Elsewhere I had suggested, Everything hinges on the so-called
free will of the little self: we each get to decide to
choose on behalf of the urgent needs, now, of our Earth and also
Humanity in crisis. Or not. That's the part that
makes all the difference. I was speaking about our
"free will" to choose consciously and actively through
how we then also act out of choosing, moment by moment, day by
day, to live life in such a way that leads to the outcome we all
want. It always comes down to the
"destiny-defining will" of our little selves.
Rudolf
Steiner
wrote a whole book, The Philosophy of Freedom, about this
free will that he says is not so free after all. Here are
a few lines from an illuminating article about this work in
Wikipedia,
that will clarify:
Steiner describes how from two sides of our existence, our experience works to make us unfree. We can easily recognize that our natural being, that part of us we share with the animal world - our drives and desires, our prejudices and habits - tends to determine our deeds and soul life from one side.
Just as constraining, however, are the dictates of conscience and abstract ethical or moral principles. Freedom, he says, is only possible because these various constraining factors work in contradictory directions. Between the impulses of our two natures, neither of which is individualized, we find the freedom to choose how to think and act. By overcoming the dictates of both our 'lower' and 'higher' sources of experience, by orchestrating a meeting place of objective and subjective elements of experience, we become true and free individuals.
In the evolutionary adventure we share in becoming ever more
conscious, Steiner gives us the opportunity to see the will
aspect of our beings in a clearer way. Imagine what it is
like to be in a place apart within, not influenced by either the
animal nature of drives, desires, prejudices and habits on the
one hand, and simultaneously not pulled by
learned perceptions and social conditioning that define one's
sense of conscience and principles. Presumably here, one
is also free of all sorts of other adjudged fortunate and
unfortunate conditioning, such as all the wounds of living a
life of learning among fellow learners, each with their own
instincts and conditioning.
Suspending yourself beyond the reach of either, to be simply
yourself, from the core of who you truly are, freely
choose. Only here, says Steiner, do we discover the
reality of the genuine, self-sourced freedom to choose. I
have a theory that here, beyond all the prejudicial
conditioning and consensus and wounding, we are closest to who
we truly are as "the SELF we all are," and from that
place to freely choose is to be that which we most naturally ARE
already, and so the choice is but ONE.
Perhaps if we all
earnestly found this inner space to examine the truly important
decisions of our lives, like this one about what can make a
deciding difference for our Earth and the quality of life for
every living being including the Earth itself, we would be most
free not only to choose 'this or that,' but to live our choice
most freely as who and what we truly are, with passion and
compassion.
A paradox: From this perspective, it seems to me, individuation is nothing
other than the process of realizing that SELF we all are, through consciously creating and
claiming "a space apart" in which freely to choose.
And in the realization, ultimately we see, we know, the Choice
is eternally ONE. A thought!
