Bound or Free

Bound or Free: An Inquiry into Control

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Q: Am I deceiving myself that I have control over my life, when I really don’t? Is my will just an illusion? Is everything just unfolding on its own and I have only the false belief that I am doing anything at all?

A: To answer this question, you need to inquire what enables you to create change and what you cannot control.

Internal factors that you control include:

  1. Your personal liberty – you are free to make choices between alternatives using the volition of the Self
  2. Stored karma – you can use transformational spiritual practices to work out stored karma behind the Soul (Adi Karma), in the channels of the Nada (Sinchit Karma), and behind the seed atoms of your vehicles in the Superconscious Mind (the stored aspect of Kriyaman Karma)
  3. Your transpersonal liberty – your Soul is free to carry out its ministry and service using its transpersonal will; your attentional principle operates its intention freely; and your spirit expresses its wish without barriers

Internal factors you do not control include:

  1. Destiny (Pralabdha) Karma – these are psychological and constitutional factors that you cannot control through your will, intention, or wish
  2. Divine Will – this is the Eternal Force that animates the Soul and guides the process of spiritual development; it is fully manifest in spiritual Masters

External factors you can control include:

  1. Using the egoic octave of will, you can initiate individual units of behavior to operate on the environment to carry out the activities of daily life and to design and organize your environment
  2. Your zone of responsibility extends to your property and possessions; and to your relationships—your duty and commitments to other people and the society in which you live. You can choose to exercise this responsibility or to neglect or abandon it.

External factors you do not control include:

  1. Other people’s choices – while you can attempt to use negotiation, persuasion, or manipulation to attempt to make people do what you want, you do not control their ultimate choices
  2. The activity of Nature and the world around you – you do not control the weather, the movements of the earth or the sea, or the creatures that dwell in Nature
  3. The activity of other spiritual beings – you do not control the activities of other attentional principles, spirits, or Souls; angels, Masters, gods and goddesses, or the Divine—these beings operate independently from you.

Your challenge is to identify what you can control, and use it effectively to carry out your Soul’s purpose and make a positive contribution in the lives of others. We suggest that you study the conative principles within yourself—will, at both its personal and transpersonal octaves; the intention and suggestion your attentional principle generates; and the wish that expresses your spirit.

There are several states of conscious awareness that certain spiritual teachers point to as states of enlightenment. In these states it appears you have no self, and that things unfold of themselves, without a doer.

These states of awareness, where it appears that spontaneous action arises, include:

  1. The voidness of being – this highest center of the Metaconscious mind appears as a pool of peace, and action appears to effortlessly arise without choice
  2. The wave of the present time – this first nodal point of the Akashic Records Subplane of the Abstract Mind Plane is the nexus where the Soul’s thought pours into human life. Passive absorption into this center brings the awareness that there is no self or abiding identity, no desire, no meaning, and no one to make any change.
  3. Brahman – in the first Cosmic Initiation, at the pinnacle of the seventh chakra of the Cosmic Man or Woman, it appears that the entire Creation is God’s dream, and only God is real. Human life and its parade of actions are like a movie that plays spontaneously, with no actor.
  4. The Supracosmic seed atom on the Vipassana Buddhist Path – here is appears that everything arises out of the ground of Mind, and is an eternal flow in which the heart-mind experiences in the moment. Everything is transient, impermanent, ceaseless change. This ceaseless change is called Samsara; the consciousness that perceives it is Nirvana.

We point out that if you don’t focus your attention in these states, you will be aware of integration centers in the personality—the ego and the Self; and integration centers in the Superconscious mind—nuclei of identity and the ensouling entities. You will also become aware that volition arises from these integration centers, and that you can generate action and life change through your volition.

We suggest that these is a time when it is appropriate to repose in these flowing, passive states of being and non-action; for example, when you are in need of rest and wish to experience peace and reduce your stress. It is also important that you be able to operate out of the empowered states where your volition acts to promote change and accomplish your goals. The challenge for aspirants is to locate both these wellsprings of being and will, and to be able to function in both states as the situation requires.

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