"What does it matter if birds live without thinking, or if a rose is always a rose?" Arthur asked.
"They don't have minds therefore they have no choice but to be what they are."
"True, you mortals have free will, but you have far too high an opinion of it," Merlin replied. "I live without choices and find it a much happier life."
"Without choices? But you make the same decisions I do," Arthur protested.
Merlin shrugged. "You are fooled by appearances. Look at your hand. There is no doubt that it belongs to you, yet you do not choose how its cells grow; you have no notion of what makes its nerves and muscles move; you don't consciously grow nails or mend a cut when your hand is wounded, do you?"
"True, I don't have to do any of those things."
"They are no longer choices for you, in other words," Merlin continued, "These functions have been given over to an involuntary side of your brain, which takes care of them automatically. In the same way all your feeling, choosing, judging - I have given over to the automatic side of my brain. Which is just another way of saying that I surrender them to God."
"Then what do you use your conscious mind for?" asked Arthur.
"To appreciate this world and the miracle of life. I am a witness to all that is, and as a spectacle, I can assure you, nothing is more surprising or beautiful or satisfying."


Taken from ~The Way of the Wizard ~ by Deepak Chopra