In following the problem of conflicts, suffering and human dysfunctionality (or "evil" if you prefer), I often track such phenomena back to that principle of Ultimate Reality or Timelessness I refer to as "Partiality" or "Polarity" ("+" and "-" inherent in reality, necessary for motion). People following Timeless Education might be most familiar with this concept through the idea of partial or polarized human types in Bias psychology. However, partiality as a root cause of human conflicts and problems involves a lot more than a difference in various human types clashing with each other.
A huge part of human partiality or bias is also that reality I refer to as "Masked Man" (or Cultural/Hypnotized Man) that involves rigid habits and unquestioned assumptions conditioned by the environment or by a subculture. Thus partiality entails both a conflict between different types and a conflict between different cultures or conditionings, as well as the conflict between a type expressing more of his or her nature and a person mostly expressing or embodying the habits of a culture or idea. Another aspect of partiality is that which involves different, conflicting states of consciousness. There are some traits that tend to be universal to lower consciousness, regardless of psychological type or environment, such as being drawn to mockery and the surface of things when engaged in conflict, as well as giving up reason, fairness and personal responsibility in order to retain social order, safety and familiarity.
These are the partiality of the external analyzed in conflict or problems. There is also the internal partiality or polarizations within the individual going on at the same time. The confusion whether one is primarily a mind or primarily a body, and a partiality towards the one or the other without a proper unity, constitutes one such polarity. Whether one is partial towards one's own internal preferences or towards the expectations of the external environment is another factor. A third kind of polarity exists between 3 different energies or psychosis-hylomorphisms in one's energy-configuration, along with a polarity within each energy individually where the auxiliary energies may be partial and assist in the expression of a particular side of this energy.
Finally, there is one more polarization to consider, which is that of consciousness and unconsciousness; of attentive discernment or lazy mental habits. To say that one can be partial towards either consciousness or unconsciousness is only partly accurate, however, since a lot of the time people are kept unconscious through circumstance by no fault of their own, and don't know the taste of true conscious experience. But there still remains an element of consciousness that people should be able to have more of a choice in, even without the right teaching, when a person encounters the friction between different systems of belief and can, almost every day, witness the clash of cultures and ideologies. When such friction is present, especially in young people, one would expect a desire for discernment and truth to arise in their consciousness (in order to solve problems). This is, after all, the "alarm clock" of reality.
However, it seems that this is where personal preference (such as expectations, sense of loyalty or identity, psychological "type" or socio-economic circumstance) kicks in and partializes the desire for discernment and truth into a disingenuous or deceptive focus of attention and manipulation. Because of this it is important to remember that the problem or issue of "partiality" involves a somewhat complex interplay of circumstance, history, conditioning, cultural temptations, physical health, psychosis-hylomorphism (psychological type), and level of consciousness. This is why I have categorized self-knowledge (or the complete range of the essential understanding of partiality) into the following categories (excluding the "impartial" Timeless Man) : "Unfree Man," "Masked Man," "Biological Man," "Polarized Man" (a.k.a. "Natural Man") and "Temporary Man."
Partiality, in its expression, not only desires to fight against an "opposite" but more generally to simply convert others to itself. A big part of partiality involves the projected belief that everyone (or at least the majority) would enjoy or benefit from its preferences and in fact does not really believe that people or circumstances make up a big difference. This is where partiality disguised as "good intentions" come into the picture. And whenever supposed differences are pointed out they tend to be mostly directed towards something like biological or social determinism rather than level of consciousness.
Forcing people into one or another kind of partiality tends to be people's idea of unity, utopia and development. But it is a false unity ultimately enforced through repression, propaganda, ridicule, threats, superficiality, self-abandonment, and limiting the dissemination of information and freedom of expression to maintain a minimal amount of questioning. In other words, maintaining a low level of awareness or pushing it down. This is how we know that partiality is an aspect of lower consciousness, and that the stronger the partiality or bias the lower the consciousness. Furthermore, partiality (because it was not consciously chosen) cannot be said to have true agency or creativity.
If follows then that the more impartiality (or Non-Attachment) a person cultivates, the higher the possibility of consciousness (and "Omni-Appreciation") as well as agency and creativity. Therefore the development we are aiming for with Timeless Education must not be confused with just one more form of the usual blind partiality, even though it can be thought of as a higher form of partiality properly organized in relation to the whole. It is the study of how things function in connection, how to prevent dysfunctionality, and make the beneficial case for conscious impartiality – including the surprising rewards, self-discovery and satisfaction this results in and which the partial mind is futilely seeking and striving for in specific, limiting and temporal conditions.
But we must not forget to retain a certain appreciation for the natural partiality our bioenergetic dimension possesses, otherwise we are still not truly impartial and objective. Partiality in nature fulfills a necessary and functional role, especially when it goes along with consciousness. But conditioned, provoked or unconscious partiality in complex life-forms such as human beings leads to dysfunctionality and suffering. With everything ultimately being partial (as a necessary component of the configuration of reality) the final polarity ends in consciousness and unconsciousness; or source and its effect. Do you want to understand the source and be closer to it in action, or just be another one of its accidental effects?
Welcome to the official website for Timeless Education – a new method for understanding social problems more clearly so that we can deal with our problems better, faster, easier, and with more precision.
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
What is religion?
What is religion? Religion is near identical with culture, a philosophy of life and attitude pattern based on insights that derive from metaphysics. And since metaphysics was said to be the first philosophy according to Aristotle, and Greek philosophy was something like a reformulation of religion into a new term, we can say that religion, philosophy and metaphysics not only are connected, but that in many ways they are merely different terms for what originally was the same thing.
I say "originally" because all these terms or concepts have diverged from one another and deviated from their origin, and not in a good way. The more division that happens, the more you can expect the concepts to be taken and understood erroneously. That everything is connected and founded on recurrence, reflections and correspondences is a fundamental law, and the true meaning behind the expression "all is one" or "all is in one, and one is in all", etc.
The word "religion" originates in the Latin word religio, the origin of which has been speculated to be "reconnect" or "reconnecting," which has the implication of reconnecting to a particular source or origin.
Therefore we must distinguish what religion originates from – what it was in its essence – and what it later became in various cultures or in the psyche of the individual person. In other words, what is of interest here is what the term religion should refer to, not necessarily what it is considered to be among the masses. When different individuals and cultures use the same word but mean different things, then it becomes a problem. Thus it is often necessary to either clearly define words and terms before they are discussed, or invent a new word or term that is less likely to be misinterpreted.
In Timeless Education I attempt to do a bit of both. In part, I try to analyze, explain and clarify old terms in videos and texts such as this one. And partly, I invent and reformulate old terms into new ones as part of a new teaching. I could say that the term "timeless education" has the same meaning as the term "religion." But then people would just say, "Oh, so timeless education is just religion..." But no, it's not religion as people understand it because most people do not know what I mean by religion. You do not know what religion really is, or what it was meant to be. Almost nobody does. Timeless Education also has the same meaning as philosophy, psychoanalysis, science, education, politics, etc. And normally people do not get all this in a single package, properly developed. Timeless Education is universal religion free of all nonsense. It is "essential culture."
I could make it very easy for myself here and simply say: "Religion is not what you think it is. Real religion is the same as Timeless Education. So if you want to know what real religion is, go and read up on Timeless Education." And, obviously, I think you should do that. But I want to elaborate a bit more on religion and explain certain things, since people often want arguments and support for this kind of assertion.
It is often said that all religions are fundamentally the same, with the same message, and containing the same truths. But this is an incompetent way of expressing it, a lazy-minded repetition of something people have heard. And as a result, the counter arguments are often stronger. It is more precise to say that all religions derive from the same source, that they were originally meant to be the same, that they should be the same, but that they, through misinterpretations, human partiality and incompetence have over time deviated both from their original form and from each other. So, no, today's religions are not the same. And because of that, the majority of them can not be called real religions. They are empty shells and rituals that long ago died and have lost their essence.
Ancient enlightened people knew and accepted that all religions sooner or later must die, to be updated and give way to a new formulation of timeless wisdom that reconnected to the source. I brought this up in my text on Norse mythology and Ragnarok. That the gods fall during Ragnarok is partly a metaphor for the coming death of the old religious system. That is why antiquity had so many different religions with similar gods and systems.
Same thing with the monotheistic religions. Christianity and Islam were both reformulations of Judaism. Christianity attempted to clarify that the scriptures should not be taken literally by, among other things, raising the point that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life." Islam attempted to clarify that all religions originally had been valid by saying that all people have had their own prophet. But even these two religions died very early. In their true essence, they only lasted probably for about a 100 years, tops. So the lifespan of a religion is very short. Just because people still call themselves Muslims or Christians does not mean that the real religion, its essence, has not already died a long time ago.
People are very superficial. They think that a label and some routinized rituals mean something. People do not sense their own lack of substance, and that is why they can defend empty rituals and literal interpretations, even though the scriptures or myths often were formulated so that a literal interpretation becomes absurd. Only by sensing that the religion does not feel right and does not fulfill deeper needs can the individual genuinely begin to seek and perhaps find the right interpretation or the origin of his or her religion. Every prophet and originator of a new religion has experienced disappointment with the former religion and how it was practiced. Real spiritual and religious individuals are seekers, people who question.
But then what is this source from which true religion originates? The source consists, in its essence, of two things. The first thing is a self-insight that one's own true identity is an inner observing point or "knower," "observer," "emptiness," "witness" – no definition can quite describe it so this consciousness, veiled behind all thoughts and psychological processes, must be experienced. In the East, this is the original aim of meditation, and in Christian tradition it is called "mysticism." However, "mysticism" is a term that, like religion in general, has different interpretations. Some Christians believe that "mysticism" is to get in contact with God or Jesus as an external invisible gestalt, or a literal voice that speaks to them, and so on. But these are later misinterpretations and superstitutions that are often transmitted by quacks. It is very easy for charlatans to exploit the term "mysticism," and through this concept claim just about anything. So I avoid the term "mysticism" because I do not like the word and I don't know how people interpret it.
But this part of the source of religion refers to the inner source of yourself. What you are when you peel away everything that is temporary and changing and connects to what remains and is permanent – you as an inner observer. And it is this observer or knower who is universal man, who is in God's image, not the rest of you.
The second thing that is the source of religion is a kind of source code or formula that expresses the principles of ultimate reality or highest natural law. This source code is called various things such as "Logos," "Tetractys," "Religio vera," "The Word," "the cross to take up," "God's name," "Jod-He-Vau-He" (or "JeHoVaH"), "Yin-Yang," "Ishvara," "Trimurti," "Odin-Vili-Vé," and so on. Out of this formula or source code, all well-known religious concepts are derived; such as non-dualism, the Creator, Karma, Almighty guide, the light of the world, sacrifice (such as humility and acceptance in front of reality), arithmetics, numerology, astrology, inspired texts, etc.
The purpose of religion is to preserve this source code as sacred and transmit it so that this ultimate guiding principle never dies out. Because without it, only lies and falsity, conflict and disorder, arise, mainly in the form of dualistic thinking – "the devil." And for people, even extraordinary people and philosophers, it is virtually impossible to reach the right conclusion in terms of reality on their own since people are too partial. The second purpose is to heal people and make them more healthy and capable of taking responsibility by giving them proper education in self-knowledge, especially deeper self-knowledge of the inner observer, so that they may develop true free will and act in harmony with the nature of "the Creator" or Ultimate Reality.
So true religion is inner unity, especially with the inner witness; and hard metaphysics, e.g. philosophical principles, process logic, and the consequent meaning of this, such as communicating a worldview born from the answers through storytelling. This is "reconnection to the source." Everything else is more or less pseudo-religion and pseudo-spirituality.
I say "originally" because all these terms or concepts have diverged from one another and deviated from their origin, and not in a good way. The more division that happens, the more you can expect the concepts to be taken and understood erroneously. That everything is connected and founded on recurrence, reflections and correspondences is a fundamental law, and the true meaning behind the expression "all is one" or "all is in one, and one is in all", etc.
The word "religion" originates in the Latin word religio, the origin of which has been speculated to be "reconnect" or "reconnecting," which has the implication of reconnecting to a particular source or origin.
Therefore we must distinguish what religion originates from – what it was in its essence – and what it later became in various cultures or in the psyche of the individual person. In other words, what is of interest here is what the term religion should refer to, not necessarily what it is considered to be among the masses. When different individuals and cultures use the same word but mean different things, then it becomes a problem. Thus it is often necessary to either clearly define words and terms before they are discussed, or invent a new word or term that is less likely to be misinterpreted.
In Timeless Education I attempt to do a bit of both. In part, I try to analyze, explain and clarify old terms in videos and texts such as this one. And partly, I invent and reformulate old terms into new ones as part of a new teaching. I could say that the term "timeless education" has the same meaning as the term "religion." But then people would just say, "Oh, so timeless education is just religion..." But no, it's not religion as people understand it because most people do not know what I mean by religion. You do not know what religion really is, or what it was meant to be. Almost nobody does. Timeless Education also has the same meaning as philosophy, psychoanalysis, science, education, politics, etc. And normally people do not get all this in a single package, properly developed. Timeless Education is universal religion free of all nonsense. It is "essential culture."
I could make it very easy for myself here and simply say: "Religion is not what you think it is. Real religion is the same as Timeless Education. So if you want to know what real religion is, go and read up on Timeless Education." And, obviously, I think you should do that. But I want to elaborate a bit more on religion and explain certain things, since people often want arguments and support for this kind of assertion.
It is often said that all religions are fundamentally the same, with the same message, and containing the same truths. But this is an incompetent way of expressing it, a lazy-minded repetition of something people have heard. And as a result, the counter arguments are often stronger. It is more precise to say that all religions derive from the same source, that they were originally meant to be the same, that they should be the same, but that they, through misinterpretations, human partiality and incompetence have over time deviated both from their original form and from each other. So, no, today's religions are not the same. And because of that, the majority of them can not be called real religions. They are empty shells and rituals that long ago died and have lost their essence.
Ancient enlightened people knew and accepted that all religions sooner or later must die, to be updated and give way to a new formulation of timeless wisdom that reconnected to the source. I brought this up in my text on Norse mythology and Ragnarok. That the gods fall during Ragnarok is partly a metaphor for the coming death of the old religious system. That is why antiquity had so many different religions with similar gods and systems.
Same thing with the monotheistic religions. Christianity and Islam were both reformulations of Judaism. Christianity attempted to clarify that the scriptures should not be taken literally by, among other things, raising the point that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life." Islam attempted to clarify that all religions originally had been valid by saying that all people have had their own prophet. But even these two religions died very early. In their true essence, they only lasted probably for about a 100 years, tops. So the lifespan of a religion is very short. Just because people still call themselves Muslims or Christians does not mean that the real religion, its essence, has not already died a long time ago.
People are very superficial. They think that a label and some routinized rituals mean something. People do not sense their own lack of substance, and that is why they can defend empty rituals and literal interpretations, even though the scriptures or myths often were formulated so that a literal interpretation becomes absurd. Only by sensing that the religion does not feel right and does not fulfill deeper needs can the individual genuinely begin to seek and perhaps find the right interpretation or the origin of his or her religion. Every prophet and originator of a new religion has experienced disappointment with the former religion and how it was practiced. Real spiritual and religious individuals are seekers, people who question.
But then what is this source from which true religion originates? The source consists, in its essence, of two things. The first thing is a self-insight that one's own true identity is an inner observing point or "knower," "observer," "emptiness," "witness" – no definition can quite describe it so this consciousness, veiled behind all thoughts and psychological processes, must be experienced. In the East, this is the original aim of meditation, and in Christian tradition it is called "mysticism." However, "mysticism" is a term that, like religion in general, has different interpretations. Some Christians believe that "mysticism" is to get in contact with God or Jesus as an external invisible gestalt, or a literal voice that speaks to them, and so on. But these are later misinterpretations and superstitutions that are often transmitted by quacks. It is very easy for charlatans to exploit the term "mysticism," and through this concept claim just about anything. So I avoid the term "mysticism" because I do not like the word and I don't know how people interpret it.
But this part of the source of religion refers to the inner source of yourself. What you are when you peel away everything that is temporary and changing and connects to what remains and is permanent – you as an inner observer. And it is this observer or knower who is universal man, who is in God's image, not the rest of you.
The second thing that is the source of religion is a kind of source code or formula that expresses the principles of ultimate reality or highest natural law. This source code is called various things such as "Logos," "Tetractys," "Religio vera," "The Word," "the cross to take up," "God's name," "Jod-He-Vau-He" (or "JeHoVaH"), "Yin-Yang," "Ishvara," "Trimurti," "Odin-Vili-Vé," and so on. Out of this formula or source code, all well-known religious concepts are derived; such as non-dualism, the Creator, Karma, Almighty guide, the light of the world, sacrifice (such as humility and acceptance in front of reality), arithmetics, numerology, astrology, inspired texts, etc.
The purpose of religion is to preserve this source code as sacred and transmit it so that this ultimate guiding principle never dies out. Because without it, only lies and falsity, conflict and disorder, arise, mainly in the form of dualistic thinking – "the devil." And for people, even extraordinary people and philosophers, it is virtually impossible to reach the right conclusion in terms of reality on their own since people are too partial. The second purpose is to heal people and make them more healthy and capable of taking responsibility by giving them proper education in self-knowledge, especially deeper self-knowledge of the inner observer, so that they may develop true free will and act in harmony with the nature of "the Creator" or Ultimate Reality.
So true religion is inner unity, especially with the inner witness; and hard metaphysics, e.g. philosophical principles, process logic, and the consequent meaning of this, such as communicating a worldview born from the answers through storytelling. This is "reconnection to the source." Everything else is more or less pseudo-religion and pseudo-spirituality.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Do we have free will?
[The following text is a transcription of the English subtitles from the Youtube video Har vi fri vilja? (Do we have free will?) from November 2016 that can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/i0cuiBriT-A]
A question that often shows up in philosophical and ethical discussions is whether or not people have free will or are governed by so-called "determinism," i.e. predestination. And the truth is that people do not have free will. But, and this is the thing: people can develop a free will. But this requires the right knowledge and effort.
So, one can say that both free will and predestination exists and is a matter of degree, more freedom or less freedom. But the first thing people need to learn is that people do not act along free will. That this is only a possibility which among the majority of people is incredibly rare.
The majority of people do not have free will. They do not choose their preferences or their mood or their thoughts or feelings. Their preferences "happens" to them; their thoughts and feelings "happens" to them; their friends and enemies "happens" to them; and their quarrels and infatuations "happens" to them – just like the color of their eyes or the fact that they are sentient beings "happens" to them. Like their birth and death "happens" to them. Like their kids "happens" to them. They do not love, do not hate, do not long...all this happens.
Everything is connected. Independence does not exist, everything is involved in a constant exchange of energy. How is it possible to assume that in an organism some cells will move in accordance with their own choice and will? Do we choose to fill our lungs with oxygen, or does it happen? Did we chose that the book we are inspired by was to be written or did it happen? Did we chose that the author who wrote it was to be born or did it happen?
This is very close to determinism, but the difference is that determinism is also implying that there is no inherent consciousness. Determinism is closely related to materialistic ideologies such as Communism and ideas that we start like blank papers and all that we are depends on the environment and external influences. This is only the lower degree of cause and effect, while causality in fact can be divided into four different degrees as in my timeless education:
1. Own capacity to impartiality (free will)
2. Fate (nature)
3. Indoctrination (culture)
4. Accidents (surprise)
At the bottom here, we have predestination in the form of so-called Accidents or chance. Chance is something no one has control over, all depend on coincidences. If we could control coincidences and random things, everything would be predictable. It is cause and effect we can never escape, but which is necessary for real experience. At first glance, 'cause and effect' appears as something that can be predicted, but the processes that cause them are so countless that it is quite impossible to predict them all. Everything happens according to law – cause and effect – or consciousness. There is no real randomness. The term "random" is merely an expression related to obscure causes that we can not see. Accidents are managed through the right attitude, such as not taking them personally, but instead viewing them as necessary for life experiences.
Indoctrination depends on culture and can be difficult to free oneself from. It is, however, cause and effect we can most easily escape from with the right knowledge. But usually, when a person feels that they've avoided the brainwashing of the prevailing culture, it's solely due to the fact that their individual nature has been attracted to an alternative culture that they've been brainwashed by instead – not that they are synchronized with their natural life energy or deeper existence.
It is these two levels that determinists are concerned with, and which they think is the cause of everything. But there are two higher degrees of causality arising from consciousness: our inherent nature or "internal" influences, as well as something that finally can be called "free will."
Nature, or "fate," is cause and effect that is even harder to free oneself from than culture. Nature is an individual's inherent and characteristic features or energetic pattern. It is their personal instincts, tastes and urges. Their partiality (bias). It is the hidden cause behind culture and that which is attracted by the culture that often is most similar to one's own nature. It is also our genetic aspects and things like congenital diseases or disabilities. Fate or nature is also our particular, but often hidden, talent: our "function" or "purpose" in the organism of humanity.
Freedom and real capacity depends on strong will and is hardest of all to attain. Our urges are usually what we call our will, but it is not true will. The situation, the culture, or the inherent nature chooses man's "I want" for him. In another situation, his "I want" would be different. Behaviors are elicited, not emitted. True will is the capacity to resist one's elicited "will," that is, one's nature, one's culture, and the influence of circumstances occurring. True will is to be capable of being passive, to observe and take in experiences without identifying with what happens.
In order to be able to call ourselves free, we have to break one of the laws of reality. But is there any law of nature we can break? Circumstances and accidents we can do nothing about. Physical needs such as oxygen, liquid, food, sleep, and so on, we can do nothing about. But the law of subjectivity, that is, our partiality, and cultural hypnosis, can be broken. Man can never be completely free, since even free will can only be accomplished through someone or something that makes you realize this, so it is a question of degree.
Ayn Rand is often brought up as an example of someone whose philosophy denies determinism, but examples I've found have not been convincing. The biggest criticism against determinism seems to almost entirely revolve around morality and ethics. Ayn Rand says:
"Dictatorship and determinism are reciprocally reinforcing corollaries: if one seeks to enslave men, one has to destroy their reliance on the validity of their own judgments and choices--if one believes that reason and volition are impotent, one has to accept the rule of force."
The flaw in this reasoning is that anyone who uses coercion to enslave people still believe that they are acting on the basis of their free will and that they can achieve something. True determinism should lead to acceptance and less persistence, which can only enhance people's well-being and health, while the belief in free will leads to self-assertion and vain attempts to accomplish all kinds of things that just makes life worse. Dictatorship – the belief that it is possible to manage and control – can not be separated from the belief in free will and something's performance capability.
It is in fact the belief in free will that is unethical and leads to evil, since it is false. But ironically, the acceptance of determinism, which is very difficult, is something that actually leads to the seemingly impossible: freedom, morality and free will. It is precisely man's lack of free will that is closer to evil than freedom of choice. We need an ethos based on being able to liberate people, and the only thing that can make people free to the extent it is possible, is right knowledge. But to assert or claim that we already have free will goes against proper knowledge and is thus immoral, to the extent something that only happens can be said to be immoral.
One of the biggest resistances against the development of "free will" is that it first requires that determinism be admitted as reality. Here I also mean higher determinism, not only the material thinking that people associate with the concept of determinism. Desires, urges, character, preferences, and so on, are programmed by nature. Cultural indoctrination is man's attempt to reprogram what nature has programmed. But both aspects lack proper self-control and "will." We do not choose our feelings or even our thoughts. Have you ever tried to stop your own thoughts? It's not possible, because it is not you who chooses them. Your thoughts happens to you. Your feelings happens to you. Even your physical actions happens to you as a result of those thoughts and feelings that happens to you. Everything is under the law of cause and effect. Even if you manage to stop your thoughts, for example by Buddhist meditation practice, then also this practice is just another influence you've fallen under and thus mimics.
So in other words, "free will" is something people can have, in terms of choosing a different attitude, but which most people in practice do not have and cannot have as long as they believe in free will. Determinism and free will is thus the same thing in different degrees. Free will can only begin from the realization that everything happens according to cause and effect, and that free will is more a matter of resisting one's will than to follow it, since our will is determined by the situation, the culture or one's own nature. Free will is, in other words, to cease with will, which is extremely difficult and requires effort, attention and self-control.
A person's capacity to do, depends entirely on the individual's ability to not do. When a person has been training their ability to resist the temptation to act along what emotions dictate, then that person can choose their actions. When a person has trained their ability to resist the tendency to be touched emotionally along what their thoughts and ideas dictate, then that person can choose their emotions. When a person has trained their ability to resist the tendency to have preferences, then that person can choose his thoughts. And the one who can choose their thoughts also choose their emotions, which are influenced by thoughts; as well as their actions, which are influenced by emotions. We are doing nothing until we attain an impartial inner attitude, when we are that which is observing and experiencing and nothing else. Until then things are done through us, but not by us. Until then everything is something that happens.
We can not begin by "doing," we can only begin by choosing better or worse among the thoughts and ideas that happen to us. Therefore doing begins with the right knowledge. But all partial forces are fighting against this knowledge, both within the individuals themselves and in society at large. The big struggle is not between "good and evil," but between objective clear vision and bias; between non-preference and the imaginary but tempting knowledge of good and evil; between those few who have achieved free will and the masses who are trapped in determinism. And the masses are trapped in determinism because they are willing and proud slaves to their bias and cultural patterns.
People think they are independent, think they have free will, and this causes our problems to continue. Let me show you two examples; a christian apologetic and a secular humanist; Stefan Gustavsson and Christer Sturmark [excerpts from various lectures and debates on Youtube]:
Gustavsson: "From the christian view of human life, this is connected: we have freedom and responsibility and therefore one can blame [...] because one has responsibility, one has freedom, and one is not a victim just because of coincidences. One is a higher kind of being."
Sturmark: "I think it is obvious based on how people function and can intellectually reason on moral and ethical questions, and such, from this follows, I think, based on observation, that we act as if we have a free will, so to speak. Everything speaks for there existing something which we can call free will. And from that follows, then, also a moral responsibility: we can make choices all the time..."
Gustavsson: "How does an atheist look upon existence? If God does not exist, if one understands everything naturalistically? And in order to help the reader he gives a short introduction which reads as follows: asks a bunch of questions and answers them, then uses the book to detail this... [...] 'Is there free will? Not a chance.' [...]"
Gustavsson: "If man should only be understood from his body...and our consciousness should only be understood from our brain, then we of course arrive at a problem, since that seems to go in a deterministic direction. And that's one of those reasons that I am not a naturalist, because that turns man into a machine. And here one must then take a position: Did you ask this question in freedom or were you forced to ask it? Do I give my answer in freedom because I reflect, choose arguments, think it through, or am I forced to say what I say?"
Rationality in human actions are nothing more than illusions and self-deception. Rationalization is as a rule always based on one's own preferences and wishes. The biggest preference man is slave to is the desire to change the external. Freedom is to accept the external and change the internal in one's own psyche. People waste energy on striving in an impossible direction.
Gustavsson: "If one chooses the deterministic road then one must be aware that, all attempts to hold anyone responsible has been undermined..."
Exactly. People are not responsible. They are dangerous, but they are not responsible until they have done the work it takes to develop free will.
Gustavsson: "All that is called love we have undermined..."
Love is beyond normal human ability. That's why the world looks the way it does. Love is entirely dependent on impartiality, and this people need to be guided to by those few who have attained free will.
Gustavsson: "And the discussion itself, if we are determined or free, have then lost its meaning because even that is in such case determined..."
Discussions like this is something that happens, nothing here have been out of free will. Responsibility and free will can, however, as I said, be achieved either by accident, through instruction from someone who is free, or from friction between nature, culture and accidents. Both the christian apologetic and the secular humanist claims that man has free will, when it is precisely this assumption and assertion that is wrong and therefore immoral. And the funny thing is that both the christian apologetic and the secular humanist should have arrived at the conclusion that man has no free will. In the Bible, God himself says that:
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
- Isaiah 45:7
Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'The potter has no hands'?
- Isaiah 45:9
This is what the Lord says--the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?
- Isaiah 45:11
See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.
- Deuteronomy 32:39
The Christian position should be that God is the only one who acts. Even Augustine was on the track that the Fall of Man put an end to man's free will, and left him morally incapable. And secular philosophers like Bertrand Russell and scientists like Albert Einstein have often reached the conclusion that everything happens along the law of cause and effect.
Gustavsson: "He [Bertrand Russell] writes like this: 'When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behavior is the result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth, and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination ...' So why was he [Bertrand Russell] against the war in Vietnam? That's the question, because the ones who started that are not responsible for their actions. So, here again, Bertrand Russell becomes irrational, that on the one hand he sees the consequences of his worldview – that people do not have freedom and therefore does not have responsibility. On the other hand he's a deeply moral person, at least in certain areas, so that he fights evil and oppression. But how does those two things fit together?"
The right knowledge is essential in order to attain free will. The ones who think they have free will are the ones who lack it the most. You do not want modern secular humanism, or modern Christian apologetics. You want Timeless Education.
A question that often shows up in philosophical and ethical discussions is whether or not people have free will or are governed by so-called "determinism," i.e. predestination. And the truth is that people do not have free will. But, and this is the thing: people can develop a free will. But this requires the right knowledge and effort.
So, one can say that both free will and predestination exists and is a matter of degree, more freedom or less freedom. But the first thing people need to learn is that people do not act along free will. That this is only a possibility which among the majority of people is incredibly rare.
The majority of people do not have free will. They do not choose their preferences or their mood or their thoughts or feelings. Their preferences "happens" to them; their thoughts and feelings "happens" to them; their friends and enemies "happens" to them; and their quarrels and infatuations "happens" to them – just like the color of their eyes or the fact that they are sentient beings "happens" to them. Like their birth and death "happens" to them. Like their kids "happens" to them. They do not love, do not hate, do not long...all this happens.
Everything is connected. Independence does not exist, everything is involved in a constant exchange of energy. How is it possible to assume that in an organism some cells will move in accordance with their own choice and will? Do we choose to fill our lungs with oxygen, or does it happen? Did we chose that the book we are inspired by was to be written or did it happen? Did we chose that the author who wrote it was to be born or did it happen?
This is very close to determinism, but the difference is that determinism is also implying that there is no inherent consciousness. Determinism is closely related to materialistic ideologies such as Communism and ideas that we start like blank papers and all that we are depends on the environment and external influences. This is only the lower degree of cause and effect, while causality in fact can be divided into four different degrees as in my timeless education:
1. Own capacity to impartiality (free will)
2. Fate (nature)
3. Indoctrination (culture)
4. Accidents (surprise)
At the bottom here, we have predestination in the form of so-called Accidents or chance. Chance is something no one has control over, all depend on coincidences. If we could control coincidences and random things, everything would be predictable. It is cause and effect we can never escape, but which is necessary for real experience. At first glance, 'cause and effect' appears as something that can be predicted, but the processes that cause them are so countless that it is quite impossible to predict them all. Everything happens according to law – cause and effect – or consciousness. There is no real randomness. The term "random" is merely an expression related to obscure causes that we can not see. Accidents are managed through the right attitude, such as not taking them personally, but instead viewing them as necessary for life experiences.
Indoctrination depends on culture and can be difficult to free oneself from. It is, however, cause and effect we can most easily escape from with the right knowledge. But usually, when a person feels that they've avoided the brainwashing of the prevailing culture, it's solely due to the fact that their individual nature has been attracted to an alternative culture that they've been brainwashed by instead – not that they are synchronized with their natural life energy or deeper existence.
It is these two levels that determinists are concerned with, and which they think is the cause of everything. But there are two higher degrees of causality arising from consciousness: our inherent nature or "internal" influences, as well as something that finally can be called "free will."
Nature, or "fate," is cause and effect that is even harder to free oneself from than culture. Nature is an individual's inherent and characteristic features or energetic pattern. It is their personal instincts, tastes and urges. Their partiality (bias). It is the hidden cause behind culture and that which is attracted by the culture that often is most similar to one's own nature. It is also our genetic aspects and things like congenital diseases or disabilities. Fate or nature is also our particular, but often hidden, talent: our "function" or "purpose" in the organism of humanity.
Freedom and real capacity depends on strong will and is hardest of all to attain. Our urges are usually what we call our will, but it is not true will. The situation, the culture, or the inherent nature chooses man's "I want" for him. In another situation, his "I want" would be different. Behaviors are elicited, not emitted. True will is the capacity to resist one's elicited "will," that is, one's nature, one's culture, and the influence of circumstances occurring. True will is to be capable of being passive, to observe and take in experiences without identifying with what happens.
In order to be able to call ourselves free, we have to break one of the laws of reality. But is there any law of nature we can break? Circumstances and accidents we can do nothing about. Physical needs such as oxygen, liquid, food, sleep, and so on, we can do nothing about. But the law of subjectivity, that is, our partiality, and cultural hypnosis, can be broken. Man can never be completely free, since even free will can only be accomplished through someone or something that makes you realize this, so it is a question of degree.
Ayn Rand is often brought up as an example of someone whose philosophy denies determinism, but examples I've found have not been convincing. The biggest criticism against determinism seems to almost entirely revolve around morality and ethics. Ayn Rand says:
"Dictatorship and determinism are reciprocally reinforcing corollaries: if one seeks to enslave men, one has to destroy their reliance on the validity of their own judgments and choices--if one believes that reason and volition are impotent, one has to accept the rule of force."
The flaw in this reasoning is that anyone who uses coercion to enslave people still believe that they are acting on the basis of their free will and that they can achieve something. True determinism should lead to acceptance and less persistence, which can only enhance people's well-being and health, while the belief in free will leads to self-assertion and vain attempts to accomplish all kinds of things that just makes life worse. Dictatorship – the belief that it is possible to manage and control – can not be separated from the belief in free will and something's performance capability.
It is in fact the belief in free will that is unethical and leads to evil, since it is false. But ironically, the acceptance of determinism, which is very difficult, is something that actually leads to the seemingly impossible: freedom, morality and free will. It is precisely man's lack of free will that is closer to evil than freedom of choice. We need an ethos based on being able to liberate people, and the only thing that can make people free to the extent it is possible, is right knowledge. But to assert or claim that we already have free will goes against proper knowledge and is thus immoral, to the extent something that only happens can be said to be immoral.
One of the biggest resistances against the development of "free will" is that it first requires that determinism be admitted as reality. Here I also mean higher determinism, not only the material thinking that people associate with the concept of determinism. Desires, urges, character, preferences, and so on, are programmed by nature. Cultural indoctrination is man's attempt to reprogram what nature has programmed. But both aspects lack proper self-control and "will." We do not choose our feelings or even our thoughts. Have you ever tried to stop your own thoughts? It's not possible, because it is not you who chooses them. Your thoughts happens to you. Your feelings happens to you. Even your physical actions happens to you as a result of those thoughts and feelings that happens to you. Everything is under the law of cause and effect. Even if you manage to stop your thoughts, for example by Buddhist meditation practice, then also this practice is just another influence you've fallen under and thus mimics.
So in other words, "free will" is something people can have, in terms of choosing a different attitude, but which most people in practice do not have and cannot have as long as they believe in free will. Determinism and free will is thus the same thing in different degrees. Free will can only begin from the realization that everything happens according to cause and effect, and that free will is more a matter of resisting one's will than to follow it, since our will is determined by the situation, the culture or one's own nature. Free will is, in other words, to cease with will, which is extremely difficult and requires effort, attention and self-control.
A person's capacity to do, depends entirely on the individual's ability to not do. When a person has been training their ability to resist the temptation to act along what emotions dictate, then that person can choose their actions. When a person has trained their ability to resist the tendency to be touched emotionally along what their thoughts and ideas dictate, then that person can choose their emotions. When a person has trained their ability to resist the tendency to have preferences, then that person can choose his thoughts. And the one who can choose their thoughts also choose their emotions, which are influenced by thoughts; as well as their actions, which are influenced by emotions. We are doing nothing until we attain an impartial inner attitude, when we are that which is observing and experiencing and nothing else. Until then things are done through us, but not by us. Until then everything is something that happens.
We can not begin by "doing," we can only begin by choosing better or worse among the thoughts and ideas that happen to us. Therefore doing begins with the right knowledge. But all partial forces are fighting against this knowledge, both within the individuals themselves and in society at large. The big struggle is not between "good and evil," but between objective clear vision and bias; between non-preference and the imaginary but tempting knowledge of good and evil; between those few who have achieved free will and the masses who are trapped in determinism. And the masses are trapped in determinism because they are willing and proud slaves to their bias and cultural patterns.
People think they are independent, think they have free will, and this causes our problems to continue. Let me show you two examples; a christian apologetic and a secular humanist; Stefan Gustavsson and Christer Sturmark [excerpts from various lectures and debates on Youtube]:
Gustavsson: "From the christian view of human life, this is connected: we have freedom and responsibility and therefore one can blame [...] because one has responsibility, one has freedom, and one is not a victim just because of coincidences. One is a higher kind of being."
Sturmark: "I think it is obvious based on how people function and can intellectually reason on moral and ethical questions, and such, from this follows, I think, based on observation, that we act as if we have a free will, so to speak. Everything speaks for there existing something which we can call free will. And from that follows, then, also a moral responsibility: we can make choices all the time..."
Gustavsson: "How does an atheist look upon existence? If God does not exist, if one understands everything naturalistically? And in order to help the reader he gives a short introduction which reads as follows: asks a bunch of questions and answers them, then uses the book to detail this... [...] 'Is there free will? Not a chance.' [...]"
Gustavsson: "If man should only be understood from his body...and our consciousness should only be understood from our brain, then we of course arrive at a problem, since that seems to go in a deterministic direction. And that's one of those reasons that I am not a naturalist, because that turns man into a machine. And here one must then take a position: Did you ask this question in freedom or were you forced to ask it? Do I give my answer in freedom because I reflect, choose arguments, think it through, or am I forced to say what I say?"
Rationality in human actions are nothing more than illusions and self-deception. Rationalization is as a rule always based on one's own preferences and wishes. The biggest preference man is slave to is the desire to change the external. Freedom is to accept the external and change the internal in one's own psyche. People waste energy on striving in an impossible direction.
Gustavsson: "If one chooses the deterministic road then one must be aware that, all attempts to hold anyone responsible has been undermined..."
Exactly. People are not responsible. They are dangerous, but they are not responsible until they have done the work it takes to develop free will.
Gustavsson: "All that is called love we have undermined..."
Love is beyond normal human ability. That's why the world looks the way it does. Love is entirely dependent on impartiality, and this people need to be guided to by those few who have attained free will.
Gustavsson: "And the discussion itself, if we are determined or free, have then lost its meaning because even that is in such case determined..."
Discussions like this is something that happens, nothing here have been out of free will. Responsibility and free will can, however, as I said, be achieved either by accident, through instruction from someone who is free, or from friction between nature, culture and accidents. Both the christian apologetic and the secular humanist claims that man has free will, when it is precisely this assumption and assertion that is wrong and therefore immoral. And the funny thing is that both the christian apologetic and the secular humanist should have arrived at the conclusion that man has no free will. In the Bible, God himself says that:
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
- Isaiah 45:7
Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'The potter has no hands'?
- Isaiah 45:9
This is what the Lord says--the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?
- Isaiah 45:11
See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.
- Deuteronomy 32:39
The Christian position should be that God is the only one who acts. Even Augustine was on the track that the Fall of Man put an end to man's free will, and left him morally incapable. And secular philosophers like Bertrand Russell and scientists like Albert Einstein have often reached the conclusion that everything happens along the law of cause and effect.
Gustavsson: "He [Bertrand Russell] writes like this: 'When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behavior is the result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth, and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination ...' So why was he [Bertrand Russell] against the war in Vietnam? That's the question, because the ones who started that are not responsible for their actions. So, here again, Bertrand Russell becomes irrational, that on the one hand he sees the consequences of his worldview – that people do not have freedom and therefore does not have responsibility. On the other hand he's a deeply moral person, at least in certain areas, so that he fights evil and oppression. But how does those two things fit together?"
The right knowledge is essential in order to attain free will. The ones who think they have free will are the ones who lack it the most. You do not want modern secular humanism, or modern Christian apologetics. You want Timeless Education.
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