Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

Richard, I would appreciate it if you would explicate the relationship between self and will/ volition as experienced before, during and after enlightenment.

Who has this ‘intent/ volition’? (a sincere question).

Gurdjieff made a big deal out of the realization that ‘we’ cannot do ... that everything happens to ‘us’. I guess he was referring to the ‘ego’ and the illusion ‘he’ is under that ‘he’ can do things the way ‘he’ wants (and thus by extension deriving the notion of free will and freedom). I’m referring to the spiritual strivings to become free, to become enlightened, etc. George said that this is an important realization on the path, that ‘I’ can do nothing. If out of this comes fatalism and ‘Make Thy Will’ and all sorts of other truisms is a side issue. What I’m interested is whether this is a fact or not and it seems that it is as long as ‘I’ (the ego-self) am only reactive to what happens. I’m a puppet on the strings believing myself to be the ‘operant’ of those strings.

Richard, I have been considering what people mean by ‘free-will’ or ‘freedom of choice’, etc. My question for you is whether, being actually free from the human condition, you experience making a ‘choice’ at all or ‘deliberating?’

You say are just a body and a body is material and as such has no choice separate from the rest of the universe. So you have no choice i.e. there is no you. You don’t appear to point this out, why is that?