Free will

[Protector]

Here's a fun story

 

Like a few people I've seen here, I was thinking about giving everything up and becoming homeless after school. I had this idea with me for a few years and having that with me has build up quite some chi behind it.

Compressing and compressing that thought brought me to a realization that I don't want that to happen. Some time after, the build up energy manifested itself and I became a bum anyway, a tao bum

[Marblehead]

Reading Steve's post cause me a thought.

 

I have been trying to allow my living to be more and more spontanious. Being retired I am responsible to very few people. I think that when I do allow myself to live spontaneously I have set my free will aside. That is, I have overcome 'intent' in living.

[JustARandomPanda]

Without spiritual work like meditation most of what you do will come from set in patterns or karma, so I think free will is possible but you have to work for it. If you can witness your old patterns from a distance then you have an option not to go along with it, you are given a choice, but without training in this then I don't see how you have free will if you just automatically react out of outdated frameworks all the time.

 

This is the WHOLE of Gurdjieff's teachings. They ALL resolve down to precisely the above paragraph. Gurdjieff was very Taoist.

 

 

Also this is precisely what my daily practices are all about.

 

 

p.s. I will add if you are not meditating or doing actual inner alchemy practices daily it's highly unlikely you're going to ever be able to gain the freedom Lao Tzu and Gurdjieff were pointing to that all human beings have the potential for.

Edited March 30, 2012 by SereneBlue

[Jetsun]

It seems like while we are alive we always serve something or are governed by something, for most people they serve their ego which is a tyrannical ruler, but then through spiritual work we can gain some freedom from that, but then we still are governed by the heart which may be a better ruler but it is still a ruler and we are not totally free, which may be why some religious people talk about becoming a servant through their spiritual work as we have to follow something to guide us through life.

 

In the Fourth Way system they say in life you have a choice between being an unconscious slave or a conscious servant, which many people don't like to hear as they want to be totally free and not to serve anyone. They say man is always under laws but we can work to free ourselves so we live under fewer of them but complete freedom is not possible while we are alive all we can do is try to free ourselves from fewer and fewer forces acting upon us.

[JustARandomPanda]

It seems like while we are alive we always serve something or are governed by something, for most people they serve their ego which is a tyrannical ruler, but then through spiritual work we can gain some freedom from that, but then we still are governed by the heart which may be a better ruler but it is still a ruler and we are not totally free, which may be why some religious people talk about becoming a servant through their spiritual work as we have to follow something to guide us through life.

 

In the Fourth Way system they say in life you have a choice between being an unconscious slave or a conscious servant, which many people don't like to hear as they want to be totally free and not to serve anyone. They say man is always under laws but we can work to free ourselves so we live under fewer of them but complete freedom is not possible while we are alive all we can do is try to free ourselves from fewer and fewer forces acting upon us.

 

 

This is where TaoMeow talked about 'Chinese luck'. A way of looking at the world I much prefer over the unfortunately negative-baggage-laden term 'karma' and have begun adopting this framework in my own life as I much prefer this 'judgement-free' way of looking at things.

 

I wonder...I think Sages of any tradition can achieve complete freedom even while alive - they're the ones who's understanding runs so deep they can change even celestial luck.

 

Karma is a borrowing from buddhism and not an original taoist concept. The original taoist concept is luck. Luck, in the classics, is threefold -- celestial, terrestrial, and human. Celestial luck is written in the stars and can't be changed. An example of that is your being born a boy or a girl, a younger or an an older brother or sister to another kid in the family, Chinese or Irish, and so on. Terrestrial luck can be changed partially -- you are born to a certain terrestrial position that may be subject to your conscious efforts to either maintain it or to change it, and these efforts may be ignorant in which case your luck might worsen, or educated or even wise in which case it can improve. And, of course the bulk of your influence on your luck lies in the realm of human luck. Here you have a say in your destiny.

 

Feng shui gives you more say in your destiny. Or in those of others if you work for others, the way traditional feng shui masters always did. So, the knowledge of feng shui is the knowledge of luck as a force of nature. People are no strangers to adjusting their actions to forces of nature -- we wear clothes and shoes against cold, build shelters from the storm, etc., don't we? Feng shui can be viewed as part of this process of adjustments, but on a more profound, not immediately obvious (like cold on your skin or rain on your head) deeper level of nature's functioning in our lives.

 

But then there's taoist sages. Cultivators of the different order of comprehension and participation. These can change even celestial luck. It can't possibly be every FS practitioner's goal, much like winning the Nobel prize can't be a realistic goal for ALL scientists...

[Jetsun]

This is where TaoMeow talked about 'Chinese luck'. A way of looking at the world I much prefer over the unfortunately negative-baggage-laden term 'karma' and have begun adopting this framework in my own life as I much prefer this 'judgement-free' way of looking at things.

 

I wonder...I think Sages of any tradition can achieve complete freedom even while alive - they're the ones who's understanding runs so deep they can change even celestial luck.

 

Celestial influences are many of the forces which imprison us, which shows what we are up against in our struggle to free ourselves as we have to try to even free ourselves from our star sign, which is no easy task. There are other earthly forces that we are bound by like the need for food, water, air and sleep as well as many others as well as many psychological laws all of which rule us.

 

It may be possible to gain such freedom that you are not bound by all the laws we can identify, it is often said that those at high level of cultivation don't need sleep and some even don't need food, so maybe complete freedom is possible in this life.