REALISATION 10: ON FREE WILL

A bird in a cage asked a bird in the open sky:

Aren't you afraid of the wind out there?

The bird in the open sky laughed:

Of course I am - but the wind is my freedom.

Freedom is not the absence of limits; it is the courage to live as yourself.

1) Freedom - a gift and a challenge

Freedom is one of humanity's oldest longings.

Yet real freedom is not merely being able to do what you want - it is understanding why you want it.

Most of us do not live in freedom. We live in reactions - shaped by habit, fear, and desire.

We think we are choosing, but in truth the unconscious is choosing on our behalf.

One who does not understand themselves has no freedom.
One who can see every motive arising in the mind - only they are truly at ease.

2) Cause and effect, and freedom - two sides of the same coin

Some people say: If everything is governed by cause and effect, where is human freedom?

In truth, cause and effect does not imprison us - it reflects us.

Every thought, word, and action is a seed sown into the universe, and its result returns as an honest response, impartial and exact.

Free will is present at the moment we sow the seed.

The outcome is simply the lesson we need to receive, so that we may mature.

When we are ignorant, cause and effect teaches us through pain.

When we are awake, it teaches us through love.

Cause and effect does not judge.
It is only a mirror - perfectly reflecting the state of the heart.

3) When choices no longer come from fear

Most human choices are born from fear: fear of losing, fear of being criticised, fear of loneliness, fear of not being enough.

But when fear is in control, freedom disappears.

True freedom is not having endless options.

It is knowing clearly what is making you choose.

When the mind is bright, choices become simple - light, unforced, without calculation.

Such a person chooses not out of fear, not out of craving, but in harmony with nature.

When the heart is at peace, any choice can be the right one.

4) Destiny and will - a dialogue between Heaven and the human being

Life is like a piece of music.

Destiny is the melody already written.

Free will is the way we play it.

Two people may carry the same destiny: one complains, the other smiles.

The difference lies in the attitude they choose.

We cannot change the direction of the wind - but we can turn the sail.

Freedom is that ability to turn the sail: even in storms, still knowing where you are going.

Creation grants every life the freedom of will - a sacred privilege, inviolable.

And yet, paradoxically, we are remarkably skilled at controlling others: imposing our thoughts, our emotions, even our way of living upon them - forcing them into the mould of our own.

From that very moment, suffering begins.

5) When surrender, too, is a choice

Freedom is not only action.

Sometimes it is conscious surrender.

Surrender is not defeat; it is no longer forcing reality to be other than it is.

When we stop thrashing about, we begin to drift in the right direction - the direction the universe is inviting us to go.

And, wonderfully, the moment we stop gripping so tightly, doors begin to open.

When we stop trying to control the river, we discover we are the water.

6) Closing - freedom in wakefulness

Freedom does not come from the outside.

It blossoms in wakefulness.

When the heart is calm, we are no longer dragged about by desire or fear.

Each choice becomes a natural expression of love and understanding.

Then we no longer need freedom - because we are freedom.

One who is free does not have to seek freedom, because they have stopped identifying with what binds them.

When free will is taken away, we begin living someone else's life - and we lose ourselves.

When we cannot be ourselves, joy becomes dependent: dependent on praise, on the gaze of others, on the world's approval.

And when joy no longer arises from within, we suffer.

Hoàng Nhật Minh
Excerpt from the book: Spiritual Science - A Journey Back To Your True Self

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