Free Will (and another Myth)

Freedom of Will, with reference to Arthur Schopenhauer, and a creative writing piece

FREE WILL (AND ANOTHER MYTH)

There is free will; but it is not individual, nor is it human in general, nor does it belong to any such conditioned phenomenon. It is the precondition of phenomenon, of which the latter is a conditioned appearance.

What is free will is simply what appears as natural necessity (as long as it so appears). In vain do human beings muse upon freedom with bellies that need food, with lungs that need air, with all the needs and wants and sufferings of living and dying. Freedom belongs, if that can be said, to unconditioned reality. But in unconditioned reality, all differentiation of particular phenomena disappears, including the human phenomenon.

If, as Schopenhauer would have it, Will (or what appears most immediately as our will) is the inner nature of all phenomenon including the phenomenon of the empirical self and it’s world, then Will in itself is free, but it’s phenomena are determined. To speak of freedom within the human condition is of a relative freedom from want (relative that is, both to privation and to the relative freedom of the plurality of other phenomena). Air, water, food, shelter, sex, and the resources to fulfil creative desire. A free will operating within nature, within all appearances has determined, or we could say, chosen these conditions. But insofar as we are human beings, that is human phenomena, we are bound into them as necessity.

If our deepest wells of selfhood spring from that unfathomable abyss beyond mere appearance, then it is there, and there only, that we are free. By necessity, conditioned existence is unfree. We can shuffle things to limit suffering and encourage it’s opposite, but that’s as far as it goes with our human and individual wills.

The Sacred Night (a vision of the Emanation)

(This is a piece I wrote long ago when I was at college. It's typical navel-gazing-college-student-puffed-up-mummery…. but I still subscribe more or less to the basic ‘metaphysical’ paradigm behind it)

‘There is, there has been, and there will always be the Wakeful Darkness. It is uncaused, and perceives itself, watchful and warm. This Wakeful Darkness is the root and source of the Mind of which all minds are projections. Through the activities and transformations of the Mind comes the universe and the turnings of the universe.

Within the Wakeful Darkness appear the Visions, at once both conceived and perceived. These Visions are, through the Creative Intellect of the Mind, translated from out of their dark birthing pool into becoming the myriad forms of the universe. But the turns of the Mind are steered according to a flux, the Will, within the Wakeful Darkness. It pulses, now pure, now impure- and thus the character of each great cycle gives rise to a universe- now blissful, now painful- in unending wheels of recurrence.

When the disturbed phase is ascendant in the Dark, the Mind conceives a universe from a painful birth. Thereat, the Mind gazes out across the inner abyss of the Dark, and the Will conjures the Mind to fill all the space with ideation. Thus begins the thoughtful emanation of worlds. The Mind draws Visions from the Dark and casts and establishes them in inner space. Music arises from this great action which causes pain to the Holy Dark which ever loves Silence . Thus does tension and unrest arise in the fashioning worlds. Springing in response flows joy and excitement, further distressing the Dark.

To restore its peace, from the Dark is thrown up a barrier, and this barrier is Doubt and the Mind braces it. Shaped by Doubting Mind comes this universe flecked with hurt, where violence wallows in the dark between the stars

This Darkness itself, some have called Nun, some Abyss, some Absolute, or Unconscious. It is Atma, the Self. It is beyond duality and can be described only in relative and inadequate language and by analogy and metaphor. It is beyond personality and consciousness, but is the true self of things, including personality and consciousness. The Visions that arise therein are the Ideas. The primary emanation of the Wakeful Darkness, the Great Mind, is called Atum, or God, or Zeus, Ishvara or Buddhi or by myriad other names. The Will can be called Poseidon, or Hades, or Isis, or Aruru, or with other names. Doubt is also called Hecate’