What is a decision?
Our “educational” system teaches us wrongly about decision making, like almost everything else.
Like the absurd notion that consciousness is irrelevant, an accidental by-product of function, it teaches that decisions grow out of function. By accumulating sufficient data, eventually the decision will sort of make itself.
Compare “artificial intelligence.” Faster and faster computers with better and better programming will one day cross a threshold and hey, presto! – intelligence. Fantasy – intelligence requires more than function. Computer programs may simulate but can never make decisions. They simply carry out the program. The programmer made the decisions.
A cybernetic system, such as a thermostat controlling the heating system of a house, does not make decisions. It turns on the heat according to its program.
Most people function mainly in this way too. They carry out cultural programs. Very complex and diverse, each person according to upbringing and training manifests a different blend of programs, so they appear original. Actually, they’re not.
This deception about decisions helps cultures maintain their control over people. If you think decisions come from function, and all the function you know comes from your culture, then your decisions will always be in the context of your culture. Whether a conformist or a rebel, you always manifest within your culture’s boundaries.
People confuse decision with choice. Choice compares and “weighs” prospective possibilities, analogous to a scale. In the ice cream shop; which flavor should you get? You “weigh” the imagined pleasure: “Will I enjoy the butter pecan more, or the strawberry cheesecake?” Then you choose the one promising the best experience. That’s a choice: the result follows from a program. You might choose by “weighing” emotions: “Do I like the brown dress better, or the blue one?” You might choose according to intellectual assessment: “The Volvo is safer, and also gets better mileage than the Ford.” Still a functional result, according to a programmed set of values.
Other “decisions” may involve complex combinations of sensational, emotional, and intellectual comparisons, but still altogether a result of functional “weighing.” Still choices.
A true decision stems not from rational weighing of possible results. Someone may make a decision which will give him less pleasure, which he does not like, and considers unlikely to deliver the most favorable result. Some people decide to kill themselves – a rather extreme example. Of course, that could also be a choice, if the person believes death will bring something better. Only that person can know whether it’s a choice or a decision.
True decisions arise from the sixth dimension, the third dimension of time-space, beyond function, beyond consciousness, beyond forms. To correctly make decisions, enter into the state called contemplation, and then SEE.
The Decision Exercise
Besides giving practice in making decisions, the Decision Exercise helps the understanding of past, present, and future, and how they inter-relate.
Compare present experience, imagining the future, and remembering the past. See the article on Common Sense.
People often mis-use the faculty of imagination. They remember some action and think: “I should have done that differently.” This wastes the energy of imagination – properly used, a very powerful faculty. Imagination does no good directed towards the past; it concerns the future.
The exercise has three parts.
1. At night, just before going to sleep, decide on an action for the following day. This should be something small, perhaps something you would do anyway, something that will take only some seconds to complete. Could be making a certain gesture and saying some words. Could be moving some object from one place to another. Opening the cupboard and taking down your mug for your morning drink, then closing the cupboard. Hanging up your shirt in the closet that you left out. Something that you can accomplish simply and won’t involve anyone else.
Visualize yourself performing the action and imagine the sensations you will have. Imagine experiencing it; imagine remembering experiencing it the next night; experience imagining both.
2a. The following morning, just after waking up, remember the decision you made the night before.
2b. Preferably not long after getting up (so you will be more likely to remember), while remembering imagining the action, and imagining remembering the action, experience performing the action. Experience this as if three of you were performing it: the Decider from the night before, the Performer in the present, and the Rememberer from the following night.
3. That night, before making the decision for the following day, review the decided action from the night before. Remember imagining it, remember experiencing it, experience remembering both.
Doing this exercise regularly and properly will give you a taste for the dimensions of time/space. Did making the decision cause the action to be performed? Or perhaps performing the action caused the decision to have been made? Would the action and the decision still exist if you didn’t remember them? Maybe the remembering decided to call them into existence.
This exercise precedes the reviewing exercise, in which you review the experiences of the day in reverse, starting from the present and remembering back to the moment of waking that morning.
Further points about decisions.
Decision making by majority: easily degenerates into “the tyranny of the majority.”
Decision making by consensus. The most determined and patient people make the decisions in the end.
Task democracy: only those working in an area make decisions about that area. If you want to participate in decision making, buckle down and get involved in that area. Then you will SEE what decisions need to be made.
Many people think that if they spend more time thinking about it, they will make a better decision. Wrong. Decisions do not take any time (space-time).
“As If Decision” Meditation Exercise
When you breathe, don’t change the tiniest detail, but breathe as if you were deciding to breathe – deciding when to inhale, when to exhale etc. When you eat, the body does it all, you don’t have to control anything. Put attention there as if you were deciding, when to chew, when to swallow etc. You can apply this to any automatic action, such as walking.