Free Will

Freedom Maybe An Illusion After All

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – May 22, 2017

"Damn-if-you-do" and "Damn-if-you-don't". One can be blamed or considered wrong no matter what it does today. We have to play by the rules that had been created and designed for us, whoever or whatever did it. Freedom only means how and when one does it. In the end, this can also be blissful.

"Damn-if-you-do" and "Damn-if-you-don't". One can be blamed or considered wrong no matter what it does today. We have to play by the rules that had been created and designed for us, whoever or whatever did it. Freedom only means how and when one does it. In the end, this can also be blissful.

a very controversial one to say the least. One has to take one or more of the three explanations below that resonates with our individual (not collective) intuition and gut-feeling.

First. It depends on who or what the judge is. If the judges are the few economic elites and their political minions, then, abiding or not abiding by their established rules have their consequent awards or sanctions, depending on one's individual choice.

Second. If the judge is the Lord of All Creation, then, aligning oneself or not with its laws and principles can also have its damning or blissful effects, depending on one's individual choice.

Third. For those who refuse to abide by the norms of the elite and who do not believe in the existence of a God, then, they have only themselves to account for their actions and to take whatever awards and sanctions they may bring.

In real life, this becomes even more complicated to apply. Can we strike a balance of the three choices? If so, then, this can become the fourth choice and the best alternative strategy at that. But what is it?

Thanks for raising the question...very valid and should be answered. But I don't have one definite answer to give you, my friend, except one for my own private self.

Desires and Attachment

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – December 9, 2021

Desires are simply electromagnetic forces that enter into our body as atoms and photons. Yet, they can excite and stimulate our senses. They come and go from moment to moment during the day. The problem is when we get so attached to them that we can't just let them go, just as we treasure and value our pet dogs.

Desire and attachment then begin to define who and what we are. What they want becomes a reality. Eventually, they define the kind of world we are to live in. They become active participants in our life, even more powerful than us.

Desires and attachments first came to us as strangers, but we didn't open our doors to them. They became so insistent, alluring us with so many wares and merchandise. We finally opened our doors and let them in but still as outsiders.

They indeed left only to come back again and again, enchanting us with so many fancies and fantasies. What were once outsiders became our precious guests and constant companions in life. We dined with them. Eventually, our guests stayed with us and became permanent dwellers in our little world. In time, it became difficult to discern the host from the guests. The two have become one, indistinguishable to each other.

Then, in my dreams, Shakespeare frantically cried out loud, waking me up from my deep slumber: "Let slip the dogs of war. The dogs know better who their master is". Suspicious of the cry, I went to the Lord for explanation. But, even before I could speak, the Lord spoke to me: "Yes, my son, I was about to ask you the same question: Who is your master and who are your guests?"

Ay, yay, yaaaaay .... Ok, folks, you're on your own, as I am.

Are We Free or Predestined?

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. - November 18, 2020

Yes, life gets more complicated and challenging if we insert our free will into the equation. Why? Because free will can also go beyond the realm of science and religion.

We possess an innate faculty to choose one thing over another. In many religious traditions, the choice goes most of the time, if not all of the time, to following their beliefs on the Author of Life. The general idea is to live life simply by following the will and intent of the Lord of Creation.

On the other hand, science says that, in many instances, our life is dictated by the behavior of the atoms and molecules inside us. We think we are conscious of something, but the brain has already done its work. It is old news to the brain, but fresh to us.

In simpler terms, before we think we made the decision, our body has already decided the course of action we take. Before we are conscious of the information we receive, the brain already finishes the work.

Yes, we do things automatically. We are automatons. Our conscious will to choose the act is already too late. Our free will becomes a mirage, an illusion, a phantasm. We think we are free when actually we are not.

In both religion and science, the course of our life has already been predetermined and predestined. The individual has no choice except to follow its beliefs.

But everybody knows this is not so.

We decide what food to eat, where to go, when to do things, when to sleep and wake up. We know what it means to be free.

Both religion and science also accept that we have a built-in free will, which we can exercise anytime and anywhere we want. Daily, life becomes a matter of making choices, even if we are unaware that we have made a choice. And the kind of life we construct for ourselves depends upon how we go about making those choices.

It’s our life we’re living and, if we are truly free, we prefer to define how we want to live it. We're not comfortable living the kind of life and lifestyle dictated to us by others.

We know we are both physical and metaphysical, both body and spirit, both conscious and unconscious, both predestined and free. But our life is not an “either-or” proposition. It’s “both-and”.

There can be no two or more identities in us. There's only one entity living in us. We are an embodied spirit, a spirit that may still be struggling to know how it is to live in a body, or a body not knowing yet what it means living with a spirit encased in it. We cannot be truly whole if we disregard one over the other.

This unity amidst duality can be achieved when the individual is conscious of this spirit-matter dichotomy. Awareness of this duality challenges us to take action so that we become one piece related to all other pieces in the universe.

This oneness in us is expressed in terms of duality only because our mind cannot grasp and comprehend what is bigger than itself. Being confined in the world of time, space and matter that are governed by their physical laws, it can only understand "what is" by knowing "what it is not".

This state of awareness enables the individual to transcend the physical realm and look at everything from a more distant and holistic perspective.

It is this transcendent state that enables us to deviate from the laws of physics and metaphysics and to realize that we are not two personalities, but one, and that the two earthly identities in us can become one after all.

We have the freedom to transcend the kind of life that science and religion are molding for us. And we have the power to construct that kind of life we want to live.

Let me end this with a quote from Walt Disney: "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

So, let's continue to roar and roar in the media or in the street

Are We Free or Predestined?

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. - April 23, 2022

Several religious beliefs teach us that before we appeared here, we already made our decision on the following:

(1) To be born on this Planet Earth, not in another planet, elsewhere in this vast universe of ours;

(2) To live at this time and condition surrounding us;

(3) To work as responsibly, conscientiously, and consciously as possible to whatever we are passionately doing at this very moment; and

(4) To fulfill what we already decided as to who and what we would want to be as well as what our role and mission is on this planet.

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I’m not sure whether or not to believe in this pre-arranged kind of life. I have no way of verifying and experiencing this personally. Religion and science offer vague and unverifiable responses too.

Nevertheless, what I experience through life clearly points to a design. I did not plan to be what I am now. I did not plan to take up two doctoral degrees. I did not plan to be a writer, much less to publish six cosmic books.

I did not plan to lead the kind of life and lifestyle I’m living now. My career and my vocation are a result of serendipitous and synchronous events.

On the contrary, I planned so many things in the past but they never materialized. With scholarship offers behind me, I enrolled at the Ateneo de Manila University and visited the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). But some forces literally directed me to the Asian Social Institute (ASI), a dilapidated building at that time, to study my master’s degree in Economics and later my PhD decree in Applied Cosmic Anthropology.

I did not plan either to take up my doctoral degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy or pursue my post doctoral fellowship studies at Siegen University in Germany.

I ventured into business. It failed miserably. I immersed myself in politics, but everybody was just using everybody, the Machiavellian way, to further their political ambitions.

The means always justify the end. And although the end (whether profit or power) may be justifiable, the means were often fiercely competitive, ruthless, and violent.

In the process, I only encountered troubles and misfortunes, as if I was only collecting frustration, anger, desperation, ill-health that kept on filing up over time. It was a ferociously stressful life that brought me every now and then to the emergency room of several hospitals here and abroad.

It was this process that I underwent through this earthly life.

What and who I am now has materialized not because it is my own design but because of an invisible force coming out of nowhere that becomes even more persistent when I ignore it, that it has to manifest itself in me as a thunderous voice.

I am … not because I define for myself the kind of person I want to be, but because of an invisible force or voice that impels me to become who I will be.

I’m certain that this inner force or voice is in each one of us. It’s just a matter of being always conscious of it from moment to moment in our daily life.

This is not a matter of faith. It’s a matter of knowledge of who we are and how we become to be what we are today.

Who and what I become here-and-now and who and what I’ll become tomorrow and in the life hereafter no longer become my concern because I know how to be what I want to be, according to some cosmic design.

I have learned to discern and seize opportunities and potentialities that I “think” or “feel” will hoist me up to greater heights and pedestals from where I am at the moment.

Is this invisible force within me, the God of religion or the Energy of science? I still don’t know! For me, this is something yet to be resolved.

What I experienced out there was a Living Light filled with living entities and beings interacting and communing with each other in love, peace, and harmony.

Exercising Our Free Will

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – July 10, 2021

Our Lord God may have already set our future. Yet, we still have to work for it to happen. What is confounding is that God endowed us with a will that gives us the freedom to make choices. What's even more perplexing is that the Lord still loves us even if our choices are wrong. How we want to structure our life is left entirely to us. On our part, how shall we respond?

We have a God-given faculty and power to structure our own life. We can choose to follow our Lord or not. Each of us is free to do so.

If I choose to follow the precepts and teachings of our Lord, then, that's my choice and I'll stand by it. But being a rationale species, I must also accept the risks and consequences of my decision.

If I choose not to follow the precepts and teachings of our Lord, then, that's my choice and I'll stand by it just the same, accepting wholeheartedly the risks and consequences involved.

I'm expressing these two alternatives in a straightforward way in order to demonstrate the fact that free choice is real and it has been endowed to us by our Lord since our appearance here on Earth.

We can exercise this free choice either way and the Lord respects our decision. This freedom of choice implies acceptance to the risks and responsibilities that go with it.

The Lord more than tolerates us because it has given us built-in mechanisms and processes necessary to decide and act on what's good for us.

In my case, I know the processes and patterns of my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I can anticipate my decisions and actions even before I make the decision. Why then should I give my freedom to express myself to others who don't know me at all?

Like all of us, I always choose the one that makes me good, rather than bad. I am not certain though if my conception of what is good is the same as that of my Lord. But if I'm convinced that what I know as good is really good for me, then, that's what only matters to me.

I don't care whether my conception of what is good to me is different from that of others. I know, however, that if my conception of what is good, hurts and enslaves others, then, it's not good to me as well.

I believe that the Lord doesn't also care whether my decision is good or bad because it has endowed me already with everything necessary to decide what is good or bad for me.

I like this arrangement for this gives me the opportunity to prove my worth and value to the Lord, as a child created to its image and likeness.

Yes, the Lord has already set our future. But we have the liberty to choose how we want to arrive at it. And the nature of our choice will determine when and where we will arrive at it.

In the meantime, our Lord God will just be waiting in its abode ready to welcome us and, who knows, God will prepare a feast for each one of us, just like what the father, in the Holy Scripture, did to his prodigal son.

Nota Bene:

It's not really as easy as it is presented here. For others would say that there's no future, in the same manner that there's no past. Both don't exist except in our minds.

The past is dead already. It cannot be resurrected in a manner that it's nature and form are restored to its original.

The future is very elusive. It's always ahead of us. We can never get hold of it. There's only the present. It's the present that's making the past and future. More on this in my future posts.....