I have already covered this issue quite well in my previous book (Dimension Gate: Free Will as Illusion), so here I will just summarize my main findings. 

For embodied human, free will is apparent, not real in the material world. Although he/she has rights declared by society, he/she is constantly confronted with limitations in the exercise of these rights. He/she can fight for these rights, but his/her struggle incites the battle of the opposite camp. Struggle always begets fight, and it continues in endless combat. I don’t want to suggest that it is not worth fighting, quite the opposite. Fighting is necessary if there is no other way to achieve a goal, but fighting will not bring a real solution. Today's modern democratic societies are in fact pseudo-democracies, in which for the individual is guaranteed all rights, but he/she cannot exercise them effectively because he/she is either preoccupied with the struggle for existence or cannot see through the flood of information manipulated by political and economic powers. Thirdly, he/she is simply not believed because he/she perceives, recognizes and/or teaches something different from what is accepted by the majority (e.g. inventors or God-men). 

What does it mean? The old saying "Knowledge is power" needs to be modified: One who possess the information has the power. It is no coincidence that all rebels first want to seize and own the media. For where can we get information from which we form our personal opinion on an issue in order to take our opinion? The answer is the media, the internet, etc. Yes, but all our sources of information are manipulated in varying degrees by individual or group interests. So, we will take the opinion of the interest group with which we can most identify, motivated by our personal interests. Let us look at some examples. 

As young children, we identify with our parents who take care of us. For a child, his/her parents are sacred and inviolable. Even an alcoholic father and a depressed mother are sacred to a child because they are the basis of his/her existence and because he/she cannot see the way out of his/her situation. It is a kind of material, emotional fixation. Therefore, when a child is torn from such a family, it is as traumatic as if he/she had lost his/her parents. The motivation is based on attachment to the habitual life and fear of the unknown. 

Later, there is no difference, only the object of attachment changes. Many people supported the socialist political-economic system (in the communist countries) because they were attached to the habitual life and were afraid of the unknown, of new challenges. In other words, they basically had no independent philosophical or economic opinion on the matter, but only felt that they were losing their own basis of existence. Few generations had to grow up until, without supporters, the system could collapse. 

Once I was talking to a scientist (who was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and I asked him why he couldn't accept homeopathic medicine. He replied, "If I accepted it, everything I have taught would be destroyed and my own scientific views would be ruined." In other words, he had no independent opinion, knowledge or experience on the matter, he was just afraid that the scientific views he held on would be shattered. This is a kind of intellectual fixation that is common among the official practitioners of science. At first, official science is always resistant to knowledge that seems to overturn the old basic knowledge.

It is no different for religions. I have often talked to different believers about why they cannot accept the teachings of another religion. The answer was always the same: they believe this way, their scripture, prophet, master, etc. taught this way, if they believed otherwise they could not be a follower of that religion, denomination, group, etc. In effect, they are motivated by adherence to their dogma, which indicates that they have no independent knowledge or opinion on the matter. They have accepted something without examining it and enjoy the advantages of the position, namely the ideological protection of a group, denomination or religion, the warmth of belonging to it. In return for he/she has given up his/her autonomy, ability to form own opinions. This is religious fixation. 

This mentality was brought from the animal world, because the flock (pack, herd) provides a certain protection against the challenges of the world, helps us to survive, and therefore we have to bow to the pack leader and take the place that the community has assigned to us, in other words, we have to fit into the social environment, we have to socialize. Of course, this creates tensions and sometimes causes us to fight, just as in the animal world there is a struggle for position in the pack, so in human society there is a constant struggle for position, for material wealth, for power, for information. 

In contrast, the world's greatest thinkers never belonged to any interest group, their knowledge was their own inner knowledge, and therefore, it was unprovable for others, often not even comprehensible. Those who did achieve freedom of thought often fell prey to the ignorant representatives of power, e.g. Galilei. And those who have also achieved spiritual freedom and risen above the binding forces of nature, instead of serving an example to follow, have incurred the wrath of the ignorant masses (e.g. Jesus). 

Why were the contemporary Jews angry with Jesus? Why could they not accept and follow his teachings? At that time, everything was taken away already from the ordinary Jewish people by the occupying power. The impoverished, oppressed masses often become the instruments of manipulation of the oppressive power. The masses were inhibited in enjoying their country, their freedom, their material goods, so their faith was their only attachment which left. They clung to it, it was the basis of their existence, it was the cohesive force between them. It was their fixation, and that is why they became the object of manipulation by their own religious leaders. And then someone from Galilee came along and started to demolish their rigid dogma. Jesus knew, of course, that without this there was no way forward, that the old faith was no longer fit for survival, that a new pattern, a new template, a new idiom was needed. 

The last thing can be taken away from people is their faith. If humans have nothing left but their faith, they will kill to keep it, because it is the basis of their existence, the only handhold which keep them on material world. Today, the impoverished people of the Arab countries have nothing but their faith! This situation is eerily similar to the socio-political situation of the time of Jesus, but in a different form. Oppression does not take only in the form of an emperor or an army, but of economic oppression as well. 

The exercise of our free will is therefore limited by the society in which we live. This limitation is operated by our fixations. In exchange for socialization, as long as it is beneficial and promotes the individual's fulfilment, we partially forego the expression of free will. The only exceptions to this are the greatest thinkers, who could live by their own laws because they no longer have fixations, but society generally does not tolerate this. Therefore, great minds must either take on a redemptive role or withdraw from the world to live by their own laws. The total freedom is the overcoming of our own limitations and the unfolding of our own unhindered creative capacity, whereby through us God's will is fulfilled, while we have become fully identified with the Law, or Oneness. Therefore, free will exists only for those who have freed themselves from their own inner bonds!

Margaret Rhasoda-Varga
UCCM head-master
(The art of living life I. excerpt)