The Price of Free Will?

I'm so tired of so-called "teachers" proclaiming that it is they, and they alone, who give you the power to have "Free Will."

Understand, I'm not talking about the genuine Teachers (note the capitalization), the Maharajas and the Gurus and the Priestesses and the Priests and the Rabbis and the Whatevers who serve as a vehicle of the Divinity to their students (NOT as the Divinity Him/Herself, for no one can do that -- and anyone who proclaims to be is a total bullshit artist).

I'm talking about these self-proclaimed sole arbiters of truth -- so-called Alpha-Omegas -- self-stylized wannabe reincarnations of Buddha and Isis and Vishnu and Yeshua ben-Yusef.

A very wise man -- my father, actually, a Catholic of the strictest order -- once told me that the most powerful, most spiritual people don't have to tell people how powerful and spiritual they are -- they simply ARE, and they don't need anyone to tell them so.

Time has proven him right -- perfect example is the Dalai Lama. Regardless of spiritual path, NO ONE (to my knowledge) has ever come away from satsang -- or even a simple audience -- with His Holiness NOT believing he was reincarnation of the Buddha (the TRUE reincarnation, not some self-stylized bullshit wrapped in egomania and sexism). Simply hearing his voice makes one realize how suffused with love and compassion the man is -- how much he embodies the Divinity and makes it accessible to us, and in turn, makes us realize the Divinity within ourselves and within all beings.

Hell, my father -- the same Catholic of the strictest order -- even said that he believes the Dalai Lama to be more powerful, spiritually, than the current Pope! (Though not moreso than PJPII...maybe on the same rank, though...Catholics, eh?)

Anyway...free will.
Folks, whether you believe this or not -- and regardless of your religion and/or spirituality (or lack thereof) -- COMMON SENSE (which seems to be less and less common) tells you that you are born with Free Will.

You read that right: YOU ARE BORN WITH FREE WILL, YOU WILL LIVE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITH FREE WILL, AND UNTIL THE DAY YOU DRAW YOUR LAST BREATH ON THIS EARTH YOU WILL HAVE FREE WILL.
This is REALLY not that difficult.

The question is, WHAT is the consequence of that free will?
Newton's Third Law -- The Law of Reciprocal Motion -- solves that for us: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Whether you choose to call it Karma, an Impediment to Enlightenment (yes, because like spoiled children, if we can't do exactly what we want when we want then we're being denied something we SO have the right to AT THAT VERY MOMENT *eye roll*), God Working in Mysterious Ways, or even Just a Total Bummer, the law still remains the same: Do something, and that will cause something else to happen with equal or opposite force.

In a spiritual sense, it may not be right then and there...but it does happen.
You know why?
Scientifically, no one lives in a vacuum. Spiritually, there is no vacuum.
Vacuums only exist in theory and in controlled laboratory environments (you can include "cults" in the latter if you're so inclined).

To use an extreme example: do you have the FREE WILL to kill someone? Yes, you do. But if you kill someone (action), you run the risk of being plagued with guilt and sorrow and death of soul (equal reaction), to say nothing of what the law will do when it catches up with you (depending on where you live, EXTREMELY opposite reaction).

Such is an extreme example of the price of Free Will -- a price you pay every day of your life. It can either pay you well (do good things, good things happen to you) or it can cost you severely (do bad things, pay the consequences).

And, please, no more of this "I can free you from Karma" crap that the False Prophets shove down your throat. That line is rife with STUPIDITY -- not to mention DANGER.

*pause for the "Enlightened Ones" to start typing their nasty e-mails and comments to me, saying how I, too, can be Enlightened JUST LIKE THEM if I send them enough money and am willing to sit idly by as they rip all but the very life out from underneath the weaker would-be congregants. And while you're at it, Jim Baker, tell me how much of a "sinner" or "loser" I am if I don't believe you to be anything more than the charlatan that you truly are. Don't forget to close the e-mail with something like "love and light," mmkay? *burp* Oh, sorry, did you mistake me for someone who gives a shit?*

Right...now let's analyze why the "I can free you from Karma" line (or any of its variants) is stupid and dangerous.

1. Not even the Dalai Lama promises to free you from Karma, and none of us here (or anywhere) will deny the notion that if ANYONE knows how to be released from Karma, it's the one man who is truly free from samsara. He shows you *A* Way (and emphasizes that it's not *THE* Way, but *A* Way) and leaves the rest up to you. Sure, he'll help you up the Mountain if you ask him, but the Path you take up the Mountain is ultimately YOURS, and YOURS ALONE.

In other words, His Holiness allows you to have FREE WILL.
(So did Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, and other true Teachers throughout history...)
By consequence, Free Will begets Karma; conversely, Karma is a direct result of Free Will. Take one away, and the other ceases to exist. (Hence, the danger of "teachers" promising to free you from Karma -- what they really mean is, "follow me, and only me, and if I have to crush you to make you listen, by Gods, I will.")

2. Because "karma" has been thrown around so freely, people have lost the sense of what it really means. So let me, uh, Enlighten you.

Free of charge, folks. I don't ask for donations, and never will -- but if you're in a giving mood, might I suggest going HERE (http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-fO3VjXUydLP0M0DlGtAJj4CB1Ei5FA--?cq=1&p=19)  to learn about some simple ways to help some wonderful creatures who cannot help themselves?
Or, if you have some extra change collecting in a piggy bank/Mason jar/old shoe box (I have it in a washed-out Purina One tin), might I suggest going HERE( http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html ) and picking a REPUTABLE charity to help alleve the suffering of even ONE of your fellow Humans so that they, too, can be "enlightened"?

Karma is NOT "what goes around, comes around." "What goes around, comes around" REALLY means "status is restored after completing a cycle," like when the sun "rises" in the East and "sets" in the West, and the completion of a cycle is not bound by Karma (the Sun is not subject to samsara).

So, if your boyfriend cheats on you with a known prostitute, and he gets crabs in doing so, what happened to him is not Karma (it's The Law of Reciprocal Motion -- again, not the same thing), nor is it "what goes around, comes around" (that happens when you take his cheating ass back and continue the relationship as though it never happened, thereby restoring the status after completing a cycle).
Nor is it Karma if you take delight in his sudden increased propensity to scratch himself and tell him something to the effect of "that's what you get for cheating on me!" (that's schadenfreude, which literally means "the joy in someone else's pain" and is the opposite of the Buddhist mudita, which is "the joy in someone else's joy.")

Karma is NOT "created" when you, say, cheat on your wife, beat your kids, or chain-smoke cigarettes (what some may argue is acting out of pride and/or ego) -- it EXISTS because you ACT, EVERY DAY, be it out of biology or force of habit or conscious choice or WTF-ever, and IN SO EXISTING -- wait for it now -- MAKES YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN LIFE.

You see, creation implies that -- intrinsically -- it can be subject to destruction. Because Karma, by definition, is an Energy, it can neither be created nor destroyed -- it can only be changed into a different form.

So now that we know what Karma is NOT, we can best describe what Karma IS.
And Karma is, quite simply, the effects of ALL deeds which actively create past, present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy it brings to you and others.

(And no more of this "when you take responsibility, you free yourself from Karma" crap. PLEASE. Quite the opposite: when you take responsibility, you become more aware of YOURSELF and YOUR PLACE IN THIS WORLD, and how you relate to other beings, and how your existence can either bring them joy and/or pain. That is, of course, if you're on the path to Enlightenment, which leads me to...

3. Enlightenment cannot, will not, and never will be achieved by simply following someone's definition thereof. You cannot achieve Enlightenment by kneeling, sitting, and standing on command, out of rote memory, in Church or Temple or Mosque. You cannot achieve Enlightenment by blinding following the teachings of a Guru (real or fake, self-stylized or bestowed-upon), a Teacher, a Priestess, or a Whatever, without ability to question the teachings (even if only to have it make sense in your mind) and with total devotion to the Teacher at hand (remember what I said about Apotheosis?). Hell, you cannot achieve Enlightenment by simply sitting slacker-jawed at MTV or the Internet.

How can you achieve it?
Work and query.
Ever the watch-words: work and query.
Serve the Grail (and there are many grails), NOT THE SERVANTS.

Recognize that there is Divinity within, and Divinity without. And sometimes, our Teachers come from the strangest places, and teach us the strangest lessons. (They may not even call themselves "Teachers"...)

For a better explanation of this, might I suggest the following article:
http://www.geocities.com/the_wanderling/Recognize.html

Pay extra special attention to the following line (emphases mine):

4. No need to talk about it: This feeling is extremely pronounced in the first several weeks following the Enlightenment. Talking, even thinking about it is felt to be as superfluous as asking a fellow passenger on a train: "Are you, too, traveling in this train?" It's meaningless. Since everybody else is also Enlightened, what's there to talk about? You just live.

(Yet another reason why you should avoid self-styled "teachers" who blather on about Enlightenment and use fancy words that they CLEARLY don't understand to mask their ignorance, megalomania, and God-complexes.)

Ultimately, the price of Free Will has to be a price we're willing to pay. And it's never more -- or less -- than any of us, either individually or as a collective, are ever willing to do.