT: This WAS my last post. Glow, there really isn't much more for me to say in this forum. I could list some of the other negative programs I rooted out, but there's something I once heard that a very wise man said about casting pearls before swine, and have decided this just isn't the right forum for me. Cheers to you as well, and to everyone else who genuinely contributed some truy value to the discussions I have been attempting to have here. I am sorry we are not going to be able to continue our chats any longer. Buh bye now.]