By Gonny 
Free will may be one of the most frequently used and, at the same time, least examined concepts that exist. Everyone seems to know what it means, until you really begin to look.
When someone says, “You have free will,” it sounds self-evident. After all, you can choose what you eat, where you live, what clothes you wear, and which words you speak. But the moment you look a little deeper, the mystery begins.
Modern neuroscience has placed a layer on the ‘free will’ discussion. Experiments by Benjamin Libet and others showed that brain activity can sometimes be detected before a person becomes consciously aware of making a decision. This led to the popular conclusion: “Free will does not exist. The brain decides first, and you create the story afterward.”
But even that answer turns out not to be so simple. Because who or what is that brain, exactly? Is it something separate from you? At most, the research shows that many processes occur unconsciously. It does not necessarily prove that consciousness plays no role.
Buddhism approaches the question very differently. It is often said that there is no separate self making choices. What we call “I” is, according to many Buddhist traditions, a constantly changing process of thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions. When the illusion of a fixed self is seen through, the idea of a little controller sitting somewhere behind the eyes and pulling the levers disappears as well.
That sounds as if there is no free will.
But remarkably, Buddhism does not lead to fatalism. Quite the opposite. The less a person is trapped in automatic reactions, the freer their actions become. Freedom arises not through more control, but through less identification.
And then we come to A Course in Miracles.
This is where things suddenly become very interesting.
ACIM does not say that free will does not exist. Quite the contrary. It says that free will is the only thing that is truly inviolable. But the Course places free will in a completely different location from where we normally look for it.
According to ACIM, free will is not found in choosing between coffee or tea, between left or right, or in deciding which career to pursue. It is not even found in most of the thoughts that pass through the mind.
According to the Course, there is only one truly meaningful choice, and it is always the same:
Do I choose fear or love?
The forms of life are constantly changing, but beneath every situation ACIM says that this one choice is always present. That is why the Course teaches that the power of decision is your only real power.
That is a very different definition of free will.
But ACIM adds something else that is quite remarkable. It says that behind all conditioning there remains a deeper freedom …. the freedom to look differently.
Perhaps that is also where we find a bridge to modern discussions about DNA, programming, manipulation, and social conditioning.
Suppose all of it were true. Suppose our genes have influence, our upbringing has influence, our culture has influence, and the media have influence. Suppose even our brains function largely automatically.
A fascinating question still remains.
Can love, peace, forgiveness, or insight be forced?
Something within us seems to retain the possibility of stepping back and looking.
That looking itself is remarkable. That quiet awareness that notices a thought appearing. That notices fear arising. That notices anger appearing. That notices a belief becoming active.
From the perspective of ACIM, one could say that this is exactly where freedom begins, not in the thought itself, but in recognizing that you are not that thought or emotion.
But in recognizing that you are something more….
And perhaps free will then turns out to be something much simpler than we imagined.
Not a cosmic remote control with which we govern the universe, but the ability to awaken from automatic identification. The ability, in the midst of all programming, in the midst of all genetics, in the midst of all history, in the midst of all stories, to still be able to say:
“Perhaps I do not have to believe this.” And that is precisely why so many spiritual traditions ultimately do not end in control, but in awareness.
Because the moment awareness appears, space appears and where there is space, freedom appears.
Not the freedom to control the world, but certainly the freedom to see differently. And that may well be the deepest form of free will.
With love and light,
G.