Is my understanding regarding Free Will correct?

[Guest Edvardas]

Hi,

I am kindly asking for guidance regarding free will contemplation because I don't feel confident in my understanding of the matter. 


My thinking is as follows:

When I am conscious I have free will in the human domain, when I am unconscious - my body/mind is acting out however it was programmed. 

I remember a trip during which I was amazed at how I can will my finger to move. It definitely felt like my will. I chose to move that finger.


I listened to another teacher and he suggests that that choice was made seconds before it even came into my awareness. How can I confirm that is true?

 

Moving on - I recently had a dream within which I died quite consciously. I saw death approaching and decided to step into it. I was literally eaten by a whale within which I found a feeling of peace and beauty. Perhaps that's related to the fact that I am in the "belly of the whale" phase of the hero's journey. Anyway..

After that peace and beauty, I simply respawned within another dream. I opened my eyes and it was just like waking up from a dream, but in a more conscious state than I was before dying.

Now in this new dream, I had quite a lot of manifesting ability. One of my fingers was not fully grown in this dream. I simply thought - finger, finger, finger - and it grew into a normal one. I could also reshape parts of my face by simply intending it.

I couldn't fully explore the extent of that manifesting ability because I woke up quite quickly (or should I say fell asleep since I have less power to manifest here?)

Also, regarding how life is unfolding - I believe that it is somewhat pre-destined, although in a very specific sense. It's like there is a theme - you have been given the knowledge of what is going on in a general sense, but you can also make choices within the game that will affect the outcome. You can't completely fly off the map - but there is a wide range of possibilities. 

In my favorite trilogy - Conversations with God, it is explained that reality is like a game within a CD ROM- all the responses of the game have been pre-programmed, but your choices determine which responses you will experience. From my point of understanding - this is how it works.

 

Finally, when Leo in his video Does Free Will Exist? What is will? says that you can surf the wave of intelligence or God's will, does he mean that you can play the game from the True perspective instead of False? Is that what it means to align your will with God's?

For example, living with intelligence means cutting of your attachments to the dream and delving deep within yourself to find out who you are. This would be my understanding of surfing the wave.

Or does he mean that the feeling of choice that I have is just an illusion and all of my struggles are in thinking that I am choosing, but I am actually not?
 

Thank you for your time.

P.S.

Adding a song that has a smooth flavor to it, perhaps the kind of flavor that could help you surrender yourself to Love during trips.

 

[Mason Riggle]

@Edvardas hmmmm.  

Anything can be verified through direct experience.  By paying close attention to what your experience is like, you can know the answers to your questions. 

 

4 minutes ago, Edvardas said:

I listened to another teacher and he suggests that that choice was made seconds before it even came into my awareness. How can I confirm that is true?

Run some thought experiments.  Make some choices and notice what that is like.  Recognize that you can't 'choose before you choose', and that 'choosing' is something that is occurring the same way 'hearing' is occurring.  Everything in your 'awareness' or 'experience' is simply 'arising' in each new moment. 

Consider, can you choose that which does not occur to you to choose?  Who decides what occurs to you? 

 

10 minutes ago, Edvardas said:

I remember a trip during which I was amazed at how I can will my finger to move. It definitely felt like my will. I chose to move that finger.

Consider, during your trip, why didn't you move your leg instead? Can you account for why you 'moved your finger' rather than 'moving your leg'?  If not, then did you really 'choose' to move that finger?