The fact that we can even ask the questions –Do we have free will? Are we just programmed simulations? – is perhaps miraculous in itself.

The fact that we can question whether we have free will is a faint reflection of the fact that we may be endowed with it. Even if we’re simulated beings, the fact that we can ask ourselves whether we’re simulated or not must mean we have some ability to transcend the simulation. That’s not too different from saying that we may have been created with the capacity for free will.

That’s not to say that we always achieve free will or that we always use it. I believe that we spend most of our thought-life in ignorance, which is another way of saying that we’re still in various stages of dreaming or of dreamless sleep. But the possibility for wakefulness, for using our ability to choose, is there.

Awareness presupposes choice. Increasing our consciousness is a matter of free will, and as we increase our awareness, we realize that we do have the power to choose. That’s what realization is: to fulfill our ability to choose.

I believe this capacity to choose is infinite, and therefore that awareness itself is limitless. We forever grow into it. In our human forms with our limited minds, we may never be able to answer the questions posed at the top of this post. But the ability to formulate the questions is the important thing. The infinite mystery may be sought, but it may never be found. Not fully.

Heaven is an idea. Nirvana is an ideal. These aren’t places, so we never get there. God is never found. But It’s not lost either. It’s simply hidden from our awareness by unawareness, as sleep and dreams hide the conscious, waking world which surrounds the dreamer as the dreamer surrounds the dream.

© 2025 by Michael C. Just