the hypothesis hypothesis
I have spent lot of years mainly figuring out what myself and this reality is all about. I've questioned everything I thought I knew about myself and reality. By doing so I constantly became more and more clear about my own conditioning and belief-systems. I saw that every belief I had was just that: a belief that I had taken for granted but that had actually nothing to do with the truth. In fact I've come to see that every belief I had was like a filter in front of truth. Truth isn't something mind can grasp, it's actually the very opposite, everything mind thinks it understands actually takes it that much further from the truth.
So I was questioning everything about reality and saw that eventually even the concept of material universe was just a hypothesis. All we can know for certain is our experience and the phenomenon it contains. Everything outside our experience is hypothesis, even the concrete nature of the universe.
But even more than that I figured out my own ego and belief systems I had about myself as a person. That seemed more relevant at the time. I was always puzzled by the idea that my past life dictates who I am. That would mean that if I were to born in completely different circumstances I would became a completely different person. I could never buy that, I felt that essentially I should be the same regardless of the circumstances. Difference is only in the accumulated beliefs and conditioning and I thought if I could get past those I would find my true core being.
So I continued to go deeper into myself and then in one ordinary day when I was sitting in a car and figuring these things as usual something happened. I suddenly felt total freedom, my issues with self esteem and self-confidence were suddenly gone, it felt instantly like there is no going back. It wasn't like I got suddenly perfect self-esteem and confidence, but experimentally those two words lost their meaning completely. All the subconscious stress about how I have to perform in life etc. were gone instantly, I felt I was free from all the concepts. I see the reason for that to happen was that my mind didn't anymore identify with any of those thoughts that made me a person of certain kind and that also ultimately made me uncertain about myself. My self esteem and feeling about myself was gradually getting better while in the middle of this process but that milestone was something I didn't anticipate.
And what does this story of my life have to do with free will? It is because how I experience it has changed from what it used to be. Before when I fully identified with my past and thought I knew what kind of person I am based on that, I had a sense of "free will" because I identified with the conditioning from which basis the choices are made. I identified myself as the maker of those choices. That event somewhat changed my identity from the doer to the witness, or to be clearer it kind of contains both aspects simultaneously now. So in my experience "I" don't have that identity as a clear cut entity that makes the choices anymore. I am more anchored in the present moment were there are no choices to be made, nor is there a maker of those choices.
Things just flow naturally and events follow each other. Of course there still seems to be this person who "chooses" to write this post, but it is like in the flower example: does a flower choose to bloom or is it just the flow of life that happens naturally?
