Yesterday, I had discussions with friends around free will vs destiny. When we look at the horoscope of a person, we can predict many life events of that person. But can someone predict, by looking at the horoscope, the center of life of that person? Whether his life will be driven by greed or love and compassion. I feel that it's a nightmare for the astrologers. If consciousness is like the Higgs field from which all the bosons and fermions take birth, and these bosons and fermions represent the material world, bosons and fermions would be bound by the nature of their constitution only as long as they are bosons and fermions. When they merge back into the Higgs field, they have complete free will. Free will not as a unit, but as a part of the whole. The whole of the Higgs field and a part thereof are equally intelligent. The whole of the consciousness and a part thereof are equally intelligent.
When these bosons and fermions take the form of atoms, they are further bound by their nature. Atoms form molecules, and molecules make our genes, and genes give shape and size to our bodies. It's but natural that the body and mind will have limited freedom. Human beings can't fly like birds or swim like fish. Similarly, we have thoughts. Thoughts are the electrical signals flowing across neurons. Our brains have billions of neurons, and they form trillions of connections with each other. The science of the day does not know for sure where all human thoughts are stored, but by and large, there is a consensus that these thoughts are the result of the movement of electrical signals across these neurons.
As bosons and fermions constitute atoms, and atoms constitute matter, similarly, these thoughts constitute our belief systems, and belief systems constitute our mindset. A child who is born in India and brought up as indian will feel as indian, and a person brought up as French will consider himself to be French. Many Indians settled in the USA a few decades back. Now their next generation is almost American, and they may identify themselves more with the USA than India. As atoms come together to form molecules, and molecules join to form matter. Similarly, thoughts by thoughts put together constitute our psyche.
Now, coming to the more interesting part of the story, most of our thoughts are unconscious. Our brains can focus on very limited information at a time. For example, look at the following video and count the number of passes by the players. There will be a test at the end and so be focused:
https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo?si=pi-1nOUh1oEeznek
When our conscious brain has such a limited capacity to focus, our unconscious brain comes to our support, and we make many decisions unconsciously. We don't know why, but we feel uncomfortable meeting a few people. The unconscious mind notices something that we are not conscious of, but it guides us intuitively to stay away. A healthy mind naturally prefers light to darkness, while a sick mind will prefer a dark place to a well-lit place. Because unconsciously, we are either trying to hide something or reveal, and depending upon that, we need either light so that light may get reflected, and the thing that we want to demonstrate may be properly demonstrated. Or we choose darkness so that there is no light to reflect, and we may hide what we do not want to reveal.
Where is destiny or free will in all these discussions? We make decisions almost every moment. Our conscious mind makes decisions. However, the crucial factor is guiding these decisions. The memories stored in the unconscious mind or the "intelligence"? If the unconscious mind is guiding our decisions, then yes, everything is destined. Our decisions in the present moment are an offspring of our past thoughts and actions. If that "intelligence" is guiding the conscious mind, then we are absolutely free. When Arjuna goes to the battlefield of Kurukshetra to fight the battle enthusiastically, it is his unconscious mind and a strong feeling of revenge that are guiding him to fight the battle. When he gets confused after looking at the elders and his teachers standing on the opposite side, it is another conflicting thought coming from his unconscious mind that says that killing his own elders and teachers is a sin. When he surrenders to Krishna for guidance, it is his unconscious mind surrendering to the "intelligence". When Krishna guides him through the battlefield, it is the conscious mind being guided by "intelligence". Krishna could guide Arjuna but not Duryodhana because Duryodhana played into the hands of his destiny and refused to be guided by "free will" or "intelligence". We have to just connect to our inner “intelligence” to be free.
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