Hello and welcome.
My name is Pratika.
This video has two parts.
Part one.
Is free will central to personal choice?
The mystery of the separate I.
Today I'd like to explore a question that has been contemplated by philosophers spiritual seekers.
And anyone who has ever wondered about the nature of choice.
The question is,
Is free will central to personal choice?
Every day we make decisions,
Small choices and life-changing choices.
Which is what to say,
What to do,
Where to place our attention.
And how to respond to the experiences of life.
And behind all these choices.
There is often a deeply held assumption.
I am the one who chooses.
I am the one who decides.
I am the one directing my life.
This sense of being the chooser feels so natural that we rarely stop to question it.
But when we look more deeply,
Who is this I?
If what we call I is not merely the personality,
The memories,
The conditionings.
And the constant movement of thought,
Then who or what is choosing?
Perhaps this is where the deeper inquiry begins,
Not by rejecting our human experiences.
But by looking more closely at the one who claims to be the author of that experience.
The I we usually refer to feels very familiar.
It is the one who says,
I think,
I feel,
I want,
I choose.
It appears to be a centre,
A separate individual moving through life.
But what is this I?
Is it the body?
The body is constantly changing.
The body we have today is not the same body we had many years ago.
Is it our thoughts?
Thoughts arise and pass away.
Some thoughts remain for a moment,
Others disappear almost immediately.
Is it our emotions?
Emotions move through us.
That I never fix.
Is that our memories,
Even memories,
Change and they appear within awareness.
And yet despite all of this movement,
There remains a powerful feeling.
This is me.
This is who I am.
The sense of being a separatist is deeply rooted in human experience.
It allows us to function in the world.
It allows us to relate,
To learn,
To grow.
Create and to participate in life.
So this is not about denying the person.
The person is a beautiful expression of life.
The question is not,
Does the person exist?
The deeper question is.
Is the person the ultimate source of life?
Or is the person an expression of something deeper?
Is this individual self standing apart from life,
Creating each moment?
Or is this person this unique expression of consciousness arising within a much greater movement.
Like a wave upon the ocean,
The wave has a unique form.
It has its own movement,
It has its own expression.
And yet the wave was never separate from the ocean.
The wave does not need to become the ocean.
It already belongs to the ocean.
Perhaps our human experience is similar.
We are unique expressions of life.
We have our own qualities,
Our own experiences,
And our own way of moving through the world.
And yet.
.
.
Beneath the appearance of separation.
There may be a deeper unity.
A source from which everything arises.
Perhaps this is where the mystery of free will begins.
Not from the question,
How can I,
As a separate person,
Control life?
But with a deeper enquiry.
What is this life that is expressing itself through me?
And perhaps before we can truly understand choice.
We must first understand the one who is appearing to be choosing.
Who is this I?
And what is the nature of the inseparable awareness in which this eye appears?
Perhaps this question is not asking us to find another answer.
Perhaps it is inviting us to become still enough.
To discover what has always been here.
This pointing continues in part 2.
Blessings to you.
