Acharya Peter Wilberg's Bulletin

Further Clarifications of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Choice’

To me the most essential key to clarifying the questions raised by Rod in response to my piece on ‘The Enlightened Ego’ - and its relation to free and aware choice - is that Fundamental Distinction, so central to The Awareness Principle. This is the distinction between all that there is an awareness OF, and the light of that pure awareness within which alone all things first stand out or come to light.

This fundamental ‘Epistemological Difference’ (between awareness as such and all that there is an awareness of) parallels Heidegger’s so-called ‘Ontological Difference’ (between Being as such and all manner of beings).

It needs restating to clarify the essence of freedom and choice. For the ordinary ego, claiming awareness as ‘its’ individual property, does not act out of pure awareness so much as act in a way that is always a reaction to particular phenomena, inner or outer, which it is currently aware OF.

Thus arises the “distrusting of the inherent ‘freedom’ for the individual awareness” which may indeed “get it wrong” - and is therefore seen as in need of “lots of rules of behaviour”. For it is true that many “errant followings of supposed inner awareness have occurred…” Yet is this through following awareness as such or through following limited modes of both inner and outer awareness?

The key phrases are “individual awareness” and “supposed inner awareness”, both of which suggest things of which a specific individual is (inwardly) aware rather than the Greater Awareness - that which is the all-surrounding field within and through which all individuals themselves first come to be - and to be aware OF things.

In line with the Fundamental Distinction between “individual awareness” and awareness as such – ‘Awareness’ with a capital ‘A’ - the principle of freely letting the latter guide our individual choices must not be CONFUSED with the false freedom that comes of letting those choices be determined by particular moods, emotions, situations, events or impulses that the individual is aware OF – and that their supposedly ‘free’ and ‘spontaneous’ actions are nothing but an unfree REACTION to.

I emphasised in my earlier piece that Awareness always embraces a greater range of alternate possible actions – thus allowing greater freedom of choice - than those arising purely from an “individual awareness” limited to an awareness ‘of’ this or that. It is that same Awareness that can then also guide the individual in his or her choices – rather than letting these be ruled or dictated – either ruled inwardly by particular moods, emotions or situations or outwardly by “rules of behaviour”.

That is not to say that all things we are aware OF, whether in the form of events or situations, thoughts or feelings, moods or emotions – even urges and impulses – are not each themselves AN awareness in their own right. The question is then whether the ego first allows time for the particular awareness that is expressed by and held within any given mood, impulse or sensation to come to light in a larger Awareness – thus making it possible to be guided both by that particular awareness and by that larger Awareness as such, rather than by the particular mood, impulse or sensation itself. Here it may be clarifying to discriminate more explicitly a triad of three distinct dimensions of ‘awareness’, and with it, three ways in which the word ‘awareness’ can itself can be understood and used. These three dimensions of awareness can be named as:

1. Individual awareness – as ordinary awareness or ‘consciousness’ OF things.
2. Particular awareness – THE awareness that each and every thing essentially IS.
3. Universal Awareness or awareness ‘as such’ – that through which alone there can be an awareness OF anything and that which finds particular expression in ALL things.

If we wish speak of “freedom of response to awareness” or of letting ourselves be spontaneously or intuitively guided by awareness therefore, the question of WHICH of these three distinct dimensions of ‘awareness’ we are referring to becomes central.

For there cannot be either “core discrimination” “freedom” or “errant choice” in “response to awareness” without that third, Universal dimension of awareness which first brings to light more than one possible choice to discriminate between and follow. It is Awareness in this third, Universal aspect that both discriminates choices and guides us in selecting the right ones to follow. It does this both directly and intuitively – out of pure awareness – and through the Particular awareness that may be held within some thing we are currently aware of Individually - such as the particular bodily mood or state of consciousness experienced as an ‘illness’, or indeed any mood colouring Individual awareness.

It is for this reason and out of this triadic understanding that I believe we can come to a better understanding of and relation to ‘moods’ as such – recognising them as pervasive qualities of awareness colouring our awareness of all things. I see this insight as central also to understanding and relating to those ‘fundamental moods’ described in the Gita as the three ‘gunas’. That is why, in my essay on the Gunas, I saw it as important to:

(1) Recognise the gunas in their differing combinations as constitutive aspects of Individual awareness.

(2) Affirm the value of the gunas in bearing within them, like moods, a Particular awareness of potential significance - pregnant insights can in turn guide action.

(3) Emphasise that the Universal Awareness from which the three gunas emerge (as Particular qualities of awareness colouring Individual Awareness) is not itself a guna but has the character of a fourth (‘Turya’) which is essentially a ‘non-guna’ (‘Nirguna’).

Nirguna is the very translucency of Awareness in its Universal aspect – neither ‘light’ nor ‘dark’ and transcending the representative colours of the gunas (Sattvic white, Rajasic red and Tamasic black). Hence the words of Abhinavagupta:


Where all splendours are in the light
And all darkness in the dark
Brilliant light and gloomy darkness
I praise that transcendent light
Always new, hidden
Yet old and apparent to all
Shining alone with the brilliance of the Supreme


Resting with and within the Universal or Supreme Awareness (Shiva) we can allow ourselves to fully affirm ALL the gunas – whether Sattvic light and lightness, Rajasic passion or fire or Tamasic darkness and heaviness. Indeed we achieve the aim of ‘transcending’ the gunas all the more effectively by fully feeling and affirming the specific qualities and potentials of awareness (Shaktis) they each constitute. This is not the same as being ruled by them.

The question of the Gunas, as expressions of the Universal Awareness, brings us to what Rod calls “dark” or “demonic” aspects of Shakti - which he relates to Rajasic and/or Tamasic “extremes”. And of course there are extremes of experience and action which can stem from all of the three gunas (Sattva included). Yet these extremes ONLY arise from (a) unaware identification with the gunas, (b) egoic judgement and discrimination between them (eg. Sattva as ‘good’ and Tamas as ‘bad’) and (c) resulting egoic reactions to them. The types of action that arise from identification with the gunas quite different from those arising from an Awareness that both freely embraces and transcends them - rather than judging one or the other as innately better for all people in all situations. There are times, individual and historical, when light and calm is called for – other when fire and passion are called for, and times also when the light and fire of truth can only be safeguarded in relative darkness and invisibility.

• The “light’ of Sattva can not only illuminate but also blind.
• The “fire” of Rajas not only destroys but releases new creative
        potentials.
• The “darkness” of Tamas not only obscures but conserves and
        safeguards.

From a Hindu point of view, all that finds expression in the world as ‘evil’ is indeed the expression of Avidya (‘non-seeing’) or ‘ignorance’ - and yet it is from this very ignorance that, as Rod writes “future learning for individuals and humanity can emerge”. If this learning is NOT only to occur as it is doing now - slowly, painfully and painfully slowly - through awful and tragic world events and individual experiences, then the sheer extent of the ignorance, both emotional and intellectual, economic and political, ‘scientific’ and ‘spiritual’, that pervades today’s world needs to be clearly and courageously acknowledged IN awareness and countered with awareness. For essentially ignorance is simply an UNawareness of a sort that both breeds and is born out of fear of ‘seeing’ (Vidya) and of seeing through this ignorance - a fear that in turn serves to create and reinforce, through projections of ‘evil’ forces, the very realities it fail to understand.
There is no such thing as innate evil, for even the worst acts ultimately stem from good intents distorted by ignorance and fear. Yet there IS such a thing as ‘right and wrong’. And out of Awareness, understood as ‘pure con-sciousness’, comes also an entirely unforced and natural ‘con-science’ – a knowing of what is Right which requires no rules to enforce. Part of this natural con-science is a deep knowing or consciousness that when we harm, violate or kill another we harm violate and kill a part of ourselves. Awareness itself – as ‘pure conscience’ as well as ‘pure consciousness’ – makes us aware that violence or violations of any form are simply and purely WRONG, period.

One reason I emphasise the importance of ‘The Enlightened Intellect’ as well as ‘The Enlightened Ego’ is that what is taken today as the ‘rational’ intellect is but a façade – an instrument for the artificial RATIONALISATION of unaware emotional impulses, defences, fears and reactions. The Enlightened Intellect on the other hand is a rational Reflection and Recognition of a innate and natural awareness of what is Right and True - whether logically, ethically or metaphysically. It is the task of The Enlightened Intellect to turn ‘reason’ itself into a rational reflection and recognition of the deepest and broadest Awareness of all that is, rather than using it as a tool to objectify the world for the still unaware subjective purposes of the limited ego - something which only results in the most crude (or deceptively sophisticated) forms of intellectual ignorance OF the world.

That is why the ‘Jagadguru’ or ‘Karmayogi’ does not only seek an ever greater Awareness of the world, but is guided by Awareness to freely Act for the world and other individuals - using every aware word and deed to free that world from ignorance in each and every way it is encountered - whether intellectually or emotionally, individually or socially, economically or politically, personally or relationally. It is in this way that gurus and yogis themselves embark on a path of ‘further’ or ‘higher’ education – an ‘Education in Awareness’. They do this through following a path of ever freer and more FREEING thought, speech and action of a sort for which the cultivation of The Enlightened Intellect is a vital if not core necessity. On this Path we are not alone but encouraged by the studies and learning of others, supported by their love and gifts - and both guided and empowered by that Universal Awareness of which each is a living ‘Avatar’.

I wrote before of the connection between true freedom of choice and awareness of alternative possible actions – including alternate ways of understanding reality rationally and intellectually. For the ordinary ego the ‘I’ is a fixed identity or set of identities. For The Enlightened Ego, the ‘I’ that chooses to say, do or think one thing is not the SAME ‘I’ as that which chooses to say, do or think another. Our every thought, word, and action is, in this sense, the birth of an ‘Avatar’ – the worldly incarnation of a particular ASPECT of our self as a whole – of our ‘Awareness Self’, ‘Great Soul’, ‘Atman’ or ‘Mahatma’.

In this context, I remember only too well how an individual I have never met and who is still entirely unknown to me - but who happens to live opposite to my sister - revealed to her on hearing her mentioned my name as her brother, that he had himself been studying my many websites for many years, observing the evolution of my thought. Most intriguingly - and yet also most wisely - he referred to the websites as my ‘Avatars’. And so they are - just as are my books and letters, just as is this very essay and all others.

And simply giving full awareness to another, at no matter what distance, we send out an Avatar or awareness-shape of ourselves to them.

The gods themselves do not simply gift us with ‘Avatars’. They themselves ARE Avatars of the Supreme Awareness - gifted by IT - and offering us both images of, and a path of access to ITS diverse Aspects and potentials. From these we in turn can become Aware Avatars of the Supreme – but only by choosing WITH awareness which of ITS many godly aspects, capacities, comprehensions and potentials (Shaktis) to express and incarnate - at any given time or in any given place – as the very activity of ‘Be-ing’.

And perhaps it is through ‘Be-ing’ understood in this way, as well as through the mystery of ‘Spanda’ – understood as the eternal vibration or ‘quivering’ of the Potential within the Actual - that we can feel the depths lurking beneath the words of Martin Heidegger, words kept safe and in the dark till after his death, with the awareness that they would, at the time they were written, receive nothing but academic ridicule.

The words read:

“Be-ing is the quivering of God godding.”

Acharya