Is Awareness Free?

[NotActualized]

Sorry if this has been discussed a lot, I have a very small amount of mental energy due to illness (cfs) so I struggle to keep up with too much reading, but I'm trying

The question I want to ask is - When meditating or doing anything really, is the feeling of what we choose to put our awareness on ours? For example I'm sitting down meditating and I decide to put attention on sensations within my hand.  Is there anything free about what my awareness focuses on?  Was there anything free about changing my focus from lets say my sense of sight (mostly blackness behind my eyelids) to the feelings in my hand? Is that awareness just simply a part of the universe and although it feels like me doing everything, is it really just an illusion that just 'happened' and without an actual 'me' having control over it?  And basically, is everything that happens within me and anything else in this universe, running on automatic? Even though there's this illusion that I'm doing it, what I really am is just part of the source of everything?

Is that on the right track intellectually anyway?

Edited March 23, 2017 by NotActualized

[Bob84]

@NotActualized what you focus on and pay attention to is your choice. Some things you dont have much controle over, like the stuff your mind comes up with during the day. These things will apear. But it remains you that decides to pay attention to it or not. 

Our mind makes thousands of calculations all the time. Like how far is that tomato away and how does the hand need to move to grab it. Etc. But also survival calculations. As in what it things you need to do to get x. This however is based on the info in your mind of which most is delusion.

[NotActualized]

21 minutes ago, Maorice said:

Yes, this is the right track intellectually. But keep in mind that with the ways of the intellect you won't see beyond intellect basically, some contemplation methods excluded.

So just to confirm one more time. The theory here is that every single micro thing that happens in the universe is on Automatic? It sounds logical for my ego and to contemplate it, I'm guessing it's a matter of experiencing whatever 'nothingness' is to see for oneself. 

 

11 minutes ago, Bob84 said:

@NotActualized what you focus on and pay attention to is your choice. Some things you dont have much controle over, like the stuff your mind comes up with during the day. These things will apear. But it remains you that decides to pay attention to it or not. 

Our mind makes thousands of calculations all the time. Like how far is that tomato away and how does the hand need to move to grab it. Etc. But also survival calculations. As in what it things you need to do to get x. This however is based on the info in your mind of which most is delusion.

But isn't that 'I' that I think is willing myself into things and choosing what to pay attention to just an illusion and there's no real 'I' controlling it, even though it feels real? Or am I real, and I am the thing controlling it? 

[PureExp]

2 hours ago, NotActualized said:

And basically, is everything that happens within me and anything else in this universe, running on automatic? Even though there's this illusion that I'm doing it, what I really am is just part of the source of everything?

Will vs determinism, this debate is age old. As you must be knowing, whenever there is a debate which never settles, it is an indication of partial knowledge, a complete picture is missing. So people go on debating without any conclusion.

Ego (part of our mind) is a collection of automatic processes. However, Ego doesn't like itself to be called an automaton. People identify with Ego (99.99% of them) and hence feel offended. Its a prestige issue .

Then, on the other hand, declaring that there is no will is going to cause havoc in society. We won't be able to punish criminals for example. No one will be responsible for anything. Even totally materialistic people don't want that.

So, what is the bigger picture? You can arrive at a reasonably bigger picture by asking these questions:

1- What exactly is will? Is it just randomness? Is it a magical thing? Is it a made up concept that originates from observing others doing "willful" acts?

2- What is an automatic action? Why are there any actions at all? What happens when we assume all actions and events as automatic? Is it as good as assuming all actions and events as willful?

3- Why do we feel it is necessary to classify actions and events into two classes - willed and automatic? What if we don't classify them in that way? What happens?

 

[Azrael]

2 hours ago, NotActualized said:

Is that on the right track intellectually anyway?

Let's imagine you had a dream. Now, the person in the dream you are is asking your very question: Do I have free will? Clearly he doesn't, because he's automatically happening although it might feel like he has free will. Now, but who decides that it is automatic? Who decides what automatic means at all? Who decides how the dream world looks like? Who decides whether you'll have a good or a bad dream?

[WelcometoReality]

@NotActualized Look at the thought "I have free will". It's a thought. That thought does not have any free will. It pops up and disappears. Now think of yourself, your name, your traits, your life, you future and past. Those are just a cluster of thoughts. Does those thoughts have free will?

When I say that you have no free will I mean that what you identify with has no free will. The cluster of thoughts you believe is you including conditioning.

When you awakening you will be free from that conditioning and one certainly "EXPERIENCE" free will. That feels really liberating. Like one is free to do anything. When the awakening deepens that sense of free will will start to diminish. One sees that everything is happening because it is happening without any cause. Mind is desperately trying to explain why.

Just starting to scratch the surface on the last part

[FirstglimpseOMG]

From what I am figuring out there is no causality in the universe. I reserve the right to be totally wrong, it's taken me 50 years to even realize there was this stuff to figure out

The no free will thing has had me contemplating here and there for months and months.

I'm leaning toward the sub-conscious mind being the automaton, informed further, consciously and sub-consciously as we gather experience. We'd be in trouble if we had to consiously beat our heart, digest our food, renew our cells, make our diaphragm move in order to breathe, etc, etc, etc.

I think the brain might have been manifested as basically a computer. I wonder if free will is just what we do with accumulated memory. I imagine that linear time is just a human construct, just a way of putting one image in front of another, or after, depending on how you view 'your' construct. 

So, for our individuated consciousnesses, I imagine that we are free to do what we want, with what we have.

I imagine 'intent' was what existence IS, originally, and that we may furthur utilize the whole intent thing further, by default. I'm so not sure, but is 'intent' not 'LIFE'? Originally from Source, continued within our individuated consiousnesses as an ability to live life. Life itself. No intent, no life. If there is life, intent is the origin and the life itself. Leo has said that if I don't exist, intent goes out the window with the illusion, but I struggle with this. Intent is the origin of life I imagine, and intent is the only way we can have a rich experience of life, I'm thinking.  I suppose I could exist, do absolutely nothing on purpose, choose not to live life really at all, and experience very little.. kind of counter-intuitive for there to even BE life and not live it more fully though, don't you think? Even if I opt out of existence as much as possible (in my wee brain I mean), has my individuated consiousness not made a choice, forcluding free will? Is forcluding a word? 

As far as my neato ego can figure it, something has intent. Whether it the ethereal intent of infinity-divinity doing the intending, or if the tools 'I' have been given by just the fact that I exist, allow 'me' to choose to go left or right. Get outa bed that day or sleep in. Have the apple pie or the pecan pie. Chat up the cutie cashier or just pay for your stuff and wish that you did.

I just don't see existence devoid of intent. I think they may be inseparable.

I don't really know much of anything for sure. 

Edited March 23, 2017 by FirstglimpseOMG
Speling