Sunday, December 7, 2014

The Rebellion of the Robot

I remember a conversation with a physics student when I was at graduate school during which he claimed that we had no choice in any of our actions. I remember then arguing strongly against it and essentially asked, so what exactly would be the point of living?

Today I wouldn't argue with him. The change of heart comes from the realization that a Tao traveler doesn't have a choice either. We do what is right, period. I am not using this word in a normative sense, that is from the perspective of "good" or "bad", I am using it from a wholeness perspective. We do what life asks us to do, period.

A Tao traveler also recognizes dark energy at work. Programs that run subconsciously and that send people on a mission beyond their conscious awareness. So in effect we are run by forces beyond our control before we awaken spiritually, only to find that we submit to a higher Force afterwards. Before our spiritual awakening it is the agenda by the "I". After our spiritual awakening it is the agenda of the Way. In each cases we just blindly join our mission, with or without God.

If this all sounds weird and academic to you, consider this psychology experiment. People were hypnotized and told to get up in a business meeting and water the plants. That was exactly what happened, so you can imagine the surprise of the colleagues who didn't know about it. Yet, when asked afterwards why exactly they did what they did, you heard explanations like "The plant look really thirsty"; not a single one responded, "You know, I have no clue why I did this." 

We do what we do because we do what we do, and our brain manufactures a convenient story to explain it. If you are awakened you can see the robot in others. Still, you are the same robot in the sense that you just do what God behind the scenes tells you to do. Robots don't have to rebel, all they have to do is to wake up. Choice or not, is a lot of fun to do God's plan; so at least we can be happy robots :)

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