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Hey, this is Leo, for actualised.org. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about freewill versus determinism. And we're going to answer the age old question, does freewill exist this topic of Free Will has been one that I've wanted to delay and not cover quite yet. But we've reached the point where it's necessary. It's necessary now, because we're getting into deep territory with actualised.org. We've covered a lot of stuff about enlightenment. We've talked about meditation, we've talked about mindfulness, we've talked about consciousness and raising awareness. So if you start to actually listen to these ideas, and actually start taking action, start meditating, start doing some self inquiry work, perhaps, then, inevitably, this question of free will, will come up for you. Because we're questioning the very essence of your being, we're questioning whether you as an ego even exist or not. So this issue comes up. And it's a really confusing and tricky issue. So I want to dispel many of the myths and misconceptions that happen here. Please listen to the entire episode in its entirety. Because if you don't, if you only listen to half of it, what will happen is you'll hear some crazy and radical and perhaps mind blowing ideas about free will. And then what will happen is that you'll have a lot of misinterpretation of what I say, you'll misinterpret the facts. And you'll think that this means something negative or problematic in your life. And then you'll get depressed and bummed out and you'll basically screw your whole life up. So we don't want that to happen. So listen to everything I say here, I'm going to cover many questions that people have, and many misconceptions that people have. Now let's set the foundation for this discussion, which really goes back 1000s of years. It's a philosophical debate that's been raging for 1000s of years, ever since antiquity since the Greeks and Romans 2000 years ago. And this is the freewill versus determinism debate. So basically, what it means is you have two sizes, bate. And one side says that the whole universe is mechanical, we know that the universe is made up of atoms and molecules and chemicals and stuff like this. And we've discovered many of the laws scientifically speaking of how this works. And it turns out that the universe is very mechanical, and mathematical and orderly and predictable, generally speaking. So because of that, it's almost like the universe is like a giant computer simulation, like an algorithm. Everything is happening from the preceding causes. What happened a second ago, was caused by what happened two seconds ago, was caused by what happened 10 minutes ago, was and then that was caused ultimately by what happened billions of years ago. So that's how the determinist side of the bait runs. And then the freewill side of the debate says, Well, wait a minute. We as individuals, certainly must have free will, because it feels like I can make choices and decisions in life. For example, I can raise my hand, I can choose to raise my hand, I can choose to stick out one finger, I can choose to curl that finger up and down like this. And it seems like I'm doing that. Don't I have that kind of control? So from a first person perspective, it certainly feels like we have freewill. It's almost undeniable. And so this debate has raged on for 1000s of years, and many intelligent people have chimed in on both sides. And really, there hasn't been a very satisfactory resolution, at least in philosophy circles. So what can we say about this? Well, I want to tackle this from a different perspective than philosophy. Or, rather than citing, for example, scientific studies, I want to come at this from a phenomenological perspective, from a first person perspective, and experiential perspective. And from an experiential perspective, the claim that I want to make is that free will does not exist. Now the trick with this is discovering what this really means is deciphering this as tricky. So free will does not exist. This is my claim. And I'm going to cover in a lot of depth, all the nuances of this claim as we go on here. So firstly, let's ask what does this really mean that free will does not exist? What am I actually claiming? What I'm claiming is the most radical thing you could claim. It's really quite an outrageous statement to make. And that is that you have no control whatsoever over your life, even though it feels like you do. I'm not saying that you have only maybe 5% control or 1% control or point 00 1% control If the rest is mechanical and out of your hands, I'm saying you have 0%, control, none whatsoever. What that means is that you don't control your thoughts. You don't control your actions, you don't control your habits. You don't control your desires or your motivation level, or your success or your failure in life. You don't control your emotions either. Most people find that one easy to believe. But basically, you have no control over anything at all. And the reason that this is, is because there is no self who can have control. The assumption that kind of latently exists in the freewill determinism debate is that there is a self in the first place who could have freewill. And this just isn't the case. And I'll describe exactly how this works in a lot of detail. But let me emphasize that this is not something that I want you to just to believe, I don't want you to just believe me and take this on as some new dogma and then go convince other people of this fact. Now, what I'm claiming here is an empirically verifiable fact. So not only am I saying that free will doesn't exist, I'm saying you can demonstrate to yourself in an extremely convincing way that free will does not exist. And I'll show you how to do that in a second. This is not just something I am claiming this is something that has been demonstrated by 1000s of people who are enlightened, enlightened people are those who have discovered that there is no self inside of them. They've seen through the illusion of self. And then of course, what that means is they've also seen through the illusion of self control, there is no executive agent, there is no like CEO living in your mind, who's controlling things. Right, there is no Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. That's what we're saying. And this can be demonstrated. That's what's so amazing about this, I wouldn't even be talking about this issue, if it was just speculation, or if it was just empty theory or philosophy. That kind of stuff doesn't interest me, what interests me is getting practical results in my life. And what I found is that to get the really amazing results that I know I can get in life, I need to understand and surrender myself to this idea that there is no such thing as free will, as other people have done. Now, what I could do at this point is I could bring in and start start citing all sorts of neurological and neuroscience studies, which actually seem to suggest the very same thing that you're gonna find out through direct experience for yourself. But I don't want to cite these studies, firstly, because I don't think they're very conclusive. And I don't think the science is fully in yet, because neuroscience is a very new field, and it's still growing and maturing. But even more importantly than that, the reason I don't want to cite studies, is because studies are studying this phenomenon of Free Will from the outside. From an objective perspective, we need to look at this from a subjective perspective, because what we're studying here is our subjectivity. And the only way you can do that is through self observation. In fact, speaking of self observation, you know, I didn't always think that there was no free will. In fact, if you know anything about me, I really was interested in philosophy ever since I was in high school, and through college, I became a philosophy major after doing some aerospace engineering. And I loved it. I loved studying philosophy. I read a lot about it, thought a lot about it for years. And of course, I was interested in this freewill versus determinism debate. And I was on the side of freewill because to me, it certainly felt like I had freewill. I mean, I can do stuff, I can talk, I can walk, I can create goals, I can get into relationships, I can break relationships, I can do all this kind of stuff. I can create success in my life, I can also be lazy and experience failure. So aren't I doing all that? It certainly seem that way. Until about two years ago, two years ago, I changed my mind. And the reason I changed my mind is because of self observation. Self observation. Let me describe what this is. This is actually the method through which you can prove that you don't have freewill. So if you're really serious about this, and you really want to find out, then here's what you do. You sit down and you start to observe your thoughts. This can be done in meditation practice, there's all kinds of different meditation practices, or it can be done with something called self inquiry where you basically sit down and you start asking yourself questions like, Who am I? What is the nature of reality and existence? What are thoughts? Where do thoughts come from? etc. So you can sit down and start observing your thoughts. And if you observe your thoughts in real time as they arise, what you will notice, first of all, is that you can't stop your thoughts. Now, that's a pretty cool and odd phenomena that you can't stop your thoughts, you should already start to make you a little suspicious about this idea of free will. And this is not something you should just believe me on, you guys should sit down and do it. In fact, an exercise I recommend for you is sit down for five minutes with a clock, time yourself and try to stop your thoughts for five minutes straight. If you do that, what you'll discover is that actually, you cannot stop your thoughts. You can't kind of odd, why can't you if you have control? What's even more shocking, not only will you discover that you can't stop for five minutes, you'll discover you can't even stop them for 30 seconds. And that's really shocking. Not just to know that but to actually experience it. And if you do meditation, then you've experienced plenty of this, you've got what's called monkey mind, your mind is always running, it's always running, it's really, really hard to stop. Now, this isn't conclusive proof of anything, but it's a little hint, what you need to do is you need to go deeper, deeper with your self observation. So if you do go deeper, what you'll notice is that not only can you not stop your thoughts, you don't even know what your next thought is going to be. You don't know what's coming next in your mind. You think you know, but you don't really know. Here's the whole problem with this is that when we're born, we just somehow assume that life is kind of what we expect it to be. After we go through childhood, we learn the basics of life. Now we think we got life handled, we understand how life works on the fundamental level. And nothing is further from the truth. We never take the time, it never even occurs to us to sit down and very carefully painstakingly observe our own mental process, our own behaviors and habits and actions. How do these actually come about? Where do they come from? What's sourcing them? This is something that most people just overlook. And they think it's so obvious, we don't even need to look at that. They don't even question it. But in fact, this is one of the deepest fields of human study that you can involve yourself in. This is called mindfulness, it's developing the muscle that we call mindfulness, your ability to resolve very precisely and carefully, exactly what's happening in the present moment with your emotions, your body sensations and your thoughts. So if you start to realize that actually, you haven't really looked inside yourself, to figure out how you work, then you start to sit down, you start to actually do that process. And if you start to do that process, what you discover is that you don't really control your thoughts. You can't control them, nor do you control your actions. And one of the reasons that is is because who would be in control? Who is exactly having free will? What is this thing that has free? Will? We think it's us, right? You think it's you, and I think it's me. So these are the keywords you me, I, Leo, or whatever your name is, this refers to the ego, this refers to what I call the self. Now this self, and this is, the deepest truth you can find out as a human being I think, is you can find out that the self is actually an illusion, it doesn't really exist. And this is something I don't have time to go into in much depth here. You should see my spiritual enlightenment videos about a lot of in depth discussion of this issue. But you know, if you're on board with me on that, then basically what you understand is that there is no such thing as a self. What the self really is, when you think of you so for example, right now I'm addressing you I'm talking to something you think of as yourself, right? You I'm pointing at you, if you're watching that you that entity right there. What that is, it's not a physical entity. It's not a solid entity, the way we feel it is what it really is, is it's a collection of things. It is the intermingling of mental images, mental auditory labels, and body sensations. And when these three things intermingle, what they create is they create a very solid illusion of a you and that it's that you that we attribute freewill to. So we think that this You, this ego is making choices and decisions in life, and that it's running your life, we think of it as the CEO that's living inside your skull. Doesn't it feel like that's where you reside, you reside behind the eyes, somewhere in here in your skull? Well, what we're saying is that that's an illusion. That's a very, very persistent and very difficult to see through illusion. But nevertheless, it is an illusion, and it can be seen through. So one question you might have as well, Leo, if thoughts don't come from me, and they don't? Where do thoughts actually come from? And this is a really tricky issue, actually is, I mean, it's very simple. But it's tricky, because your mind doesn't want to believe it. And the answer to that question is that thoughts appear out of nowhere. thoughts appear out of nowhere. Now, this is a very special nowhere extremely special nowhere. I'll talk about that, in future episodes, don't have time to get into it here. But just open your mind to the possibility that instead of thoughts arising out of a thing called you, thoughts are arising out of literally nowhere. Because that is what's happening, phenomenal logically, from a first person perspective, in your direct experience, when you experience a thought, it arises out of nowhere, watch, let me prove it to you. So here's a thought for you. Pink, elephant, orange, Flamingo, purple hippopotamus. Those are some thoughts. When I said those words, your mind interpreted all that without any input from you interpreted all those sounds, there just sounds bla bla bla bla, just sounds right, interpreted those sounds created meaning out of those sounds, link them together, created a mental image in your mind of a flamingo a hippopotamus or whatever, gave it the right color that I said, and now you have an image of that faint image in your mind. And you also not only just have that image, but you have all sorts of associations with that, for example, when I tell you about purple hippopotamus in your mind, you're like, well, hippopotamuses are not purple. And flamingos are not orange, and so forth. Right? So where did those thoughts of the animals come from? You think they came from you? You kind of we assume that? Well, I thought them. But if you're going to look really closely, and you're very honest about it, what you notice is that no, you didn't actually think them, you didn't create them, you didn't willed them, they happened to you. In fact, you could say that I triggered them in you. So if anyone created those thoughts in you, it was me, not you. kind of freaky, really freaky. When you start to observe this, you start to notice that man, I really don't have control over my thoughts. In fact, most of my thoughts are being triggered by external stimuli. The TV, I watched the books I read, the people I talked to, and so forth. And if I'm not connected to any external stimuli, I still don't control my thoughts. Because my thoughts just arise on autopilot. And a lot of times, my thoughts are very random and scattered. Isn't that what it feels like? That your thoughts are so scattered at random? That's why we call it monkey mind. Now, some people will say, okay, Leo, maybe I can concede the fact that I don't control my thoughts. But that doesn't mean I don't control my actions and behaviors. I mean, Leo, Are you really telling me that when I put up my finger like this in front of my face, and I straightened it out, and then I decide to curl it back down? I mean, I'm making that conscious decision, right? I curl it down, and look, it happened. And now I can straighten it back out. And that happened, and I curl it back down, and then it happened again. So aren't I doing that? Who's creating that? The answer is not you. Because there is no human side who can make that choice. What's really going on is you have a lot of subsystems within your mind that are simultaneously creating the action and the arising of the thought and what you really are, you're not the one who's causing that you actually are something that is also a thought that's arising. So you yourself are a thought. You're not a physical thing. You're a thought. You have a self image of you. You have an image of your mind. You have an image of your body, you have an image of your head. You have a personality that you think you is really you you think that's solid, you think that's real, but that's all illusory. and I talked about that in my enlightenment videos. So anyway, let's get back on track here. What I want to just convince you of is that it's possible to prove this to yourself, you don't have to believe me, there's no requirement of taking me on faith. The Warning I'll issue to you, though, is that if you think you're just going to sit down for five minutes, and look at an activity like this, am I really doing it, you're not going to break through the illusion, because the illusion is extremely deep and persistent. What it's going to take just to, to give you an idea of how long it takes, it'll probably take you over 1000 hours of very careful and precise and laborious self observation. Not only does it take 1000 hours, think about 1000 hours, that's extremely, an extremely deep field of study. Just to observe your own thought process, 1000 hours, that's crazy, that would drive you add your mind board nuts. Not only that, but it's going to be emotionally difficult, very emotionally difficult to do this work. Which is why most people don't do it. And which is why most people don't understand this truth have no free will. Now, at this point, people have the following objection. They say something like, well believe So are you saying that my actions then are random? If I'm not the cause of my actions? Where do my actions and decisions come from? For example, let's say I'm sitting at a restaurant, and I'm trying to decide between the cheese burger and the Caesar salad. Which 1am I going to have Leo, who is making that decision? aren't I making that decision? The answer is no. You're not making that decision? And the answer is also no, your actions are also not random. There's nothing at all random about your mind and your body. Your brain and your body are very complex, extremely complex, you can't even imagine how complex the system is, and how ordered it is. It's highly, highly ordered. Any significant variation within that order will destroy the brain and the body, which we see with people who have diseases, or people who encounter injuries. You have to start thinking of the brain and the body in a much richer and more holistic way than you presently do. Most of us assume that the body and the brain are just kind of dumb, mechanical devices, almost like you know our robot and we're living inside this robot inside this machine. That's not really what's going on, you have to appreciate the complexity of nature, and also the intelligence that's possible within nature. It turns out that the brain of the body are not actually that dumb. What you are really is you're a distributed system. You're not a centralized system, there is no one thing inside you that we can point to to call you, you. Instead, it's all the parts of you. How many parts of you well, estimates, scientists say that there are 37 trillion cells in the human body on average? 37 trillion cells in the human body. Think about that. Think about that. That's orders of magnitude more units than the number of people on the entire planet. There's only 7 billion people on the entire planet, there's 37 trillion cells in your body. Now, is it possible that when you take 37 trillion of something, and you combine it together in complex and ordered ways that you get emergent phenomena that happen? If you're a student of nature, and you're a student of science, which you can appreciate is that an emergent phenomenon are actually very common in nature. They're like a hallmark of nature. You can take for example, some hydrogen and oxygen atoms, mix them together and you've got a h2o molecule. And h2o behaves very differently than hydrogen or oxygen. It's not simply like if you take some hydrogen, and you take some oxygen, and you put them together, then you've got water, no hydrogen, oxygen or gases. But when you do combine them together in a special way, and they bond you get water. Now water is kinda like an emergent property. Water feels very liquid at room temperature, but that exact same substance can also be a solid, slightly below room temperature. Or it can be a gas slightly above room temperature, exact same substance, but that it has these real qualitative differences, right? That you wouldn't really expect from just a bunch of molecules bouncing around in a box, you wouldn't expect some molecules bouncing around in the box for them to act like a liquid or a solid or gas, the exact same ones, just by changing the temperature a little bit. So that's what we call an emergent phenomenon. What I'm saying is that you are also an emergent phenomenon, extremely, extremely high order levels and levels and levels above just water. What's interesting with water is that even with water, there's even higher levels, not only can it be just like a solid or a gas or liquid, but if you take a lot of water, you can put it into something like an ocean. And you've got this vast ecosystem called the ocean, which has really unique properties and stuff going on inside of it than just a glass of water, right. And then if you take that water and you evaporate it with the sun, you get clouds in the sky. Again, clouds in the sky are very different phenomenon qualitatively from just water in a glass standing in your room. And then if you combine the ocean, plus the clouds and the atmosphere together, and you mix a little wind and air and some temperature differences, you can create a hurricane. What is a hurricane, a hurricane is basically driven by forces of water, and temperature differences. So that's, you know, a really high order. emergent property is something like a hurricane. So you as a human being a human entity is kind of the same thing. You have to start to appreciate just how much just how much power there is in combining 37 trillion cells. Each one of these cells is itself made up a little units. So we're not even going to the slightest level. But the starts to get a little bit of appreciation for it. So how does this relate back to this example of sitting in the restaurant and choosing between a cheeseburger and a Caesar salad? Well, what we're saying here is that it's not like there's an individual unit called a you inside your head that chooses the cheeseburger over the salad. No, what happens is that every single one of these 37 trillion cells take part in the decision, they all weigh in. Now, the problem is that when we are just trying to be rational and logical, from a first person perspective, for you know, from just a common day perspective, it doesn't feel like there are 37 trillion cells acting on the decision to eat the cheeseburger. But in fact, you know, scientifically, if we look look closer, we know that this must be the case, it has to be the case. But it goes even deeper than this. Not only are all these 37 trillion cells in play, but we also know that you are not separate from nature, you are a part of nature. That means all of nature is acting on you. And there are fundamentally there are physical forces acting on all particles in the known universe. Your cells are made out of matter. Matter has mass, we know that every particle of mass also has gravity. And this gravity is influencing every other particle of mass at infinite distances. Of course, there's a drop off, and it drops off a lot over vast distances. But nevertheless, we know that technically speaking, there is still an effect. So actually, what's happening when you're choosing the cheeseburger think about this. What's happening is that every single particle in the known universe is acting on every single cell in your body. And every single particle in your cell in your body and is influencing in a tiny little way. Your decision to go with cheeseburger now, that's pretty freakin cool. really freaking cool. We don't think of it this way, though. Why? Because it's so complex. Our mind can't deal with it. What our mind likes to do is simplify everything down and just dumb it down and make it really stupid. Like, oh, yeah, there's just a me choosing the cheeseburger or, you know, some part of my brain decided that it likes salty, fat, greasy food, and there's bacon on the cheeseburger. I love bacon. So that's why I chose the cheeseburger. But if you really sit down and you look at this with a fine microscope, and you break it all down, you start to see that it's not just that you like bacon, why do you like bacon? Well, you like bacon because of all these different factors. If You boil it down all the way to the bottom, you get to just chemicals and atoms and even lower. Now, that's kind of going down the scale. There's also going up the scale, which is your psychology and your life history. So of course, another way we can talk about this is that when you choose the cheeseburger, and this is going to sound a little less ridiculous, because I really over exaggerate this example, just to kind of show you how deep we can think about this topic. But let's think a bit more on kind of everyday common terms that probably don't seem as absurd. When I choose the cheeseburger, what's happening there, we could say is that every single experience I've had in my whole life, is influencing this decision. It's all the other food I've eaten in my life. It's the cultures I've been exposed to. It's the cuisines I've been exposed to. It's the DNA that I inherited from my parents, my tastes, preferences, it's all the diseases I've had. It's all the colds and viruses that I've had. It's all the teachers I've had in high school, and in college, and in elementary school, it's all the friends I've had, my parents, it's my siblings. All of this is coming into play, do you see this, because based on all that, the mind then constructs its preferences, and then makes decisions. So you have to start to appreciate just how much information the mind is able to process or the brain, I should say, the brain is able to process absolutely staggering quantities information. And what's really crazy, if you think about is that you are not conscious of 99.999% of any of it. Level of controlling it, you don't even have awareness of it. For example, just think about this. Right now you're sitting here, you're listening to me, as that's happening, what's going on inside your body and inside your brain. Within that complex system, millions of processes are happening, that you have no idea about, your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing for you, cells in your lungs are taking the air, the oxygen, and they're using that to generate energy through a very complex and intricate cycle that you have no clue about. Also, your immune system is responding to viruses and pathogens and bacteria that live by the millions, inside your gut and inside various tissues. Your kidneys, and your liver is doing its job, you have no idea even where those organs are probably located in your body. hair is growing. Millions of strands of hair on your body are growing right now, at a tiny, slow rate. And you have no idea how that's happening. You probably haven't even thought about it until I mentioned it. You're your sensory system is producing various sensations, for example, your eyes are taking in and processing data from the environment, they are compositing that data, they're editing that data, they're processing all that data and feeding it to you. Not just that, but also your ears are processing auditory sounds, they're hearing me talk, they're breaking that down into individual units of the English language, creating meaning out of that, and then feeding that meaning to you, we could say. And then you're understanding me. All of that, notice that all of that is happening without a single input from you. You're not willing any of this stuff. And that's still just the tip of the iceberg. Of all the stuff that's happening. It's crazy. How intricate and elaborate these systems are. So when someone comes up with the objection says, well, Leo, you know, but I do intelligent things. For example, I'm creative. And I can do mathematics and human beings, you know, we can build the rocket ship, the flash the moon, we can do all this intelligence stuff. Doesn't that mean there has to be a self to do that. Doesn't that mean that there is freewill? And the answer is, of course, no, it doesn't. Because what you assume is you assume that this dumb body and this dumb brain tissue cannot do intelligent stuff? Well, that's an assumption infrastructure question. Because clearly, your brain and your body can do extremely intricate, extremely elaborate and intelligent things. Think about the immune system response that you have in your body. You actually have little cells that go and attack viruses kill viruses, they know how to distinguish which virus is the right one to kill. Which one is not the right one to kill. They know which bacteria is good and which bacteria is not good for you. That's a pretty intelligent process. We have to really start to question this idea that nature doesn't have a certain innate intelligence, because it certainly seems like it does. What the ego or the self likes to do is he likes to take all the credit for this. He likes to say, well, all the dumb stuff. Yeah, Leo, I admit that all the dumb stuff I do, like, you know, the heart beating the kidneys working the immune system, working, the eyes, processing data, oh, that's just kind of dumb brute force stuff all admit that that stuff I have no control over. But then you know, my decision to marry this person here, or my decision to be nice to that person or to get angry with this person, or my decision to start a business, or my decision to go lose weight, that those higher order decisions that no those are done by me who else could do them? Well, maybe the same exact system that is responsible for fighting viruses. And for processing urine in your kidneys. And for rendering your visual field could also be responsible for you making a decision such as which cheeseburger to eat, or when to go work out at the gym, or who to marry or what college to go to, or which kind of business to start. Could that be possible. You can actually sit down and observe your actions and behaviors. And you'll see that you don't have control over these things. Even the stuff that we quote, unquote, call conscious. So for example, we would say that walking is a volitional act, I can actually choose how I walk, I can also choose how I talk, I can also choose when to raise my hand, when to lower my hand, when to curl my finger, when to straighten my finger, we would say that these things I have control over, what I would say is that actually you don't if you carefully observe, what happens is that when you straighten your finger, it appears as though you have control. But actually what's happening is a thought is arising at the same time as the finger is moving. And the thought claims control over the finger. That's how the illusion is created. And you actually sit down and break it down. And you will observe that this is the case. What you are the thing, we call you, this ego. What that is it's not an input into the system, it actually is an output of the system. That's crazy. That's crazy, right there. Think about this. Think about an example such as Google, Google is a search engine. Now, this search engine. Imagine the search engine got really, really intelligent and really complex, to the point where the search engine started to believe that it was an input into the Google, the Google company, Google, as an organization. See, Google as a search engine, when you go to the homepage, that's an output of the millions of hours of work that 10s of 1000s of employees have done over 10 years, those individuals in that company that make up that company, they are like the cells in the body. And then Google itself is like the emergent property. It's the homepage seems very simple, except you have 10s of 1000s people working millions of man hours to create that incredible amounts of technology. That's the output. You got to be careful not to confuse the output with the input. Right, who's actually creating Google? Is it the Google homepage that's creating Google? No, it's the employees. Now, maybe Google will get so smart one day that it will start to think that it is responsible for everything, in which case it'll be exactly like you. That's the state that you're at. But that's an illusion. That's not recognizing the hard work that the actual individual cells are doing to produce you. You are produced by your cells. Not the other way around. It's pretty mind blowing stuff. Now, another objection that comes up when I start to talk like this, is people will say, well, Leo, you're just being very mechanistic. You're saying that I am basically just a robot. We're all just robots. And where's the soul? Where's the spirit? You're not accounting for spiritual things here. And actually, this is a huge misconception people have. Spirit is still in play. Accepting Beer is not what you think it is. Spirit is not some kind of ghost in the machine. It's not the EU, the EU is not the spirit, the EU is an illusion. What spirit is, is the actual thing that everything is made out of. So yes, you are a robot, yes, you are a machine. And that's something you need to start to really take on very seriously. Because as long as you decide, deny your machine like nature, you experience a lot of problems in your life. The more you start to see how mechanical you are, the more your life flows smoother. But what is spirit spirit is basically what scientists call matter. So the very rock bottom thing of which all of reality is made out of that's what spirit is. This is not what most people think spirit is. But this is what it is. And if you look at the Buddha, you look at Jesus, you look at other Mystics and Saints that have actually realized this, they are enlightened people, what they realize is that spirit is everything. Spirit is like, what existence is made out of it's awareness, it's consciousness, that's what spirit is. But when they talk about consciousness and awareness, they don't mean the ego, the you that I'm pointing out, they don't mean that. They mean literally, like, you knock on a piece of wood, that wood you're knocking on is made out of spirit. So spirituality is still in play, we have not gotten rid of it. In fact, and I'm going to get to this in a minute, is what we've done is we've opened the doors for spirituality. This is what makes spirituality possible. Many confused spiritual people or religious people believe that free will is kind of where spirituality takes them. Actually, it couldn't be further from the truth. What spirituality actually is, is the recognition of no free will. That's enlightenment. But before I talk about that, let me talk about some of the challenges of accepting this idea of no free will. It's a really challenging thing to accept. For several reasons, let me list them. The first reason is because you have a very strong illusion of free will. So there is the illusion of free will we can't deny that that's certainly in play. You got that going on right now. You have to open your eyes the possibility that it could just be an illusion. Could it be that the ego is claiming responsibility for things that it actually doesn't have responsibility for? Could that be the case is it's really challenging to accept that, to even open your mind to that possibility. The second challenge is that the ego really hates this idea really hates it. It's antithetical to everything that you do is about fundamentally what the ego is about is it's about control. The ego is the thing that thinks that has control. And when we tell it that it doesn't have control, the ego goes nuts. It has an emotional reaction. In fact, as you're listening to me, be mindful of any emotional reactions, you have maybe a hint of anger, a hint of sadness, some depression, some outrage, some frustration, some annoyance, some confusion. Those are all emotional reactions, to hearing some of those bitter news. Is it really bitter news? Well, it is for the ego. But it's not for the higher self. Now the higher self, what is the higher self, that's something I can't cover here. See my lightning videos that I'll talk more about that in the future. But basically, you know, for the ego, this is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, because it basically makes the ego useless. And as the thing that you hate the most, because the ego is like to think of it like a tornado or a hurricane. It's just like this swirling pit. That's schmear of air. It's just made out of hot air, basically. But it certainly feels like it's very solid, like it has a force of its own. And it kind of does. It's the force of illusion. That's a very strong force. In fact, it's such a strong force that most people who watch this and listen to me here will never actually verify this stuff for themselves. Because their tornado their hurricane inside their mind is so strong, that they will not do the work to dismantle it. The third challenge we've got is that you've been wrong your whole life. If what I'm saying is true, then you've been wrong your whole life because your whole life you assume that you've had control Again, for the ego that's very difficult to accept when you've been living for 20 3040 5060 years of your life believing you have control, and then someone tells you that you might not have control at all. What's your initial reaction? Your initial reaction, say, No, that's ridiculous. That's stupid, Leo, you're wrong. can't possibly be the case. Look at my life, I've been controlling my life for the last 50 years. So you're just talking nonsense. So that's the third challenge. The fourth challenge is that this is very socially unacceptable. And also culturally unacceptable, goes completely against the grain of culture and society. Many of our social systems like our education system, our government, our politics, our legal system, our police enforcement system, or military, these things are tacitly predicated upon freewill. And when you start to go around talking to people about no free will, on a social level, they think you're crazy. Or they think that you're dangerous. Because a lot of these social systems are really bought into this idea. And they kind of depend on it. What would happen to the legal system, if you admitted that no one had free will be pretty interesting. And the fifth challenge is that no free will does not mean what you think it means. So already, right now, this is your first time listening to this, then your mind is coming up with all sorts of interpretations. Your mind is confused, right? Now. It's saying something like, okay, so what does this really mean? This means that what this and this and this and that in my life, I don't control and yada, yada, yada and all this is so bad, so negative, right, your mind starts to go down this kind of road. And you start coming up with ramifications for this idea of no free will. And the challenge is that the ramifications, the actual ramifications are not what you think they are. The actual ramifications are very counterintuitive and paradoxical. And that's something that I want to cover right now. Let's cover some of the misconceptions. And then we'll cover some of the actual ramifications. So that you have it straight and you don't get confused. So the first common misconception that people have about no free will is they simply say something like, well, Leo, I've studied Zen masters and Yogi's. And like martial artists, for example, These people seem to have extraordinary degrees of self control. As a Nash can just sit there for days on end. So can a yogi and a martial artist, you know, he's mastered his mind. What about these people? Don't these people have freewill? Haven't they broken out of this? Isn't there a glimmer of hope? And the answer is not at all. In fact, what the Zen master and the yogi have done is they have achieved enlightenment, they have realized through self observation that there is no such thing as a self. And of course, that means that they realized there is no such thing as control, what they've done is they've completely surrendered themselves to the idea of no free will, totally surrendered. There is no more self inside of them, so to speak. And what this allows them to do is just to flow with life, to flow with life. Now, what's very counterintuitive about this, that you would think that this kind of person has become just a lazy victim, who can't accomplish anything in life. It has no self discipline. Actually, it's the exact opposite of this. From the outside, when you look at a Zen master, it looks like he has complete self discipline. But in fact, what's happened is that, no, he's just completely gotten rid of the idea of a self. And now everything he does, there's no resistance in it. There's no internal suffering or struggle anymore. He's flowing with life. And that looks effortless, and that looks very rigorous and disciplined. Also, of course, it helps that, you know, he's really trained himself very hard. Zen masters and Yogi's and martial artists, or they'll have in common, they train themselves for 1000s of hours, which is something that you probably don't like doing, because it's boring and hard work. Through this training process, the body so to speak, trains itself. The self discipline, disciplines itself. This is something that's hard for people to understand. This is what's very paradoxical about this whole notion of Free Will no free will is that if I surrender myself, actually. I gain power rather than lose power. Of course, it's not the AI that's getting the power, but from the outside person It's gonna look like I'm really on top of things. So that's what's going on there. Another misconception that people say, Well, what about Leo? What about the earlier episodes, you talked about taking 100% responsibility for my life, and you told me how I'm responsible for everything. And now you're telling me the exact opposite. You're telling me I'm not responsible for anything? Yes, in my other videos, the earlier videos, they're not as advanced as this one, I tell you to take full responsibility, because that's what's necessary for you to hear at that point in your journey. Here, we're talking about very advanced stuff. This is stuff that most people will not understand it will never go and actually realize for themselves, only the very dedicated will do this. So one answer to that question is that we're targeting different audiences. Another answer to that question is that your journey through personal development has stages and steps in it. Where you start is not where you end up. We're talking about a high level here, right now. Another paradoxical thing about this journey is that when you start off, and you're really struggling in life, and you're getting crappy results, and you're depressed and angry and frustrated easily in this kind of stuff, what that usually means that you actually have low self esteem, this means you have a weak ego, your ego is kind of flawed. What has to happen usually with this person is that he has to develop a strong ego, before he can release and transcend the ego. You see this? very counterintuitive, again. A person with a weak ego, you think that well, if I have a weak ego that makes it easier to release, actually, no. Because you're so busy trying to protect your ego, to defend yourself, that you're not able to let go of it. What happens is that you take that weak, you, you develop it, you take responsibility, you stop being a victim, you become a creator, taking a lot of responsibility. You do that for a decade or so. And then once you realize, like all there is the next level, at the next level, I can surrender control completely. And in a sense, it's kind of like going full circle, except you don't go back to being a victim anymore. There's a very huge difference between being a victim and no free will. So do not make this mistake. I'm not saying that you are a victim. Nor is this mutually incompatible with taking responsibility. So when I tell you to take 100% responsibility, yes, take it. Someone who's enlightened takes responsibility. In fact, they are the epitome of taking 100% responsibility is just that weird stuff starts to happen, you know, when you get to the very advanced levels, stuff that you don't anticipate when you start the journey. Another common misconception people have is they say, Okay, well, Leah, what about when I'm creative? I understand that a lot of stuff I do is mechanical and dumb. But when I'm being creative, let's say I'm sitting there and I'm, I'm writing a play or a novel, I'm coming up with some brilliant business idea. I'm painting I'm, I'm composing some music or some lyrics. Don't I have control over that? At least there? I mean, that's a very human activity. My cells aren't doing that, are they? And the answer is no, you have no control, even over that, is specially over that. And this is actually a very easy one to demonstrate for yourself. You don't need to spend 1000 hours to see this. The next time you're in a creative brainstorm session, where you're sitting there, you're getting all these brilliant ideas. Just notice where those ideas are coming from. Right in the moment, notice that they're not coming from you. They're actually appearing to you so to speak. This is why the ancients called it getting inspired by a muse. Where does creativity come from? From muses, that's why they call it music. Music is inspired by a muse. What is a muse? A muse is basically nature. Or if you really want to get deep, the ultimate Muse is nothing. Because your thoughts and ideas arise out of nothing. And this is the source of all existence, not. So when you're being highly creative. Just notice that your ego is not at play. In fact, when you're in a creative brainstorm session, it's like you're just getting pummeled with brilliant ideas from out of nowhere. They just come to you. It's just like a it almost seems like it's flu cluck, but it's not Fluke luck. There is an intelligence to it. Have you ever noticed that you're sitting at a computer and you're typing something like you're typing an email or a report or a book? On the one hand, it seems like you're doing it right you're Coming up with what to type. But then as you're in mid sentence and you're typing, and then you become more aware what you noticed that oh my god, I don't actually know what the next word is going to be. How is it actually happening? My fingers are just typing away. I don't even know what keys I'm pressing. And my mind is just coming up with words. And it's not just like random words come up, the perfect word comes up. Perfect, perfect, perfect word after perfect word, creates the perfect sentence after the perfect sentence. Are you doing all that? No, not if you honestly look at that. Only arrogant ego will claim responsibility for that. The truth is that it's happening to you. And it's almost like magic in the way that it happens. It's not really magic, but it's almost like magic. next misconception, Leo What about when I try really hard at something and then I six feet. So for example, here's a really prototypical case of this. Let's say that I've been overweight my whole life. And then one day, I'm trying on some new clothes, I look at myself in the mirror, I just get so frustrated and pissed off. And so disgusted with myself that I say, you know, dammit, fuck this, I'm taking full responsibility for my health and my weight. And I commit and I vow that by the end of the summer, in six months, I will have dropped 50 pounds, and I will be looking, you know, all ripped. And then what I do is I say, Okay, I'm gonna improve my diet, and make it real serious. I'm gonna go to the gym every single day for the next six months, and I'm going to do it. And then I really discipline myself, I really put the screws to myself, I push myself really hard. Some days I even cry, but I push myself so hard. And then you know what, six months later I've dropped those 50 pounds. And I fit into my sexy bathing suit. And I look awesome, and I look ripped. I've succeeded. And now what I tell myself as I say, well, Leo. I did that. Look at me, I did it. I succeeded. So I have free will. And the answer, of course is no you didn't. That happened. But you didn't create that. So in this case, you're really motivated to succeed, right? But where did that motivation come from? Again, if you're very close, if you look very closely, and you notice, what you see is that the motivation didn't come from you. It a lot of times comes from the outside, you get inspired by something or disgusted by something. But you don't just sit there and come up with motivation out of the blue. That doesn't really happen. Again, be very careful about assuming that just because you work hard and you are disciplined and you are successful, that that means that you have freewill No, why can't 37 trillion cells in your body who do everything else in your life? Why can't they also be responsible for you losing 50 pounds is that so far fetched? Really, start thinking about this much more holistically. Start seeing yourself as a part of a larger force in nature. You are not separate from nature. You are a part of nature. Human beings are not some special unique unicorn animal. Living in fairy tale and we are a part of nature. No separate firm from right subject to the exact same forces as it including our egotistical pneus in our our pettiness and our vileness in our violence. Right. All of those things are also a part of nature. Everything's a part of nature by definition. Another common misconception people have is they say, Well, Lee Okay, so does this mean, I should stop trying. I'll just accept what you're saying here. And I'll just sit on the couch and be a lazy bum and not do anything else in my life. This is a real trap. Watch out for this one. Because this is not what I'm saying. Trying is done by the 730 7 trillion cells in your body. So it doesn't mean you have to stop trying doesn't mean you have to stop working. It doesn't mean you have to stop going to the gym, you still have to start you start do those things if you want the results that those activities give you. And you know what, if you do decide to sit and be lazy on the couch for the rest of your life, that's fine. You can do that. But just realize that even if that happens, you're not deciding that your body and your brain will make that decision for you. And you will take credit for it. But you didn't actually decide. On the other hand, if you decide to go start $100 million dollar company, and you're going to spend the next 30 years of your life 80 hours a week building that company. Then you might say to yourself, Well, I'm taking control of my life and I mean responsible and I'm exercising free will. No, you're not. That's a force that's actually running your life. And in fact, these kinds of people, they can't stop, like a serial entrepreneur, a really ambitious person, they will be ambitious until they're dead. In fact, a lot of times their ambition kills them, they have a heart attack from all the stress and hard work they do. So there's kind of like a catch 22 paradox here, no matter what you decide, you're not actually deciding. So if you decide to be lazy, no free will, was acting on that. And if you don't decide to be lazy, no free will was acting on it either. Again, think of this much deeper, and on a much more holistic level. Another common misconception is, people say, well, then Leo, how do I choose to become enlightened? If I have no free will? How do I make that choice? And the answer, of course, is that you don't it's a contradiction in terms to even say that you will become enlightened, there is no you to become enlightened. And there certainly is no you to choose to become enlightened. That is, what enlightenment is, is the realization of that. Another misconception people have is they say, well, Leo, this is a very depressing and negative. What you're saying here is very bleak. And I grant you that the first time you hear it, it will seem negative and depressing. Why is that? Because again, this is a bitter pill for the ego to swallow. This is terrible news for the ego. I like to think about it like this. Imagine that you are a corrupt politician. And now, after 20 years of being a corrupt politician, taking bribes, and really doing all sorts of nasty stuff, taking credit for things that weren't yours, now the FBI is on to you is going to come arrest you. Now, when the corrupt politician gets arrested, when he gets caught on his bullshit, he's depressed and he's negative, of course. And of course, that's going to happen to you. That's what the ego is, the ego is like a corrupt politician who has usurped power through falsehood and deception. And now that assumption is getting unraveled. And now the truth is starting to shine through. And of course, it's depressing and negative to you. Of course, you hate it, because you are the thing we're trying to eliminate. kind of twisted. But also, I love it, because it's so mind bending and cool. Imagine that, imagine if you were a politician. And one day you just found out that you've been lying to yourself, your whole life, about being corrupt. And then you have to actually admit to yourself, you know what, I was corrupt, I do deserve to go to jail. I deserve to get punished for my deceptions. That's the courage required to become enlightened. That the courage that a Zen master or a yogi exercised to develop his self discipline, quote, unquote, self discipline, they have a pseudo control. They don't really develop control. Don't make that mistake. A Zen master has no control. He has a pseudo control. Another misconception people have is the following is, is this it's like, well, Leo, this is highly anti spiritual. I'm a religious person. I've been brought up to believe in God and in faith in the importance of the soul. And now you're telling me there isn't there is no soul and no spirit? actually know. What I'm telling you is that what I'm telling you here is exactly what allows spirituality to exist. It's exactly where all the religions were derived from. See, religions were derived from spiritual discoveries made through self observation by the early hardcore mystics, such as the Buddha, Jesus, and various Yogi's and other people throughout history. Right. And all of those people if you actually go and you study them, you study the esoteric traditions, the esoteric kernels of all religions, what you discover is that they all say the exact same thing, what do they tell you? They tell you that you need to surrender yourself. They tell you that your arrogance is separating you from God. What does that mean? Poetically speaking, who you are, the ego is the devil. Lucifer, you understand this? You understand how this works? The devil is not some other entity living somewhere in the shadows. The devil is you. You separate yourself from God. How do you do that? By acting arrogant, like an ego by claiming power over things over which you have no power. Now God in this case, does not refer to a man in the clouds. God refers to the very existence that you're existing in right now. God refers to reality, God refer As to the source, which is nothing that's all the early mystics describe the source in ways that are very similar to this word, nothing. Now a lot of people don't like this idea of nothing. They like to have God as some kind of anthropomorphic figure in the sky in the clouds in a human form. That's quite ridiculous. That's not what the original self observant mystics and gurus had discovered. Go read more carefully what they talked about. The devil separated himself from God, because what are the devil do the God The devil said, I am not a part of nature, I am separate. I am an individual, and I will do my own thing, and I have my own control. So I'm gonna go down to hell and rule over hell. And the devil did that. And what do you got? What did he get? He got hell. And that's exactly what you are doing right now. And that's exactly what you've got is you've got hell. So let's connect this for a moment with practical, everyday life. Because this whole thing is not just a philosophy, discussion, this is practical stuff. The reason we're interested in no free will, and realizing there is no free will, is because it frees us. It frees us from the torments of hell, what are the torments of hell? It's all your anguish, all your frustration, all your fear, all your suffering, all your anger, all the negative emotion that you experience? Why are you fundamentally frustrated in your life, because you believe you have control when actually you do not? That's it. That's the root of almost all your problems in life. If you actually surrender yourself, if you take a leap of faith, and surrender yourself, to nature, to reality, to existence to God, whatever you want to call, it doesn't matter what you call it to nothing. Then what happens is, there are no more problems. Life flows smoothly for you. There is no more internal struggle. Do you understand this, you understand that your biggest problem in life is internal struggle, self interference, your biggest problems are not external problems. It's not a lack of money. It's not your spouse, being a bitch or nasil. It's not that it's your self interference. It's how you interpret these things, and how you react unconsciously to these things. Personal Development and maturity, Real Mature adulthood begins when you start to understand that. So all the religious traditions talk about faith. What is faith? Faith is the surrender to nature. That takes a lot of balls. That's real hard to do. Faith is not believing blind ideas. In the Bible, That's not faith. That's a perversion of faith. What real faith is, is a recognition that you actually were never in control in the first place. And that I have to be humble enough to surrender myself to that. If I maintain my arrogance and egotistical pneus, then I am the devil. That's exactly what the devil chose to do. And he kept his arrogance, he kept his ego. But now he's consigned himself to hell. Not because God punished him. But because when you live in falsehood, you create your own hell. So spirituality is exactly what I'm talking about here. We're not talking about anything else. Don't confuse what I'm talking about here. And don't confuse no free will with some kind of shallow materialism. Not at all. Just the exact opposite. very counterintuitive, and paradoxical, as I said. Let me now talk about some of the actual ramifications of no free will. The actual ramifications are not what you might think. So firstly, what it means is it means that there was no one in control your whole life. It's not as though we're going to take control away from you. It's not like we're saying that well, tomorrow, you're gonna start to believe that there is no free will. And now you lose yourself or you lose control. No, there's nothing to lose. The only thing you lose is the illusion of control. You never had control in the first place. The analogy that I like to use here is imagine if we Have a little child believing in Santa Claus. Now I come to the child. So you know what? Hate to break it to you, but there is no Santa Claus. The child starts crying. And then after he's done weeping, then he says, So you mean, I'm not going to get presents this Christmas. And of course, we laugh. And that's silly. Because the child still hasn't gotten over the fact that he's inside an illusion. He's kind of heard it. But also, he still didn't fully fathom it. Because if he really fathom the fact that Santa Claus in his illusion, then he would connect the dots, and he would see that, oh, that means the Christmas presents were never caused by him. So we can get rid of Santa the Christmas presents are still there, the next year? You see, because we haven't really gotten rid of Santa, we've only gotten rid of the illusion of sand. Well, the exact same thing is happening in your life. So in a sense, we're not really changing much about your life, your life will still go on, you're still going to make decisions gonna feel like you're doing stuff. But deep down, you can know that actually, you're not. You might say that well, then is this just a word game? Leo, we're just playing word games. It's just philosophy again, what's the point? No, actually, there is a point. Because if you surrender yourself to no free will, and you actually directly prove it to yourself through self observation work, something important will happen. What will stop is self interference. Your suffering will stop. The upset, the anxiety, the anger, the sadness, these things will stop. Because these things are unnecessary. The struggle for control will stop, your neuroses will stop. A lot of your bad behaviors and habits will just melt away. Why? Because you will realize that you don't control anything. Also, what's really cool is that you know, that agonizing frustration you experience when you need to make a big life decision. Like you need to decide who you're going to marry or what school you're going to go to or what job you should take all those really tough decisions, those will become effortless for you. Because you will realize that you're flowing with life, and that you're not the one making these decisions in the first place. You have never made a single decision in your life. Not really. They have all been made for you. But you certainly agonized over them, haven't you? You have because you believed that you were in control. Imagine how frustrating it would be if you were sitting in a car, somebody else was driving the car, but you were deluded enough to believe that you were in control. So when they took take a turn to the left, you're yelling, and you say God dammit, why doesn't this car turn to the right when I tell it to. And when they take a turn to the right, or they press the brakes or they speed up, and they do the opposite of what you wanted. You just get more and more upset, and you start to fight with yourself. Because you believe that you're the one in control, when actually you're not. So what you need to do is you need to surrender yourself to the fact that you're not the driver, you're not in the driver's seat. And then what can happen is you can just sit around and enjoy the sights and sounds and enjoy the trip. Can you still be successful life? Yes, this does not mean you cannot be successful, you can still achieve a lot. In fact, don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you're enlightened, or because you have discovered there is no self and no free will that now you're not going to be productive. Just the opposite. In light people are some of the most productive people that are out there when they actually want to. And when their desire is authentic. They are a force of nature. They can be extremely productive, they can move mountains. Take a look at what Jesus did take a look at what the Buddha did. When you have that kind of faith and surrender to life, you are unstoppable. Because nothing can scare you. That's the power you get. It might seem like you're surrendering your power. And in a sense you are and it's scary for the ego is very scary. That's why they call it a leap of faith. Why is it called a leap of faith? Because the ramifications of no free will are so counterintuitive that when we start the journey, it seems like if we go on this journey, what's going to happen is that we're going to destroy and ruin our life, because we're gonna have to completely let go of all control and surrender. That's the last thing we want to do. It takes a lot of wisdom to see that actually the result is going to be the opposite of that. Yes, we're going to give up the egotistical power, the egotistical need for control, but then what we're going to gain is we're going to gain complete oneness and unity with life. Peace of mind, unconditional happiness, this is what we gain. And we get a lot of power in the sense that we unify ourselves with the force of nature, we become a force of nature, by allying ourselves with it. Think about the force of a waterfall, the force of an avalanche, the force of gravity. These are impersonal forces, they have no ego, they just act. And they're extremely powerful. There's no pretense in their actions. They're very direct. That's what's awesome about nature. As humans, we have a lot of pretense a lot of bullshit, we blow a lot of smoke up our own ass. And then that leads to a lot of fake behavior. Really ask yourself, if your aim is happiness and peace of mind, which I was suggested it is that's your whole aim in life. Your current strategy for acquiring it, you know, control, you're basically your strategy right now is to seize more control in life. You think that's going to work, but it's not gonna work? Think about this, how else could peace of mind be possible, other than if then if you surrender yourself to nature, if there actually is a self, and there actually is even a semblance of control, then that means that there is no possibility for peace of mind or happiness. Can you see that? Here's why. Because if you believe that you do have control. That means that there's a need for struggle. Now you are struggling against nature, you're not allied with nature anymore. This, of course, makes you worried and anxious and frustrated when you fail. And inevitably, you will fail. Most fundamentally, because you will die. The biggest reason you need control is to keep yourself alive. But in the end, that game will be lost, that game is rigged against you. So fundamentally, you're going to feel there. But even before you die, you're going to experience a lot of misery and frustration and suffering. In situations where you think you have control, and you're trying to exert control, but then you see that actually, it doesn't go your way, and then you fail. And then you really beat yourself up for failing, you feel guilty, you feel ashamed, you feel angry, feel pissed off, you feel like you've been violated, like you've been victimized. All this stuff stops when you surrender to nature. That's the power. Imagine a situation where you're at the movies at the movie theater, right? And you're sitting there and you're watching the movie. And you're crazy enough to believe that you actually have control over the movie. Imagine you're the director, when the director is watching the movie, and he actually gets to say how to change the scenes and how to film from different angles and stuff. That guy is frustrated. He's anxious. Why? Because he knows that he has to do everything himself. If he doesn't do it, the movies not gonna come out, right. But that's not your experience when you actually go to the movies. When you go to the movies as a viewer. It's a fun experience. It's enjoyable, it's relaxing, you get lost in it, you're in the flow, you're flowing with life. Why is that? Because you're sitting there and you know that you're there to surrender, no control whatsoever. You don't have to worry about anything. Just sit and enjoy the show. That's exactly what an enlightened person's life is like, they're sitting there enjoying the show. No matter what the show is showing. They know that there is no remote control in their hands. You on the other hand, are sitting there watching life and you believe you have a real control in your hands. But actually, of course you don't. It's just an imaginary role control. So that is a really deep description of your suffering in life and where it comes from where it really comes from. Okay, so at this point, you might be saying, Alright, Leo, I've got the concepts. I've got the theory what do I do about this? Here's what you should do firstly, is I want you to admit the possibility that you have been wrong your whole life, about having free will Can you open your mind and admit that maybe, just maybe it's possible that you don't have control. Maybe that's why you struggle so much with your personal development, maybe this is why you struggle so much to lose your weight, or to change a bad habit or to quit smoking, quit drinking or whatever else. Because it's really not up to you, your body and your mind will decide when they're ready. And then they will drop those habits. They won't do it out of your egotistical striving. So admit that possibility. That's step number one. Step number two is, don't believe anything I say. intend to verify it for yourself. Prove it to yourself. Commit to self observation, sit down and start doing self observation, how I have episodes that cover that, check out my latest videos, check out my mindfulness meditation video, check out my other meditation videos, and I'll have more videos in the future, which talk about how to do self observation, the actual techniques. So this is a practical process, you can sit down and start doing it today if you want to. And the last step I'd say is to learn more about enlightenment, educate yourself. read some books, I have a great book list that has some really awesome enlightenment material on there. A lot of enlightenment material or spiritual material is bullshit. The stuff that I have on my list is really, really direct, straightforward and practical stuff. It will change your whole life. So start there, or watch some more of my, my videos. And that's it. Those are action steps. All right. And very importantly, just sit in contemplate this. Think about this, let all these ideas percolate into your mind, what's going to happen is that at first, you'll find that you're going to be depressed, it's going to be kind of sad, because you are that corrupt politician who has to now go to jail. And you have to accept that fact. And that might be a process of a couple of weeks. We're not really feeling very good. Are you feeling demotivated? Don't worry about that. That's just your ego reacting. Don't worry about that. Have faith take the leap of faith. Trust that there's something deeper and truer here that you will discover if you just get on board with this journey. And you'll come out doing real good. Alright, this is it. I'm signing off, please click the like button for me. Share this video with a friend post your comments down below. And lastly, come check out actualize that org right here. This is my website. I have a weekly free newsletter, where I keep you up to date with all these topics. I'm going to be covering even deeper topics in the future. I hope you can see the value of this, it will completely transform your life. If you watch every single week, over the course of a few years. You're watching this, you're taking action, you're thinking about this stuff very deeply. You're taking notes on it, hopefully, you're journaling about it and then what will happen is it your whole life will start to transform and it will be a magical thing for you. That's what makes me passionate about doing this work. So I hope you stay on board and I will see you soon