Free will is not a given. Free will is also not
binary – it isn't a case of either we have it or we don’t. Free will is
related to self-awareness and self-control. Some people are so driven by
their unconscious impulses that their decisions and actions are not
in their control, their self-awareness is practically non-existent, and
free will is more an illusion than a reality in their lives - like the grin on
the face of the Cheshire cat. Others, more reflective, are more self
aware, more aware of the effects of their actions, and have a higher
degree of self-control and free will. And some expand their self-awareness over
time, exhibiting greater and greater command over themselves and their actions,
greater and greater free will.
Stillness of the mind prevents
your consciousness from being overwhelmed by unconscious impulses.
Stillness of the mind draws your center of gravity inwards, stabilising
you, making you less dependent on the external world and giving you peace of
mind. You can detect stillness at the core of people with self-possession,
people who are aware of and in synch with themselves. Such people don't
repeatedly do and say things that they later feel bad about, things that lower
their sense of self worth and put them at odds with themselves. The brain is
structured for the amygdala - the center of emotions, to fire before the cortex
which is the center for thought and consciousness, so triggering the
essential fight or flight instinct that secured our survival and evolution as a
species. The amygdala is of less importance to our species now, but evolution
takes a while to respond. Meanwhile, those who want greater control over their
thoughts and actions have to take steps to gain control of their brains.
The constant noise in our brain has a lot to do
with past psychic injuries, stresses, traumas. Not just our own, but those
of our parents, who transmit the lingering pain of their wounds to us, and
have received the residues of the pain and stresses of past generations through
their parents. Two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents .... it
soon adds up a to a complex web of tributaries feeding the river of our
psychic influences. You can factor into this the impact of
karmic inheritance from previous lives. Each generation anneals to
the extent they can their stresses and transmits the residue to the next. We
inherit this long and varied genealogy of disquieting mental activity just
as we inherit our DNA. No less distinctive, no less potent, this cache of
psychic disturbance is what drives our unconscious urges, and traps us into
dysfunctional modes of behaviour.
Meditation stills the mind, gives it pause for
reflection. In the rush and tumble of existence, carving out time to sit
quietly and focus on your breathing, or on a mantra, or as in vipassana on your
body slows the mind, stemming the upsurge of thoughts from the unconscious, and
bringing the focus of the mind into the present from its spasmodic oscillations
between the past, the future and pure fantasy. By quieting the uncontrolled
movement of thoughts we gain domain over the unconscious and improve
self-awareness, free will. Current research has shown that the brain is
adaptable, and meditation actually helps change it beneficially. This
strengthens both the conscious and the conscience, making our actions
more deliberate and also more ethical. Recent studies of babies suggest that ethical behaviour is innate, not learned but a product of biological
evolution, the inherent human norm which gets distorted by the hinterland of
traumas and stresses in the mind. Meditation seeks to reset the
brain, releasing the stresses built up in the mind, and easing the warps in
thought and behaviour. Our actions no longer derive mechanistically from
the reverberations of the past. They come out from under the shroud of
compulsions and get bathed in the light of the conscious, get more healthy and
rational. That is the stuff of free will.
Sadly, meditation is far from simple. Anyone who
has tried it will confess that it is far easier said than done.
The unconscious mind is like a wild stallion and does not bear being
saddled and controlled. You can sit quietly for long stretches of time and feel
you haven't gotten far, while your mind runs riot from one thought
to the next. The unconscious has a drive of its own whose
very essence seems to be to thwart free will. Mastery over the body is far
easier than mastery of the mind. When you sit to meditate the mind will wander,
that is a given, and you have to keep walking it calmly back into
the present. It is this repetitive leading of the mind back into the
present, and stilling it in the present, that provides control over
the unconscious.
It can be despairingly difficult, yet even when
you think meditation isn't working, it works. If you are regular about it, over
a period of time you will see the difference, and the difference is palpable.
The blocks you experience in behaviour will ease, and you will find that quirks
of personality will dissolve. The ego, the greatest block of all, softens. You
begin to see your own patterns of behaviour, see insidious impairments of
judgment, and start to curb them. Even physical problems can be
eased. My hypertension has disappeared, and I have stopped medication
that I was on for fifteen years. Yet, benefits to the conscious mind and the
body are just milestones on the way to giving greater definition to your
spirituality. The ultimate benefit of meditation is in the separate
dimension of spiritual evolution.
The major religions that originated in the
subcontinent, Hinduism and Buddhism, are both reforms of the Vedic religion,
and both put a lot of weight on meditation as a means to spiritual salvation.
According to received Hindu wisdom, truly stilling the mind through meditation
can lead to discovering the atma within oneself, to realisation of your true
self, to sweeping away maya - the illusion of duality or separateness of
individual existence which is the basis of ego. The true realisation of the
oneness of all creation and its essential, intrinsic nature as being part of
the all encompassing divine infinite leads to moksha or liberation
from the cycle of birth and death. Hindu belief is that this knowledge is
within ourselves, concealed by our egos, and by stilling the mind we can let it
blossom into our consciousness.
The Buddha defined the goal of meditation as
cleansing yourself of worldly desires and cravings that are the source of
all suffering. Once you are liberated from attachments and desires and discover
your true nature as connected to all sentient beings, you achieve moksha.
While the Buddha talked about rebirth and karma and moksha/release from this
cycle of birth and death, he did not acknowledge the existence of God, leaving
a wide open question as to who is behind creation, who defines and enforces the
rules of karma, rebirth and moksha. When the Iberians went to the Americas,
they found primitive people who had never had contact with the rest of the
world, had not discovered the wheel, shipping or metals, but believed
in God as did all civilisations throughout the world. Humans since time
immemorial, in unconnected civilisations around the world have believed in
God. Buddhists, needing a god, worship Buddha - something that would
have mortified him! Either way, whether you go by Hinduism or Buddhism,
whether you believe in God or not, destruction of the ego through
meditation is the key to spiritual advancement.
Like in every pursuit, it helps to have
goals. What legitimate goals can we strive for in meditation? Moksha is a
bridge too far for most of us. If that is to happen it will probably take more
than one lifetime. It is best to work for more achievable goals. Improving
karma is an effective and worthy one. You can also have more limited goals such
as improving your temperament or enhancing your concentration. When you have a
goal you can gauge progress, and develop a productive feedback loop
to generate motivation for what is a daunting
and grudgingly slow but ultimately incomparably rewarding
process. Meditation is in essence a tool that allows us to take a step
towards shaping our own evolution as individuals, and collectively as a
species. Evolution in both the temporal life and the spiritual one.
A degree of control over our own evolution is both powerful and
empowering, a truly transcendent goal for life conscious of itself.
