Free will begins as an assumption, the natural background noise of a life lived inside the narrow tunnel of the self. It feels as though choices spring from some inner agent, as though the one who thinks is the one who acts. But the deeper you enter the mind, the more this illusion dissolves. The brain is not an open window; it is a gate, and almost everything is filtered before it reaches awareness. Sensory gating stands at the threshold of perception, deciding what enters and what never becomes conscious. It protects the fragile structure of identity by keeping the world small, predictable, and tolerable. In that early state, free will is little more than momentum from memory and conditioning.
As the mind becomes quiet, the gate begins to thin. Awareness widens. The DMN, which once wrapped the world around the self, begins to loosen its grip. The familiar weight of narrative fades. The thinking mind falls to the background, and the first opening appears: a directness of perception that was always there but long overshadowed. With this loosening, more of reality enters. Patterns that were once invisible begin to appear. The brain becomes permeable, less guarded against the subtle. This is the beginning of awakening, the first moment when you recognise that freedom is not something you exercise but something that becomes possible only when noise recedes.
As this widening continues, the most unsettling truth comes into view: the brain decides before it tells you it has decided. You think the thought-decision is yours, but it is not. Every choice begins in the deep layers of the motor and association networks, where the body prepares its next movement silently and automatically. Only after this preparation is already underway does the feeling of “I have decided” rise into awareness, creating the impression of authorship after the fact. What you experience as will is simply the mind receiving a message that has already been sent. When this becomes visible, the illusion fractures instantly. You no longer see yourself as the origin of action but as the point where the action becomes conscious. Awakening does not stop this mechanism; it reveals it. And in that revelation, the self loses its authority, because it can no longer pretend to be the one who chooses.
Yet even here the gate remains. Sensory gating continues its quiet work, not as a rigid barrier but as a biological necessity. The nervous system cannot tolerate the full bandwidth of the universe without losing coherence. So it allows just enough for transformation to take root. This is why insight comes in waves and not all at once. The structure that once hid reality now modulates it gently, letting more of the field come through without overwhelming the system.
Even in this openness, the chemistry of the body continues to shape the texture of the moment. Neurotransmitters rise and fall like internal tides, quietly altering what the mind can receive. A shift in serotonin steadies or destabilises mood, a drift in dopamine reshapes focus and valuation, a pulse of norepinephrine sharpens or narrows the field, and even small fluctuations in glucose or inflammatory molecules tilt perception toward clarity or dullness. Awakening widens the channel, but the body’s chemistry still colours the moment. The centre-source may guide action, yet the vessel that carries it breathes through a physiology that can never be bypassed.
Then comes the moment when identity dissolves. Awareness settles into its natural state, free from the weight of self. Here, the intelligence of the field can be sensed directly. Perception becomes silent and uncluttered. Time thins out. The boundary between inner and outer softens. Action no longer feels authored but simply arises when needed, without hesitation or doubt. This is the centre-source state, where the universe seems to move through you rather than the other way around. The sense of “my decision” gives way to something more spacious and impersonal. In this space, free will feels irrelevant because the separation that required choice has faded.
Yet even here the ancient constraint remains. Sensory gating does not disappear. It becomes subtle, transparent, almost imperceptible, but it is still part of the embodied mind. Awareness can widen without limit, but the biological channel through which it enters the brain still has boundaries. This is the final paradox of awakening: the centre-source is free, but the vessel that carries it is not. The intelligence of the field may guide perception and action, but it must pass through the nervous system in order to become lived experience. This is why enlightenment does not turn a human into a god. It turns the human into a clear instrument, but an instrument nonetheless.
The real freedom lies not in escaping this structure but in seeing through it. When the mind becomes silent, the filter becomes obvious. When the self dissolves, the filter becomes harmless. And when action flows from the centre-source, the filter becomes simply part of the way consciousness enters time. What felt like limitation becomes rhythm; what felt like constraint becomes form. The mind no longer fights its architecture. It simply functions, open, receptive, aligned with the intelligence that moves through all things.
The universe continues to speak, and you continue to hear it, but now with the understanding that awareness is infinite while perception is shaped by the body. Action emerges not from will but from clarity. And the small river of biological consciousness reconnects with the ocean from which it came, flowing as one movement through the silent bridge between mind and universe.