Mystery, God, Time, Free-Will

[Brandon Gwinn]

I'd really love to have L/L Research ask Q'uo about a comprehensive expanded explanation of Free-will in relation to time, from the ultimate absolute perspective down step by step to the purely personal subjective experience of both a Self-realized being and an ego lost in the illusion of separation and duality. Even if they respond with a simple one-liner, I'd love to hear what they have to say in response to this line of questioning. I know Ra said Free Will is the 1st distortion, suggesting that even it is an illusion, but again, any sort of explanation of cosmic development from a linear perspective of time has to be ultimately meaningless because ultimately there is no time, only unity. So what's what or is this question flawed before it even starts because it seeks an intellectual understanding outside the reality which can only be embodied?

I haven't even started yet. Lol. These are the thoughts I've been weighing:

There is no Doer except the infinite energy of the infinite Mystery and Intelligence of God. Can a single domino claim to be the cause of anything when it is only part of an endless chain?  We simply follow the will of the Mystery and it is this Mystery which moves us and moves through All. 

Does this deny free-will? Our will is an extension of God's will which is simply the natural course of development from the beginning of time according to the infinite intelligence of the Mystery. The path anyone or anything takes is a natural development. Our will is not separate from the collective. We get so caught up over the question of free-will because we're trying to attach it to the egoic idea of a separate self which doesn't even exist within the ultimate and only reality of unity. What does free-will even mean? I've come to realize we've lost the real meaning of will by confusing it with desire. Free-will simply means what WILL freely happen which takes into account our desires. You can't "will" something to happen. What Will be Will be. You can only desire it knowing that what Will happen is influenced by your desires, but even your desires appear and happen freely and naturally and are shaped and influenced by collective Life. Even our thought processes which help shape our desires are influenced by innumerable previous thoughts including a constant flood of outside cues and suggestions. When you go into meditation, you don't choose to start thinking again. It just happens, and the process of letting go and returning to the meditative state isn't something you stand apart from all creation to choose by some separate prime volition, it's simply you freely following a desire that's been shaped in you most likely from repeated negative experiences with stress that steered you into learning meditation.

Does all this take away from the validity, reality, or meaning of our path or experiences? It may feel like it at first from an egoic perspective, but even though life is basically automatic, we still experience the sense of free choice as our minds weigh alternate paths and settle on what we're more aligned with, and this experience is meaningful as it moves us and involves us emotionally where emotions are life- energy in motion. When we "choose" or settle on what's more in alignment with our being, we experience resonance which is felt emotionally as joy, peace, loving light, and so on. Our choices, though automatic, are always in alignment with what we desire. Also note that just because life is automatic doesn't mean you just lay down, quit everything, and expect life to take care of itself. Life requires our participation, and I think you'll find that it is our desire to remain engaged with the processes of Life because we find them quite enjoyable.

And about The Mystery: Why is it that it's a mystery? Is it because it existed before and outside of consciousness itself (from an illusory linear perspective), and therefore existed unconsciously with roots in nothingness without cause or reason for existence? Because it had no beginning or end from which to grasp it with understanding and could only be embodied? Because as soon as God Was, the Mystery of Intelligence and Order was there with It to guide Him/Her/It? (Lol. We need better gender neutral pronouns). How do we know it even exists or ever existed? Because we exist. Because of the phenomenon of subjective conscious experience which none of us can deny. Life follows patterns. Cosmos means Order. We can logically backtrack these orders of pattern to the very beginning, to the beginning of unified infinite consciousness or God (who could also be thought to exist eternally with the Mystery as the Mystery outside of conscious time, just asleep within unconsciousness). Where did these patterns, this Intelligence, come from? What brought consciousness itself into being? That's the Mystery. How? Why? It's all part of the Mystery. Through God, the Mystery is made manifest and comes to know itself as it develops through time, but since it is infinite, it's forever a mystery, and yet since time is ultimately one and eternal, it is eternally known- yet another paradox/mystery.

So if the Infinite Mystery has come to know itself through God, then is it still a mystery to Him? Can the One Infinite Creator understand the totality of its own mystery in any meaningful way, or does He/She phase back into unconsciousness at the moment of infinite consciousness/realization due to its infinite nature not being able to be contained? I think its still a mystery at least for the individualized portions of God (souls) who are isolated from this ultimate knowledge and thrown into confusion in order for God/them to gain personal experience through their journey back to wholeness. They are made as mysteries unto themselves waiting to be discovered and created.

And again though, all this is basically meaningless, because there is no time. Time is an illusion created when we project outside ourselves in order to observe our own experience (something I've been doing for the entire duration of journaling this contemplation. Lol). Experience itself is timeless. In the moment there is no time. When we're one with ourselves and our being, there is no time. There's no words for it. It simply Is.

Yet without observation, experience is not served. Round and round we go. Trying to understand it instead of being it. Yet this process is all part of being. The key again must be unity. There is no observing experiencer experiencing experience. There is simply sum total Experience.

[flofrog]

definitely constant awareness of the present is key

[tadeus]

I would say the mystery is based on the indeterminacy of the effect of free will.

[Margan]

As far as I remember, vedanta says "free will is ony for the ego".
That means, as long as we feel we are separate individual entities, we are also very keen on having our free will and our own choices. Which are mostly determined by our ego and karmic predispositions.
When one has unity consciousness, I think free will does not really play a part anymore. Imagine if you knew yourself to be the God self and absolute consciousness all the time - do you think God would say "this yes, and this no"? "I want this with my free will and this I refuse"?
Imo God is cool with whatever arises

[flofrog]

lol Margan, its annoying how right you are, and yet imagine how boring to be cool all the time with whatever arises,

[Loki]

When you try to understand free will in relation to time you start from the wrong understanding of time IMO.

Time is misunderstood generally and Confederation does not make it any easier. What is time? Can you make time equivalent to space? Not sure you can. Space has physical properties and fields of energies manifesting in it. Space has C (speed of light) which is constant in it. You cannot say such thing about time. There is no physical property of time you can describe as constant. There is not energy field of time. there is no particle describing time. The time you know is an arbitrary convention generated based on Earth speed around Sun. From my point of view time is not the equivalent of space but the equivalent of distance which is a measurement of space. As distance is the measurement of space time is the measurement of consciousness or better worded the measurement of changes in consciousness and matter, or love and light.

Space/time is in fact space/consciousness and time/space is consciousness/space. And the boundary between the two is the veil we know about.

The only thing that ever exists is the everlasting present. There is no real past or future. Past is the memory of past present moments and future is made of potential present moments that will come. Fee-will is the one that decides which of the many possible futures presents becomes reality and then becomes the memory of the past.

Creation similarly to a software application knows from the very first moment any possible path available in the application but each free will will chose only one of the paths during its evolution. And doing so will get through moments of absolute beauty created by its consciousness. Beauty which did not exist before. Beauty the Creator could not see before it happened. Beauty which reveals to Creator its own nature and its potential.

[Margan]

.....and yet imagine  how boring to be cool all the time with whatever arises,

That is why God decided to split into seemingly separate "individual pieces" in order to experience how to be not cool and go into the deepest pits of despair, separation and unlovingness....   until the pull to get back and out of the darkness gets too strong to ignore....and imagine the happiness and joy when the reunification will finallly take place! and we will realize it was all but a dream 

[Loki]

.....and yet imagine  how boring to be cool all the time with whatever arises,

That is why God decided to split into seemingly separate "individual pieces" in order to experience how to be not cool and go into the deepest pits of despair, separation and unlovingness....   until the pull to get back and out of the darkness gets too strong to ignore....and imagine the happiness and joy when the reunification will finallly take place! and we will realize it was all but a dream 

There is sadness in knowing that all the souls you ever loved and desperately cared for, were just a dream. And you were and will always be alone in that dream.

[Margan]

That is not how I view it Loki... imo we are all "in it together" as sparks of the creator. Brothers and sisters, all part of the One
The experiences, the turmoill and the drama of this earthly existence may ultimately prove to be unreal but the beings aren't...

(for example, I recently identified my youngest nephew as probably the reincarnation of my dad. I was happy! to have him back
we do have a special connection and at the time my dad died I had regrets about not having spent more time with him. So now in another form we are reunited. That is just a side remark I felt compelled to share here for whatever reason )

[Loki]

That is not how I view it Loki... imo we are all "in it together" as sparks of the creator. Brothers and sisters, all part of the One
The experiences, the turmoill and the drama of this earthly existence may ultimately prove to be unreal but the beings aren't...

I understand your point and I don't dispute it. I just believe that the singularity of the Creator is as much hell as is heaven for the Creator. For me the Creator is as much a prisoner as is creator because of it very nature.