As long as the ego, the person, is in the foreground, free will appears to be there. For a person, "free will" is highly prized, and regarded as essential.
I remember a few years ago, while out to lunch with a couple of associates, having a conversation about free will. I was explaining that from my personal investigation, there was none. Well, you can imagine, this did not go over well.
In fact, the other two could not even believe that I was serious. "How could you not believe in free will," they said.
One of them, quite seriously said, "If I thought I had no "free will" I would get a gun and shoot myself."
I replied, "You wouldn't even be able to stop yourself because your ego couldn't abide the thought. Where is your freedom in that?"
My two associates just shook their heads and looked at me as if I was from another planet.
I knew of course, that from the position of a normal person, to not believe in "free will" was absurd. If you don't believe in free will, how can you be a separate person?
No "free will" pretty much assures that one is part of a whole, a spoke in a wheel, a cog in a giant machine. The ego is not going to accept that.
It didn't bother me not having free will. In fact, I was at peace with this position because I was committed to truth. My conclusion that there was no free will was arrived at through painstaking consideration and contemplation.
I can agree that on first realizing that there was no free will, there was period of angst and a long period of adjustment. To be sure, if one's meaning is tied to being a person, free will is essential. Discovering that you have none is a rather existential moment. Loss of meaning is not only possible, but highly likely.
In time, however, instead of seeing myself as a little being with no free will, living out a proscribed life, I came to see that I was bigger than a little body, and a little mind.
I came to see that if I had no free will, no independence, no choice, then I must be part of, or at one with, something much larger. How could I be separate from that?
On examination I could see that the larger self could be nothing but the whole thing. If there were no separate independent parts, everything was an integral part of the whole.
The only thing left to do was to discover what embraces the whole world? Or, another way to look at it, what is the world made of? What perceives everything, from any angle, from any position? Can it be anything other than conscious awareness?
That which creates the universe and perceives it does not have an issue with bondage or freedom because it is everything. It enjoys the varied perceptions from the many beings it creates.
That which is everything must certainly enjoy the varied egoic positions and viewpoints of each human being. But, it is not limited by any particular form, perception, or egoic pattern.
As I am That, freedom or bondage is not an issue. I am That, which is everything, free as a bird, a tree, a star, a universe.
