Apparent free will

Isaiah,
Thank you! Whew! I will try to relax up on the thinking too much.
Before I had thought it was all about polishing the mirror and the cleaner it was,
the easier it would be to see the self, that I would not be able to miss it. So I just
went into super polish mode and I went overboard polishing everything that
bothered the jiva. As Colin Hayes says, its just overkill. But you straightened me
out on this by saying I just have to be sattvic enough.
I do not feel out of control or helpless personally. Quite the opposite actually. I
have been experiencing a natural ease which is joy-filled and I quit wrestling with
a lot of the stuff that used to bug the ass out of me, the food vasana being the big
one. I just went back and forth with it so many times that I couldnt see the forest
for the trees. I have been just eating healthy and leaving it at that, rather than
getting in the trenches and battling with it. I think this all comes from people in
me and my husbands age group dying more and more. (May be it is ye old midlife crisis.) I tend to think more about being healthy since I turned 40.
I will practice thinking about my body/health as I would my friends
bodies/health. (I have been noting the breaking the body identification theme
more and more lately in my reading/watching.)
Isaiah: On a practical level, I meant that you should cut yourself the same slack
that you give to your friends. If one of your friends has a weight problem, you do
not chastise them about it, make them feel guilty about it, or pressure them to
change. You tell them that it isnt a big deal and that they should take it easy on
themselves. You assure them that they are wonderful people no matter what
their body is like. Since Mary is your very closest friend, it stands to reason that
you would treat her in the same fashion or even better.
From the standpoint of inquiry, I was trying to point out that you do not identify
with the attributes of your friends bodies. Why? Because it is your firm
conviction that their bodies are not you. It is clear to you that their bodies do
not belong to you, that they have nothing to do with you at all. Yet, you identify

completely with Marys body. But, you can only identify with Marys body if it is
fundamentally different from your friends bodies. But is it? No. Your friends
bodies and Marys body are non-different as the five elements; they are both
matter. They are also non-different as objects. If your friends bodies are clearly
not you, and Marys body is non-different from your friends bodies, Marys body
is equally not you. All bodies are unconscious matterobjectsand therefore
cannot be you.
Mary: Perhaps I am misinterpreting what I read and hear. In the videos, James
says the gunas make the decisions. He even goes so far as to say that science has
proven that decisions are made for us before we even decide, we only have the
appearance/delusion of making the decision. It is apparent free will it just looks
like we are deciding.
Isaiah: This is correct.
Mary: Am I wrong on this? Of course, my conditioning translates this into my
god, we are helpless! LOL! It does not feel this way to me, my jiva feels like it is
happily deciding on things.
Isaiah: You are not helpless because you are the self. The jiva is not helpless
either because on the empirical level, apparent free-will is just as useful as actualfree will. If the jiva is offered tea or coffee, does it say it cant decide because it
has no free will? No. If the jiva is handed a gun and told to shoot itself, does it
say, Im helpless to resist! I have no free will! and then shoot itself? No. The
apparent jiva uses its apparent free-will to make apparent decisions in the
apparent world. Apparent free-will isnt really a problem because the entire
situation is apparent. And self-knowledge doesnt change this apparent situation
at all. Self-knowledge only negates the belief that you are involved in the
apparent situation. The question of apparent free-will vs. actual free-will is only
relevant if you are the jiva. If you are the self, questions about free-will become
moot, because you are free of both the jiva and the vasanas.
Mary: I am learning to laugh more and more at my conditioning, even when my
mind gets dramatic about it or takes some things negatively. I often say, Hello
rajas or hello tamas, when I see them.

Isaiah: Good. Objectify the conditioning as the object it is. If it is an object, it

cannot be you. Nor can it belong to you because the you that owns objects is
just another object, the ego.
Mary: When this happens, that god awful song starts playing in my head: Hello
mudda, hello faddah, here I am at, camp Grenada. LOL I guess I have a
soundtrack to everything. I have noted that I can program myself very easily with
songs, so I choose them wisely because they keep on playing in my mind, over
and over and over.
Isaiah: Here is a song for you, or rather, a rhyme: I cannot be my body, it is
merely an upadhi. For me to see this clearly, I must do self-inquiry. Thinking Im
my thoughts, ties me up in knots. Using self-inquiry, Ill negate what I am not.
Mary: If it is just a program/machine
Isaiah: The field of experience is a machine, but free-will is programmed into it.
Mary: and there is no person/individual
Isaiah: There are apparent people, jivas. But they are not unique individuals
insofar as they are all just awareness plus the three bodies.
Mary: then its the vasanas trying to fix/control/change vasanas (vasanas vs.
vasanas)?
Isaiah: Wanting to change is caused by a vasana. The tendencies you want to
change are caused by vasanas. The actions you perform in an attempt to change
those tendencies are caused by vasanas. In that sense it is vasanas vs. vasanas.
Mary: And the self is just the observer of this.
Isaiah: Yes.
Mary: And Vedanta is becoming my new healthy vasana that will eventually cycle
on its own like my unhealthy habits do now
Isaiah: Yes, studying Vedanta is a habit that is caused by vasanas. And like all
vasanas, it will naturally wax and wane.

Mary: and when this happens, perhaps I can just sit on the sidelines and watch
without getting involved?
Thank you for your guidance,
Mary
Isaiah: As the self you are always sitting on the sidelines and watching without
getting involved. This is not something you can do, its something you have to
understand.
Sincerely,
Isaiah