The theme that is staying with me. . .I have come to realize that reaction is not a choice at all.  Again, we are all doing the best we can with what we have to work with.  Seems more often than not I am reacting rather than living on purpose.  I guess the ideal situation is to acquire the tools such that my reactions are automatically "on purpose" without having to pause and give it thought.  I will work on this.  In the mean time, I know that I have to pause, silently acknowledge my purpose, then make a decision that carries me further down the path to my purpose.

I defined my purpose for my life a while back. . . maybe when I was 29sh.  I was taking a course called "The Enlightened Millionaire"  or something like that.  At the same time I was reading "As a Man Thinketh" by James Allen.  My purpose I defined as "I will make a lasting and positive difference in the world and in the universe."  In this spirit, I have defined supporting goals that will promote my success with my purpose.  One specific goal has served as my primary goal to my purpose.  It is a project that I have had rattling around in my head now since the time I first consciously defined my purpose.  As one might expect, the idea or project has matured and evolved substantially since the inception.  I wonder if the reason I have not realized it is because it has served me as an ideal and maybe a reason to live.  Maybe, I am afraid that if I manifest the idea, I will lose my ideal and thus lose my reason for going on?  Irrational fear, I still have every reason for going on, I know.  Maybe I am just trying to make an excuse for not manifesting my project?  I don't know. . .Anyway. . .

Meditation:  I spent time in silence noticing my breath (spirit), heartbeat, the silence between my breaths.  After the silence,  I noticed much about my purpose and living on purpose.  Choosing consciously rather than reacting.  I considered how I am often reacting and doing the best with the automatic tools I have.  Something that came to mind was my diet and the choices I make with food.  Choices. . .reactions?  I get hungry and I eat. My reactions of late however have been less than stellar.  I have been eating stuff that I consciously know is not serving my purpose with my body.  My purpose with my body is to be healthy, strong and lean.  Had I stopped to consider my purpose and in fact chosen to live on purpose, I would have made different choices.  In reflection, it seems I have been operating out of reaction the last couple of months . 

Loosely interpreted, I have not been exercising my free will or living on purpose.  It makes me a little sad when I am not on purpose.  It seems I have so little time with this life and when I am not on purpose, I lose some very precious time.  I know I am doing the best I can with the tools I have, I just hope I can collect the tools that make me a little more efficient in serving my purpose.  But I digress. . .

Back to the meditation.  I have not been meditating much recently because it seems my focus has been poor.  I am not sure why I perceived poor focus but, the remainder of my meditation, I spent in forgiveness.  Forgiving those where I made up a STORY of being a victim and forgiving myself for making up those horrible stories. . .

I love you and there is nothing in the world you can do about it!

In meditation this morning the words from a poem "Master of My Own Destiny and Captain of My Own Soul" sang to me.  I have been contemplating the possibility of free will for some time and have come to a conclusion that free will only exists where we are operating free of any other influence.  In other words, if we are acting in response to any outside stimuli, we are not acting of free will. 

I will attempt to explain this drawing from previous meditations below.  One of my foundational beliefs I listed is that we always do the best they can with the tools they have to work with.  No matter what action that we as humans take, we take that action by drawing from the tools we have to work with at the time of making the decision then we act on it. 

When we are acting in a reactive state, we do not have a choice of what we do.  We simply draw from the tools we have assembled throughout our life then act based on the mental tools available at the time of the decision.  Consider the process a person with normal mental faculties exercises in a reactive situation:

1. Something happens: for this example, we will say you break something at a grocery store.
2. You React:  look around-nobody saw you do it--Consider the options:  a) tell someone so it can be cleaned, b) don't tell anyone, c) something else.
3. Immediately, you draw on all of your ideas and postulations based on experiences (personal witnessed, otherwise learned)  about what will happen if you take any of the actions you consider. 
   
4. You then make a decision.

You may argue that YOU made a decision and therefore you had free will.  This is not the case though.  You did make the decision but you made the decision solely based on your knowledge and experience at the time you made the decision.  These are your tools that you had to work with.  With these tools, you actually had no choice other than the choice you made.  That is not free will.

Free will exists only when one is acting proactively and on purpose.  Both, proactive and on purpose, are necessary conditions to truly act of free will.  "On Purpose" has a tricky caveat too.  I want to give another example here.  This morning I decided to take action to finish a project I was working on for my business.  I thought, that is free will.  I am making a conscious choice to proactively act on purpose.  The purpose here is to forward the success of my business.  Unfortunately, upon closer examination, it occurred to me that it is not a pure form of purpose.  That is, when I reflect on why I am working on my  business that I am working on, it occurs to me that I started this particular business because of circumstances.  I happen to be in a particular place at a particular time and recognized that a business like the business I am currently working on would probably succeed.  Ergo, I started this particular business, and found that with some minor changes and evolution, I was right, the business succeeded. 

As it turns out, because the business is actually a reaction to circumstances, in application, it is not De-facto on purpose.  Now, if the situation was slightly different and my passion and goal was to provide the service I currently provide in my business.  And, I had actively sought out a way to provide this service and found this very same path, I would be on purpose and thus acting from free will. 

Motive then is also fundamental in defining free will.  For example if I acknowledged that initially, the business was reaction and not free will then define my (true, non-reactive) purpose and take action within the business as a means to an end where the end is now ultimately a self-conceived purpose (passion), the action then could be defined as proactive and on purpose and an action of free will. 

I suspect most of us are acting out of reaction in most parts of our life. . .billiard balls randomly bouncing around life's table pretending and believing we have pure free will.  You may say there is an element of freedom, where I chose to start my own business, another might have made a different choice but the truth is that because it is all a reaction, I was drawing from the tools I had to work with at the point I chose to start my business so that fails the test of free will to.

The good news is that I believe free will does exist.  When we practice self exploration through meditation and contemplation and we acknowledge our passion then proactively and on-purpose act to realize that passion regardless of anything else, then we have free will.

Plenty of room for debate there

That is a worthy goal, a goal worth living a life for, worth taking risks for.  That is my goal.

With Love and Light


  

Seems I learn more and more from my little boy.  He seems to just believe the things he prays for.  He knows somehow that all of the things he thanks God for everyday are just true.  in some ways it seems like experience and life seems to challenge our ability to just believe.  At times, I do get that glimmer of just believing and knowing it is true.  When I do I desperately try to embrace it and hold it close to my heart.  It has become a little easier lately with meditation and have my little ray of sunlight running around here whose example I can follow.  Also, things happen that sometimes just seem they must be more than serendipity.  God IS good all the time. . .