In a dream, "choices" must be made...

We are conscious of only a tiny fraction of the information that our brains process in each moment. Although we continually notice changes in our experience— in thought, mood, perception, behavior, etc.— we are utterly unaware of the neurophysiological events that produce them. In fact, we can be very poor witnesses to experience itself.  By merely glancing at your face or listening to your tone of voice, others are often more aware of your state of mind and motivations than you are.

 I generally start each day with a cup of coffee or tea— sometimes two. This morning, it was coffee (two). Why not tea? I am in no position to know. I wanted coffee more than I wanted tea today, and I was free to have what I wanted. Did I consciously choose coffee over tea? No. The choice was made for me by events in my brain that I, as the conscious witness of my thoughts and actions, could not inspect or influence. Could I have “changed my mind” and switched to tea before the coffee drinker in me could get his bearings? Yes, but this impulse would also have been the product of unconscious causes. Why didn’t it arise this morning? Why might it arise in the future? I cannot know. The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness— rather, it appears in consciousness, as does any thought or impulse that might oppose it.   
Harris, Sam (2012-03-06). Free Will (pp. 7-8). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

If there is no free-will, and all thoughts, feelings and behaviors are entirely influenced by influences that were themselves influenced by previous influences, which have therefore been influenced, how can we stake claim to a unique self-hood?

If every intention you claim as yours, is merely the product of previously developed neuro-circuitry, why intend anything at all except what you’re supposed to intend, which you cannot know until that intention circuit fires up in your brain? What choices need to be made that won’t be made and, if they’re not made, then they were not to be made anyway?

You intend nothing that is not already intended and your intention was intended long before you became aware of it and acted on it.

Why has it been so hard to just "enjoy the ride"? 

You have no choice but to go wherever it takes you, why suffer through where you are (unless of course, this is what must be experienced).

I have written much that does not get posted here, but everything I have posted must be posted, else it simply would not be here. I have had no choice in the direction I have been influenced to follow, based on the circuits that direct "me." I have intended nothing.

If all thought is generated through predetermined neuro-circuits that have been influenced from birth by billions of internal and external experiences, generating ‘memory’ circuits of their own that will influence other circuits, is there still a self? If everything “you” are and everything identified with as “you,” had absolutely nothing to do with “you” or any sense of a free-willed ‘choice,’ can there even be a “you”?

The Egocentric self is defined, and experienced, on the belief in a will to make free and autonomous choices from its desires. But if those desires have been determined and subsequently influenced by other influenced desires, then so has each and every choice made up to now and ALL choices that will be made in the future...  

....have already been made.

Hence, the obvious fact is that there is no “you” making choices. There is only a “you” experiencing choices made from previous determinations all the way back to the womb.

How can an ego-self, that is not free to make choices, be an ego-self when egocentricity demands the capacity to choose and has spent a lifetime developing and honing judgment circuits in the brain to enhance and emphasize that capacity?

You had no choice in your birth, just as you will have no choice in your death. But the "Good News" is that you have had, and will have, no choice in between either. If you have never had free-will to choose, do you even exist, other than as a lump of mobile flesh acting out pretensions that are not in any way based on the capacity to choose?

In a dream, choices need be made. When you awaken, no such illusion remains.

I have had numerous correspondence from many who have sought ways to spiritually transcend their individual egocentricity. But they experience anger in my attempts to show that an independent ego-self cannot be transcended, because it exists but with no capacity to make choices.

Clearly, egocentricity enjoys attempting to transcend itself and has built up centuries of theoretical texts to show the way. But this has always been a fools errand (but a necessary one).

You have shaped and molded NOTHING. All your self-actualizing, self-development techniques, to become an improved and happier “I-Me,” was nothing more than doing what you were genetically and socio-culturally conditioned to do. “You” had no choice, nor will you ever. Your intention to "transcend" you egocentricity has been influenced by past influences that have also been influenced, completely outside your control, with as about as much meaning and purpose as the intention to take out the trash. Everything you are now you have had to be. It was not under your control. “You” are out of the loop, simply because you have never been IN the loop.

Why suffer through right or wrong, good or bad choices, when each choice made…had to be made? You are on a "path" but in no way a product of your choosing or in any way influenced by any thoughts you think "you" conjure up "in the moment." Every moment you experience has been influenced by the moment before it, and so on, back to conception.

So now that you have read this and consider it (not just my words but the words of a reputable neuroscientist) what circuits are forming up that will influence other circuits? Will your belief circuits demand you ignore this post or maybe seek out a memory-based linguistic circuit to refute the obvious? Or will you suddenly experience less intensity of “mind,” with less of a need to invest in any particular ideology or "path," because if there is no free and autonomous “you,” what good is any choice "you" make? What about your constant daily struggle to maintain a fixed self based on past and future choices? Does it matter?

It really makes no difference what you choose, simply because you will choose what you MUST.

But...if you're following your guru then...

..."And now you do what they told ya.
 Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"
(Rage Against the Machine)

Artwork - "Time Guardian"