There is no chooser

      If it is seen that there is no choice, you can then see that there must be no chooser.  How can there be a chooser that can make no choices? This chooser, that does not exist, is what is referred to as the ego.  "It" (the story of "me") takes ownership of what would be (and must be) happening and calls it MY life.  As life proceeds, however, we have many opportunities to see how this "me," despite its belief in its own power, cannot control even the most basic things.  For example, the "me" story may be that “I want to stop (smoking, over eating, being lazy, being depressed, lying, drinking, thinking about my problems, etc, etc).”  What happens in most of these cases is that these "problems" continue anyway.  The ego says “I try to stop these behaviours but I just can’t.” This supposed ego is constantly revealed to have no power and no real existence if we are willing to notice.

        So if the ego is not in charge, than who or what is?  The answer of course is that nobody is in charge. Our lives are just happening, in the same way that everything else in the universe is just happening.  One might say that it is all the direct result of a Power that expressed itself about 14 billion years ago in what has been called the Big Bang.  This big bang had no choice but to be a big bang, and we, its direct descendents, have the same choice.  The big bang is not over yet and we and human evolution and everything else in the universe are a continuing expression of that.

      At first, when we realize that the main character of our story is just a concept and has no power to do anything, it may seem discouraging.  But there is a further revelation, waiting for us, that is much more empowering, when we discover that while our ego is not real, the Power that expressed itself as the Big Bang is indeed real, and we are That.  We humans, having forgotten what we are, are suffering from a painful case of mistaken identity. 

    It is the human condition to want  to see ourselves as separate and free.  As we look inside, however, and read in our holy books, we learn that there is no separate self.  This understanding, when fully digested, makes the idea of free will appear to be the impossibility that it is.  The question to be asked of a person claiming to have free will is, given that the ego is an illusion, who is it that is claiming to have free will?  When we give up the painful folly of creating a false self that takes responsibility for what is just happening, we can finally live in peace