Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
22 May 2020
Free Will (1)
“Pick or Choose”
Every man and woman is convinced of free will. They believe that they can pick what they want to pick and not pick what they do not want. They believe that they can choose what they want to choose and not choose what they do not want.
They also believe they can do what they want to, speak what they want to and think what they want to think. Also, they believe that they can neither do, speak nor think what they do not want to. This conditions their respective minds that they have free will.
They can demonstrate this in daily life. Neither logic nor reason can dispute that man and woman do not have free will.
Scriptures, however, declare that man and woman are not the doers. Wisdom reveals that destiny or fate cannot be predetermined because a moment in life cannot be predetermined. This is because, in order to predetermine, a moment is required as well and the moment in life is eternal. This implies that man or woman cannot decide, pick or choose.
This is the scientific proof: brain scans reveal that decisions happen seven seconds before man decides. The scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences reveal that human decisions are made seconds before humans become aware of them.
In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their right or left hand. The only condition was that they had to remember when they made the decision to use either their right hand or left hand.
Using FMRI, researchers scanned the brains of the participants to find out if they could predict which hand the participants would use before they were consciously aware of the decision.
The results, by monitoring the micro patterns of activity in the front-polar cortex, were that the researchers could predict which hand the participant would choose seven seconds before the participant was aware of the decision.
Wisdom reveals that this is proof that man neither decides nor predicts nor predetermines. Wisdom reveals that the same applies to the prediction by the brain of the scientists. The prediction happens seven seconds before the scientists were aware of their prediction.
Wisdom reveals that predetermination, doing, speaking and thinking, happen precisely in the moment by the intelligence in life and not by free will.
The wise say that life is a flow of light and sound, which appears as illusory doing, speaking and thinking.
The enlightened have rightly proclaimed that what is meant to happen will happen at the precise moment.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2020
Editor’s Note:
In knowledge, freedom to speak – free speech – is the bedrock of a fair society. It may include freedom to laugh, freedom to cry, freedom to love, freedom to hate and, above all, freedom to live. Man is rooted in the conviction that free will is his by right of birth in his daily living, save perhaps when he is exercising this freedom unlawfully. Therefore, he will always guard his freedoms, if necessary. In wisdom, however, the scriptures have declared and science is now understood to be revealing that thinking, doing and speaking, including their attributes, are by the intelligence of life in its eternal flow of light and sound. Understanding this is becoming one with life: living life as it happens.
Julian Capper. UK