Is There Free Will?
How to achieve your full potential.
If a person has a unique potential but never realizes it because they did not have access to a certain education, tools or influence, is there free will? On the grand scale, the idea of absolute freedom of choice is unwise. Equally unwise is the idea that humans have no choice in life.
To deny freedom is to deny the efforts of an individual to make moral progress through the capacity to freely choose compassionate action.
Someone asked my teacher about where our place is in the universe. He answered in this way: “There are two ways to look at this. One is that you are a spiritual being living in the material world with a specific purpose. You are here to actualize that purpose. The other perspective is to perceive of yourself as a spec on the ass end of a molecule which is resting on the ass end of a microbe, resting on a speck of dust floating in the atmosphere of a dirt ball revolving endlessly around a hydrogen ball which is a spec on the ass of an endless collection of specs in an endless supply of galaxies.” So is there free will? The choice is yours; or actually, the illusion of the choice may be yours.
Much of the time, we incorrectly believe that we have direct insight into the origins of our mental states while treating others’ introspections as unreliable. If this is the case, then this illusion may lead us to give confident but false explanations of own behavior or inaccurate predictions of our own future mental states. What is freedom? In some way it is tied to faith — a belief in something without facts to support it. Your passion for the business you have chosen to enter and your willingness to maximize its potential is key to a sense of freedom.
“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book
Believing the Unbelievable
It seems that humans are hard-wired to have faith in something. One day scientists may even discover a “faith gene”.
Much of what we believe in our businesses is really nothing but blind faith. What we often sell ourselves is faith as if it is fact.
Can we ever link another’s faith to our reality? The greater our awareness and consciousness of things, the clearer it becomes that we create whatever reality we need in order to survive. So if logic and rational thinking defines what we might or might not have faith in, it will be quite difficult to put faith into an idea with very little evidence to support it. Bertrand Russell, the Nobel Prize winning mathematician, noted that…
“no one speaks of faith in the existence of such entities as gravity or electricity.”
He pointed out that arguing for the validity of any faith only occurs when evidence or logic fails. For the person building a spiritually based business there is a way for faith and reason to co-exist in a complementary manner. To reach this point, one must transcend the intellect and also surrender an attachment to faith. Each can and will serve us as needed.
Cause and Effect
Cause and effect is central to most of what we do in life. History, anthropology, memory, the choices we make in the present and the choices we make for the future are all based on some level on the concept of cause and effect. Change after all is what drives life.
The idea of the law of cause and effect is central to the lives of billions of people through a belief in karma and reincarnation. Whether there is any truth in these beliefs doesn’t really matter for whether karma and reincarnation even exist does not change the fact that the universe clearly has laws of cause and effect. In your Wisdom Practice, you will learn to live within these laws quietly and peacefully while doing what needs to be done.
Most people who think and behave in ordinary ways will attempt to fulfill their desires by controlling the world around them. Each act of control is like throwing a pebble in a pond, with waves of action and reaction flowing out from the act. Ultimately, the need for control will fail and in doing so allow all manner of chaos and struggle to arise. It is likely when all this comes about the person with a need to control will complain about all that has resulted from his or her actions without knowing that he or she is the source.
When creating a spiritually based business model an understanding of cause and effect including “Black Swan Effect”, Tipping Points, Critical Mass, and Butterfly Effect has great importance beyond a traditional business model.
Wisdom enables us to explore new ways of viewing the laws of cause and effect as they relate to being “in the moment.” In ordinary living, it is easy to say that when a person causes something to happen, they are responsible for that thing. In the spiritually-based business, this is not necessarily so. To cause something to happen implies that one has produced an effect or given rise to an action, phenomenon, or some condition. This does not necessarily imply responsibility. To be responsible means a person is accountable for some event, action, or decision that has been made independently. This is an important distinction that must be explored in order to be able to be in the world without regrets or expectations.
This story is an excerpt from my course “The Mystic’s Academy”
©Lewis Harrison, all rights reserved.
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Before you go…
I am Lewis Harrison, a successful entrepreneur, and advisor to philanthropists. I am also the award-winning author of over twenty books on business, leadership, personal growth, and strategic thinking. I offer programs, course, and coaching. I also teach seminars and speak on personal development, and life strategies. Reach out to me at askLewis.com
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