Elevating the Soul

I think many people agree with freewill, and for this quick article I will assume that freewill exists.  The topic of freewill will be covered in a separate post, but feel free to post comments on freewill (whether it exists or not) here.  I believe it does exist.  But here is something interesting, if freewill exists, are we actually using that freewill?

Freewill is being able to make a choice free of direction from a source other than ourselves.  “Ourselves” here refers to the observer within us, which actually observes thought taking place (your thoughts on this are also welcome).

Before we did deeper, lets look at how the brain actually works.  The brain creates a neural net which is like a collection of connections which connect all sorts of different thoughts, ideas, values, experiences and all those things link together to create a world that we experience.  There are different networks for different things in our world, but they can all interconnect.  Our most common thoughts form strong connections where things we don’t think about or think about very infrequently fail to link up with other parts of our brain and thus result in us not using those functions.  For instance you may see a photo of two people kissing…which links to our idea love…this makes you think of an ex…which makes you think of their face…which makes you think about their abuse or neglect…which makes us feel sad…which is then linked back to love or kissing.  This can happen within a split second.  The photo we are looking at has linked to a collection of those “connections” in your mind, and has resulted in us not really seeing the picture for what it is, but rather reliving old experiences.  It is then likely because of this reaction, we will use the photo to strengthen the connection already within our brain, even though they are separate experiences.  If we pause and say “that is beautiful, look at the love there” we start the process of creating a new connection in the brain which connects love to beauty instead of sadness…but we need to think a lot in order for that belief to firmly be implanted by way of connections in our brain.

If we react to events based on what is already in our mind, then are we acting on freewill?  The answer no.  Most people on this planet make their choices based on someone else’s ideas, which the person has accepted as their own – often without conscious contemplation.  We try to look a certain way because we have accepted other peoples standards.  I may do something mean, or good even, not because we want to but because we have accepted someone else’s idea that we should do this – for whatever reason that may be.  We are in fact choosing what we already  know, and thus not making a choice based on freewill.

This proposes a further question – and I am sure many have thought of this – is motive important when we are doing something?  If you help someone, and your motive is well intentioned, is this better or worse than if you help someone, but have bad intentions?

In my view good intentions will always result in a longer string of attraction and prosperity, but there is another deeper dynamic which needs to be addressed (and then I will wrap it with a simple summary to give a point to all this seemingly odd ball stuff).  If everything you do is based off other peoples ideas, or what is already in your brain, then are we even making a choice to help someone, or are we simply acting off programming?  And if this is the case, then any way we rationalize that help is also based off programming?

SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?  Hopefully I didn’t scare any of you off, but there is a critical point here.  If we accept what others tell us, even what I am writing here, we will be operating on a script.  We will be operating off of someone else’s ideas.  If we don’t critically filter what we allow through into our minds, we lose our freewill.  It is easier to use the circuits already set up the brain, than to stop those circuits and actually consider other ideas.  Consideration of other ideas, or even a sense of openness will create new circuits which actually allow for that to become a part of who we are, and eradicate the the former self identified with old circuits or connections within the brain.

So the argument which some might bring up, is that even if we filter it the information, whatever information we accept will still form a neural net in our brains, and we will still react based on those connections.  This is true, but at least our mind will react in a way that we want it to react, and chosen for it to react in that way.

Since we do have the ability to observe our thoughts, we have the ability to change them.  To change our thoughts in a rigorous way means to change how we react and interact with the world, and we ultimately personally change.   Certain connections in our brain will stop firing together, and other connections will form.  We do actually change how our brain relates to the world.  Our thoughts are what create these connections in our brain in the first place, so by changing our thoughts we create a physical change in our body.  This change means we react to the world in a way we have proactively worked on doing, instead of reacting in a way which has been fed by others, who for the most part are probably very unhappy their life to begin with.

So do we have freewill, I believe so.  But until we change into the person we want to be, by observing our thoughts and changing them so that we become the person we want to be, we are not acting on our freewill.  To have freewill, we must be free to be who we are.  Being who we are is a construction of what we want to be, and do in this life, but even more importantly it is a a deconstruction of the aspects of our self which we know are not a part of our true spiritual nature.

Even if we are not acting of our frewill now, we have the freewill to change that, and therefore make future choices based on freewill.

~Cory Mitchell

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 12:18 am and is filed under Attaining the Life you Intend, Spiritual Psychology, The Search for Meaning, The Soul. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.