Hi Kim,

Monistic idealism states that consciousness is the ground of all being. In other words, instead of resulting from the accident called the big bang, the universe is a big thought. But as soon as we use words like "thought" and "mind," we're reducing it to the physical realm. That distorts the meaning.

Everything comes from the Source or Higher Power, and that is consciousness. We are one with the Source. We participate in creating the reality, as a collective. In that way, we can't make reality into what we want because we're partners in creating it with others and the Source. However, we do influence it. We have an effect on the world individually, although it doesn't override what the collective consciousness creates.

We have free will within this realm. We are individuals, although we are one with all others. We make our own choices and reap the results of them.

The clearest explanations of monistic idealism are in Amit Goswami's books, especially the Conscious Universe. This is what he wrote about free will:

Consciousness is the ground of all being. In this view, consciousness imposes "downward causation." In other words, our free will is real. When we act in the world we really are acting with causal power. This view does not deny that matter also has causal potency — it does not deny that there is causal power from elementary particles upward, so there is upward causation — but in addition it insists that there is also downward causation. It shows up in our creativity and acts of free will, or when we make moral decisions. In those occasions we are actually witnessing downward causation by consciousness.

Love and peace, Craig