Free-will is not Free!

[Guest guest]

" karmaNyevaadhikaaraste na phaleshhu kadaachana. "

 

Your responsibility is to act; NEVER for the results.

 

In Sri Ramakrishna's words, free will is like a tether; one's freedom from

the tether depends on how close one makes one's free-will approximate the

Divine Will.

 

Sunder

 

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

"Ram Chandran" <chandran

advaitin

"advaitin" <advaitin >

Free-will is not Free!

Thu, 6 Jan 100 12:04:24 -0500

 

According to Vedanta (also Gita) we have to act as though we have the

free-will and with the understanding that the outcome is not fully under our

control! Arjun thought that he had the free-will not to fight, but he fought

the war due to the nfluence of Lord Krishna and that is Fate.

 

When use my apparant free-will to buy the car, it comes along with other

obligations such as monthly payments, insurance, accidents, maintenance,

etc. I also have a choice between buying a car, a bike or walking and all

these choices have constraints. We always have free-will but it is never

Free and all our actions are also controlled by the force beyond us - we can

call it Fate! Fundamentally, we Need the Faith to Believe that we can change

our destiny! Without that Faith we will have endless debates and chaos!

 

Ram Chandran

 

____

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[Guest guest]

According to Vedanta (also Gita) we have to act as though we have the free-will

and with the understanding that the outcome is not fully under our control!

Arjun thought that he had the free-will not to fight, but he fought the war due

to the nfluence of Lord Krishna and that is Fate.

 

When use my apparant free-will to buy the car, it comes along with other

obligations such as monthly payments, insurance, accidents, maintenance, etc. I

also have a choice between buying a car, a bike or walking and all these choices

have constraints. We always have free-will but it is never Free and all our

actions are also controlled by the force beyond us - we can call it Fate!

Fundamentally, we Need the Faith to Believe that we can change our destiny!

Without that Faith we will have endless debates and chaos!

 

Ram Chandran

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 01/06/2000 12:23:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,

sunderh writes:

 

<< " karmaNyevaadhikaaraste na phaleshhu kadaachana. "

 

Your responsibility is to act; NEVER for the results.

 

In Sri Ramakrishna's words, free will is like a tether; one's freedom from

the tether depends on how close one makes one's free-will approximate the

Divine Will.

 

Sunder >>

 

I love this so much, this really speaks volumes. It speaks also to

desire, desire has a purpose, the unification with Divine, it is the heart

of desire, it is the desire for the unity of love, and this is the root

of the desires which we think we feel for the "objects."

 

Thank you so much for this quote, I have passed it on and received

just as much gratitude and serenity as I feel for it from others.

 

Much Love*Light*Laughter,

~ Rainbo ~

[Guest guest]

Greetings,

 

Here is another of my favorite quotations on the same theme:

 

Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world

Nor that can give. In books and temples, vain

Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds

The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament,

Let go thy hold, sannyasin bold! Say

Om Tat Sat, Om!

 

from The Song of the Sannyasin(July 1895) By Swami Vivekananda

 

Hope you like it too.

 

Regards,

 

Sunder

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

RainboLily

advaitin

advaitin

Re: Free-will is not Free!

Thu, 6 Jan 2000 19:27:25 EST

 

In a message dated 01/06/2000 12:23:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,

sunderh writes:

 

<< " karmaNyevaadhikaaraste na phaleshhu kadaachana. "

 

Your responsibility is to act; NEVER for the results.

 

In Sri Ramakrishna's words, free will is like a tether; one's freedom from

the tether depends on how close one makes one's free-will approximate the

Divine Will.

 

Sunder >>

 

I love this so much, this really speaks volumes. It speaks also to

desire, desire has a purpose, the unification with Divine, it is the heart

of desire, it is the desire for the unity of love, and this is the root

of the desires which we think we feel for the "objects."

 

Thank you so much for this quote, I have passed it on and received

just as much gratitude and serenity as I feel for it from others.

 

Much Love*Light*Laughter,

~ Rainbo ~

 

____

Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

[Guest guest]

"Iswara resides in the heart of all and by his maya causes all beings to whirl

around

like puppents on a machine. To Him surrender with all your heart (and you will

cross this maya)" . Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 18.

Again Sri Krishna talks of the divine hand in everything and not free will of

the ego.

The ego is not free . By definition it is Chitha -jada -granthi. So how can it

have free will ?

In fact even Duryodhana told Sri Krishna "Janami Dharmam na cha mai Pravritihi,

Janami Adharmam na cha mai nivrithihi "!

"I know what is Dharma, but I am unable to follow it, I know what is adharma ,

but I am unable to resist doing it ."

No free will again.

 

Regards,

Anand

 

 

 

A FREE web-based e-mail service brought to you by the PC World Technology

Network.

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[Guest guest]

[i sent this to StudyCircle on 10th July 1999]

 

Rama wrote:

> what would you say as regrding free will

> opposed to no-free will.

 

 

This is a complex subject as there is free will in duality while there is

no free will in non-duality, although both duality and non-duality is true

following Hindu theology.

 

I think we have discussed this in the past in the form of duality and non-

duality rather than free will, so I will quote the discussions from the

Archives.

 

These discussions were from 7 - 11 April, 1999

 

Ruben wrote:

 

What does God want of us or what does God want us to do? Krishna

told Arjuna that He wants him to fulfill his obligatory duties

(svadharma). He also preached in the Mahabharata that war must be

last resort. This is on the part of man, not of God.

 

On the part of God, what happens is Willed, or we can say that God's

omniscience knows events even before they happen.

 

This is the same as what Rabbi Yossi Markel says about Judaism,

where, once something bad happens, it can only happen due to God's

Will, however, it is man's duties to avoid it.

 

-------------------

Phillip replied:

 

 

If something bad happens, one can say that God has not prevented it

from happening, but has allowed it to happen. To say God willed it to

happen is not quite the same, IMO.

 

-------------------

Ruben replied to Phillip:

 

Here, what you can be saying is that God willed that something is to be

prevented, or God willed that something happen.

 

There is a fallacy in that statement which goes to point that God only

wills good things to happen. Good things may be the Will-ing that bad

things may be prevented.

 

Vedanta would ask, if God willed that something bad may not take

place (implying, as an opposition to someone's wish or collective

conduct that may take place), WHO WILLED OR CAUSED THE BAD

TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE?

 

Is it man? And then later God Willed that it may not take place?

 

"God gave you the time, space, cause, material, idea, skill, chance, and

fortune. Why should you feel as if your are the doer?" -Sathya Sai Baba.

 

"The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done." -TTC

 

"All activities which the body is to go through are determined when it

first comes into existence. It does not rest with you to accept or reject

them. The only freeedom you have is to turn your mind inward and renounce

activities there" -Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

"The Lord abides in the heart of all beings, O Arjuna, causing all beings

to act (or work out their Karma) by His power of Maya as if they

are(puppets of Karma) mounted on a machine." (BG 18.61)

 

Who is it in the first place willed any happening good or bad? Who is the

cause? Is it "you"? Who are "you"? Do "you" exist?

 

IMHO, God (Ishvara) wills everything to happen and they do. He may

will that a person first does sins, then suffers then, he will enquire

inside, through his so-called free will, will fight evil, then later

renounce both good and evil, renounce all attachments and realize his

Self.

 

God wills that one perform sins, through that person's ego, mind or free

will. When the Self (same as Tao in quote above) is manifested in the

body, it does not perform any actions, but through its presence, the mind,

intellect, ego etc. starts to work. This mind and ego purportedly wills

something to happen and takes steps to make it happen, whereas those

things don't work without the presence of the Self. The mind has a false

autonomy, that it feels it has when it doesn't.

 

The Self (Atma) or God (Ishvara) is purusha, while the mind and ego

are part of prAkriti and formed of mAya, that obstructs the Inner Vision

of the Self. In fact, when you transcend the mind and ego, you are the

Self that is in the body, there is no Vision i.e. seeing somewhere else.

It is you, the Self.

 

There are two arguments:

1) Krishna willed the entire Mahabharata incident and His puppet play

caused all the events to unfold as we saw it in the Mahabharata 2)

Krishna's (omniscience) knew that the Mahabharata events will happen even

before they did.

 

Both are correct, because the director will know how the play will

progress because he wrote the play in the first place.

 

Therefore, scriptures and gurus recommend to use the free will that

you have to do good, or in spiritually advanced stages, perform

sAdhanAs (spiritual efforts). After all, if you had heard that from a

scripture or guru, it is because that is God's Will. And if you persevere

and perform sAdhanAs and reap Self-Knowledge from it, it is fulfilling

Divine Will.

 

-------------------

Hassan replied:

 

'That which is created cannot then logically have a truly free will!'

 

Particularly if one is talking about an omnipotent and omnipresent

creator. After all, if you or I made something, let's say a computer. We

design it in a certain way to work in a certain way. It may be however

that it behaves in ways we did not expect. (particularly my computer ; )

But if God makes something then it can only behave and act in the way he

made it. Whatever it 'is' ('nature') or whatever it 'experiences'

('nurture') if one believes in an all powerful, all knowing God (as I do)

then none of these things can be 'unexpected' or 'unplanned'.

 

Many friends tell me, Ah! But this is His 'knowledge' and just because He

knows it doesn't mean He makes us do it or that 'we' know what choices we

will make. But I don't understand this, because since He made us, and

knows we will do such and such, whether He tells us or not, in reality we

still have no choice about it, do we?

 

I know this is a vast topic that can be looked at from so many points of

view, but it is a subject I have never understood. I believe it was the

philosopher, Pascal, who said one had to keep hold of the two ends of the

chain. In the one hand the freedom of the will and in the other God’s

omnipotence. We do not have in our hands the link that joins the two

together.

 

-------------------

Paul Tifford wrote:

 

How can something happen if God doesnt will it? How can there be

'some-thing' outside of God?

 

-------------------

Phillip replied to Hassan & Paul:

 

Let us consider this from the position of parenthood. In a limited sense,

my wife and I have "created" two children, but we do not have complete

control over them. We bring them up to live in a certain way, but we

cannot force them to live that way. Obviously we have conditioned them in

such a way, that they are more likely to develop in some ways rather than

in other ways.

 

One can think of them as possibilities, not certainties. The situations

they find themselves in are never going to be exactly as those experienced

by my wife and myself. Society is very different from when we were

children, and the places were very different. With God, it is not the

same, because God is omniscient and omnipotent. Yet God is also a "parent"

in a very real sense, more so than you or I. I believe that creation is

about possibilities, not certainties, because God allows for human

freedom, though not in a perfect sense. We are able to act and make

choices, and we live according to the effects of those choices.

 

Now we come to the omniscient factor, which many view as proof that

everything is predetermined, and that consequently everything is willed by

God. I don't accept this, because omniscience means to know all things,

but not just on one plane or dimension. Think of a chess computer, which

has been programmed to know all the possible moves in chess, and has a

memory containing all the chess games ever played ( this is strictly not

possible in the analogy which I am using). In chess terms it would be

omniscient, and yet it would not be in a position of controlling it's

opponents. All possibilities are known to it, but it does not predetermine

how it's opponent will play.

 

I believe that this expresses something of what is meant by

"omniscience" when speaking of God. The added complication, in

terms of God, is that time itself is an "object" of creation, and time can

be spoken of as being "one". Past, Present and Future are all a unity

which is "presented" to God, but is "experienced" by us. For us Time is

linear and transitory, but for God, Time is complete and "solid". (I am

using poetic license here, in attempting to explain myself. I may use some

words out of context, for which I apologise in advance.) In this way,

Hitler and Genghis Khan, Gandhi and Buddha, are long gone, for us, yet for

God, all are present. In this way, God knows everything, including all

future events, because all future is now for God. This would help explain

how some people have "visions" of the future. They are allowed to see what

is already present before God.

 

-------------------

Hassan replied to Phillip:

 

But unlike a computer that simply 'knows' all the moves, we are talking

about 'The Creator' who knows because He 'made' the game and all the

pieces. I may think I am exercising a free will, but unless I can actually

do something of 'my own' without God knowing what it is, in other words

unless I can 'create' my own actions then I am simply running according to

my 'programme'. Whatever decisions I make will be based on what I am and

the experiences I have had all of which are pre defined.

 

It is rather like a picture book I had to play with when I was little.

The pages appeared blank, but each had a hidden picture. When you wiped

over it with water on a brush, the picture would emerge. If you took

great care the whole picture would come out in all its glory. If you took

less care only some of it would come out. Each page was different. This

seems rather like our situation.

 

Yes, time as a linear phenomena is a manifistation of this world. In fact

our understanding of what we regard as 'reality' is probably flawed. This

may be why we struggle to make sense of concepts that lie beyond. I

remember a saying, (I can't remember who said it) that to describe the

things that exist outside our reality is rather like trying to describe

colours to a person who has been blind from birth. Whatever words you use

to describe colours, or references you make to other senses they possess,

you will simply never be able to convey the colours, because this person

lacks sight and has always done, therefore it lies beyond his

comprehension.

 

-------------------

Pat wrote:

 

I agree with Philip on this, but I think something may be missing.

Instead of using a chess game, I will use a different but similar

analogy. Think of the creator and linear time combined like a CD

ROM. Imagine that all things exist on that CD-ROM. For the

programmer, i.e. creator, all outcomes are known and time does not

exist (time is irrelevant as it is not a factor, just as time is not a

factor to God and as Philip said is seen as "solid). However, he cannot

control how the user utilizies the program. The only thing the creator

can do is throw exceptions (software term for error handling)when an

unexpected event occurs. By "throwing exceptions", which simply means to

tell the user of the error and either end the program or put them back on

some known track, the programmer must succumb to the users will. The user

complains that the program does not work correctly and the programmer

fixes it thereby adding another set of possible outcomes.

 

As humans we are constantly asking the "creator", which I will call

God here for ease of use, for more. That is one of the points of prayer.

So we are in effect asking god to create more outcomes in respond to our

reaction to an event. The only thing we do have free will over is our

reaction. Am unexpected reaction can cause god to say, wait a minute, we

have an error, we need to fix this. So in that way, human free will

become's God's will. They are the same. We become the "creator" in that

sense, and there is total "free will".

 

-------------------

Ruben wrote:

 

I understand what you and Phillip are trying to mention. I agree

however, in a dualistic context.

 

Monism is not {NOT dualism}. Monism is {transcending dualism}. It is above

dualism, yet encompasses it or is able to explain it. Dualism however,

sees monism as not true.

 

In "Hindu"-ism, we here of purusha and prakrti which I wrote about

briefly some time ago. The programmer is the purusha and the program is

prakrti. Where is the user? The user is only in the dualistic context.

Here, the programmer Himself (GOD) becomes the myriad of users (jivis,

individuals) through the process I described in "Who willed it to happen?"

and feeds the input into the program. The program generates the output as

programmed by the programmer. Since time does not REALLY exist in this new

context, any errors reported and any corrections done by the programmer

are all the programmer's own wish and pre-programming. When the program

stops running, there is no actively running program. If this is the case,

where is the distinction between programmer, program and user? This is the

state before creation and after destruction.

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED ..............

 

 

--

Warmest regards,

Ruben

rubenn

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[Guest guest]

If the Lord stands in the heart of all

beings making them revolve like

a wheel who needs free will?

 

regards,

 

Patrick

 

 

Everybody needs the free will till this statement becomes an experience as

natural and necessary as breathing!! and not just an intellectual grasp of

the words.

 

Regards,

 

Sunder

____

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[Guest guest]

That is a free choice one has to make!

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

Patrick Kenny <pkenny

advaitin

advaitin

Re: Free-will is not Free!

Fri, 07 Jan 2000 11:31:35 -0500

 

Sunder Hattangadi wrote:

> Everybody needs the free will till

> this statement becomes an experience

> as

> natural and necessary as breathing!!

> and not just an intellectual grasp of

> the words.

 

I think that an intellectual grasp of

the words --- jnana marga --- will

get you there much more quickly than

'free will'

 

regards,

 

Patrick

 

____

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[Guest guest]

I shall be adding comments on these in Gita Satsang as the verses come up.

If we use philosophical/metaphysical vocabulary we have to accept the

definitions from those fields, and not substitute them with how we

understand what they mean!

No philosopher has yet demolished Kant's stand that metaphysics will never

be able to solve the riddle of existence! He called such theories

antinomies, where equally strong proofs can be adduced for totally opposed

theories.

In his last book, The BhagavadGita as a Philosophy of Self-Realisation,

Prof. R. D.Ranade (1887-1957), discusses some antinomies, and their

resolution.

[ Prof. Ranade was a man with the intellect and humility of Himalayan

proportions. He served as Prof. of Philosophy 1920-1937, and as

Vice-Chancellor 1937-1947, both at Allahabad University. His first book was

A Costructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy in 1927, and last on the Gita

in 1957. He limited his literary output to 10 books, all in English, only

one exceeding 300 pages).

He studied all the Indian Philosophies in Sanskrit, all the Greek in Greek,

Latin in Latin, English in English, and German in German. He studied all the

saintly literature in Marathi, Hindi,and Kannada, and wrote on the Pathway

to God in respective traditions.

His own Teacher on the Divine Pathway was a mystic who had not finished

school; the Teacher's Guru was an illiterate shepherd, nad yet the Prof. was

like a child in their company.]

 

 

Regard,

 

Sunder

 

 

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

chandran

advaitin

advaitin

Re: Free-will is not Free!

7 Jan 2000 17:30:46 -0000

 

Let me add some additional thoughts on Free-will for further clarifications

(confusions!)

Limitation of Free-will:

We have only free-will to act, but do not have free-will to reject the

consequences of our action!

 

Human limitation is recognized by both science and Vedanta.

 

Science recognized human limitation by employing uncertainty to indicate

the gap between expectation and observation from an experiment. Vedanta

recognized the human limitation by using destiny to indicate the gap between

expectation and consequences of an human endeavor.

In Science, uncertainty is explained by random phenomenon. In Vedanta,

destiny is determined by the Divine force. In science, the gap can become

narrower with more knowledge. In Vedanta, the gap becomes narrower as human

nature comes closer to the Divine Nature. In both science and Vedanta,

human illusion (ignorance) is the cause for faulty expectations and they are

removed with True Knowledge.

 

Ram Chandran

 

Some Interesting Quotes to contemplate on Destiny:

=================================================

"A man's character is his destiny." Heraclitus

 

Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914), U.S. author. The Devil's Dictionary (1881–1906).

 

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do

believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), British author. Generally Speaking, "On

Holland" (1928).

 

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put

into it is ours.

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–61), Swedish statesman, Secretary-General of U.N.

Markings, "Night Is Drawing Nigh" (1963; written 1950).

 

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, Who's made the master of his

destiny.

Friedrich Von Schiller (1759–1805), German dramatist, poet, historian.

Gessler, in Wilhelm Tell, act 3, sc. 3.

 

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Eric Roth, U.S. screenwriter. Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), Forrest Gump,

directed by Robert Zemekis, as adapted from novel by Winston Groom, the

dying mother's comment to her resourceful son with an IQ of 75.

 

____

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[Guest guest]

Ram Chandran wrote:

>

> ... Fundamentally, we

> Need the Faith to Believe that we can

> change our destiny! Without that Faith

> we will have endless debates and

> chaos!

>

 

My own experience is that it's a good

deal easier and more effective to

change how we think about our destiny

than it is to change our destiny.

If the Lord stands in the heart of all

beings making them revolve like

a wheel who needs free will?

 

regards,

 

Patrick

[Guest guest]

namaste

 

within the illusion of the doership of an ego, thrives

the illusion of the choice in free will.

 

when the ego or jiva (defined as a separative doer)

is thus dissolved [through determined investigation

(vicharamarg) or other yogas], the question becomes

ultimately irrelevant. however, if/when evaluated

strictly from the vyavaharika, the whole matter is

regarded as an unsolvable mystery.

 

here's a compelling way to push the question to its

limits...provoking a radical discovery:

 

abandoning the question whether man has free will,

what about God (brahman)? does God have free will?

 

free will for God implies the responsibility of

having to choose on infinite matters--could this

signify a state of freedom? conversely, the lack

of free will would inevitably deliver the prison

of boredom.

 

if God were truly all-knowing, He couldn't be all

powerful, simply because He wouldn't have the power

to alter the course of what He knew would eventuate.

thus omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible.

 

therefore the attempted resolution of the matter of

fate vs free will, becomes the dog chasing its tail.

 

true freedom therefore can only lie in mystery.

liberation is liberation from the need to reduce

the wonder of Life to a manageable reasonableness.

 

the jnani is at peace in the nape of his own unknown.

 

om om om

[Guest guest]

Sunder Hattangadi wrote:

> Everybody needs the free will till

> this statement becomes an experience

> as

> natural and necessary as breathing!!

> and not just an intellectual grasp of

> the words.

 

I think that an intellectual grasp of

the words --- jnana marga --- will

get you there much more quickly than

'free will'

 

regards,

 

Patrick

[Guest guest]

Let me add some additional thoughts on Free-will for further clarifications

(confusions!)

Limitation of Free-will:

We have only free-will to act, but do not have free-will to reject the

consequences of our action!

 

Human limitation is recognized by both science and Vedanta.

 

Science recognized human limitation by employing uncertainty to indicate the

gap between expectation and observation from an experiment. Vedanta recognized

the human limitation by using destiny to indicate the gap between expectation

and consequences of an human endeavor.

In Science, uncertainty is explained by random phenomenon. In Vedanta, destiny

is determined by the Divine force. In science, the gap can become narrower with

more knowledge. In Vedanta, the gap becomes narrower as human nature comes

closer to the Divine Nature. In both science and Vedanta, human illusion

(ignorance) is the cause for faulty expectations and they are removed with True

Knowledge.

 

Ram Chandran

 

Some Interesting Quotes to contemplate on Destiny:

=================================================

"A man's character is his destiny." Heraclitus

 

Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914), U.S. author. The Devil's Dictionary (1881–1906).

 

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe

in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), British author. Generally Speaking, "On Holland"

(1928).

 

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it

is ours.

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–61), Swedish statesman, Secretary-General of U.N.

Markings, "Night Is Drawing Nigh" (1963; written 1950).

 

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, Who's made the master of his destiny.

Friedrich Von Schiller (1759–1805), German dramatist, poet, historian. Gessler,

in Wilhelm Tell, act 3, sc. 3.

 

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Eric Roth, U.S. screenwriter. Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), Forrest Gump, directed

by Robert Zemekis, as adapted from novel by Winston Groom, the dying mother's

comment to her resourceful son with an IQ of 75.

[Guest guest]

namaste,

 

Some more questions and comments:

 

Truth can be 'known' only by becoming IT (becoming one with IT).

Logic has its limits in illumining or achieving this oneness.

Koans are one way of jumping the hurdles of logic.

The statement : 'understand free-will is programmed', would fall into this

category, would it not? It would be like asking the sun to understand what

night is!

The statement there are mysteries unknown to Buddhas is also not logical; by

definition.

As Gita says:

" svayamevaatmanaatmaana.n vettha tvaM purushhottama ." (10:15)

 

Thou knowest Yourself by Yourself Alone.

 

 

Regards,

 

Sunder

 

----Original Message Follows----

"firak or rahasya" <sonja.kotar

advaitin

"advaitin" <advaitin >

Re: Free-will is not Free!

Sun, 9 Jan 2000 14:57:19 -0800

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One is already THAT. There is no becoming. There is only BEING. In the words of

the Bible,

IAM THAT IAM. That alone exists and the only cause of multiplicity is

ignorance.One needs to wake up from this Cosmic dream and not become anything.

 

Sincerely,

Anand

>Truth can be 'known' only by becoming IT (becoming one with IT).

 

 

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I do not disagree at all. We are just substituting words, or looking at the

same process from the standpoint of jiiva and shiva!

 

Sunder

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

"Anand Natarajan" <anandn

advaitin

advaitin

Re: Free-will is not Free!

Sun, 09 Jan 2000 07:57:35 -0800

 

 

One is already THAT. There is no becoming. There is only BEING. In the words

of the Bible,

IAM THAT IAM. That alone exists and the only cause of multiplicity is

ignorance.One needs to wake up from this Cosmic dream and not become

anything.

 

Sincerely,

Anand

>Truth can be 'known' only by becoming IT (becoming one with IT).

 

 

A FREE web-based e-mail service brought to you by the PC World Technology

Network.

Get your FREE account today at http://www.myworldmail.com

 

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[Guest guest]

Dear "egodust"

 

i had forwarded your interesting remark to Maitreya.

Here's his reply.

 

greetings

firak

 

*****************

 

 

Beloved Firak

Love

Some comments are in the text++++

 

 

 

 

namaste

 

within the illusion of the doership of an ego, thrives

the illusion of the choice in free will.

 

when the ego or jiva (defined as a separative doer)

is thus dissolved [through determined investigation

(vicharamarg) or other yogas], the question becomes

ultimately irrelevant. however, if/when evaluated

strictly from the vyavaharika, the whole matter is

regarded as an unsolvable mystery.

 

here's a compelling way to push the question to its

limits...provoking a radical discovery:

 

abandoning the question whether man has free will,

what about God (brahman)? does God have free will?

 

free will for God implies the responsibility of

having to choose on infinite matters--could this

signify a state of freedom? conversely, the lack

of free will would inevitably deliver the prison

of boredom.

 

++++Yes, God is all there is. And God, the beyond does

have free will and the power to implement it totally. Existence

is God's manifesto. It is His ultimate creative expression, and

He has the free will to change the pre-programmed creation,

but rarely exercises the option of Divine intervention.

Prefereing instead to savour the unfolding of the Leela

according to its predestined program, created in the Cosmic

Mind of God before the universe exists.

 

if God were truly all-knowing, He couldn't be all

powerful, simply because He wouldn't have the power

to alter the course of what He knew would eventuate.

thus omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible.

 

++++ God is omnipotent and omniscient and omnippresent.

Your logic is flawed.

 

therefore the attempted resolution of the matter of

fate vs free will, becomes the dog chasing its tail.

 

++++And so is this assumption. The facts are simple. God

has free will and humans(God in disguise) don't.

 

true freedom therefore can only lie in mystery.

liberation is liberation from the need to reduce

the wonder of Life to a manageable reasonableness.

 

++++There are many mysteries unknown to Buddhas. Each

moment of Now is the revelation of the mystery of creation.

There are no mysteries to the creator of existence.

 

the jnani is at peace in the nape of his own unknown.

 

++++True

 

God is Love

Maitreya

 

om om om

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

firak or rahasya wrote:

>

> Dear "egodust"

>

> i had forwarded your interesting remark to Maitreya.

> Here's his reply.

>

> > abandoning the question whether man has free will,

> > what about God (brahman)? does God have free will?

>

> > free will for God implies the responsibility of

> > having to choose on infinite matters--could this

> > signify a state of freedom? conversely, the lack

> > of free will would inevitably deliver the prison

> > of boredom.

>

> ++++Yes, God is all there is. And God, the beyond does

> have free will and the power to implement it totally. Existence

> is God's manifesto. It is His ultimate creative expression, and

> He has the free will to change the pre-programmed creation,

> but rarely exercises the option of Divine intervention.

> Prefereing instead to savour the unfolding of the Leela

> according to its predestined program, created in the Cosmic

> Mind of God before the universe exists.

>

 

hariH OM!

 

for economy in elucidation i chose to speak

of God as brahman. however, technically this

is misleading. speaking in this vein, we should

stipulate saguna brahman--endowed or not with

various attributes [e.g. siddhis]. i would

concede that saguna brahman or Isvara may in

fact possess free will to intercede under unique

circumstances in His otherwise pre-scripted Plan

of Evolution. however, it is quite another matter

for His source in the parabrahmam, which is beyond

all attributes and epistemologically inscrutable;

which implies there can be neither any consideration

for Its possession of free will or not.

> > if God were truly all-knowing, He couldn't be all

> > powerful, simply because He wouldn't have the power

> > to alter the course of what He knew would eventuate.

> > thus omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible.

>

> ++++ God is omnipotent and omniscient and omnippresent.

> Your logic is flawed.

>

 

i respectfully disagree. had the statement been

made that omnipotence and omniscience could indeed

coexist, and did so *beyond* the parameters of logic,

there could be further debate on the matter. however,

to state such on the requisite of presumed authority

is itself illogical, to say nothing of counterproductive

for the procedure in the jnanamarg!

 

on the contrary, the logic is clear. viz, if Iswara

was all-knowing, He would see that tomorrow at 3pm a

tree would fall on and injure a grazing deer. if He

was all-powerful, [if He wanted] He would be able to

stop the tree from falling or divert the deer away

before it did, which would mean His forevision was

wrong and hence could not considered all-knowing.

> true freedom therefore can only lie in mystery.

> liberation is liberation from the need to reduce

> the wonder of Life to a manageable reasonableness.

>

> ++++There are many mysteries unknown to Buddhas. Each

> moment of Now is the revelation of the mystery of creation.

> There are no mysteries to the creator of existence.

 

assuming the Creator has the power, He would surely

create some mysteries for Himself! where's the fun?

 

namaste and

peace in ONE

[Guest guest]

Patrick wrote:

> If the Lord stands in the heart of all

> beings making them revolve like

> a wheel who needs free will?

 

Let say you have five plates to choose from to eat. You choose one.

You think that you are truly free to choose this dish.

 

But, the Lord always knew which choice you were going to make. You

cannot make all five choices at the same time. So, there is no free will

that you HAVE, but there is a free will that you FEEL as though you

have. This "FEELling" just like the others, i.e. sense of ownership,

greed etc. will eventually dissolve away.

 

Another thing I always wondered is why some of those writing spiritual

articles sometimes violently protest to KEEP FREE WILL to be able to

make one choice at a time sequentially, when they (many) are actually

the ONE God who makes all the choices all time, simultaneously

whether past, present of future.

 

Why not claim this greater right which is the Truth?

 

 

--

Warmest regards,

Ruben

rubenn

_____________

[Guest guest]

At 08:49 PM 1/9/00 -0500, f. maiello wrote:

>> > if God were truly all-knowing, He couldn't be all

>> > powerful, simply because He wouldn't have the power

>> > to alter the course of what He knew would eventuate.

>> > thus omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible.

 

Maitreya wrote:

>> ++++ God is omnipotent and omniscient and omnippresent.

>> Your logic is flawed.

 

Respectfully agree with Frank here, on the logic. If the discussion were

about some realm other than logic, the discussion would go a different way.

But since it's about logic (Maitreya mentions it), then the rules of logic

are appropriate to this level of discourse.

>From a logical, academic standpoint, let me add that these 3 attributes of

God (as Saguna Brahman or Ishwara) are widely known to be logically

incompatible. This doesn't mean that God *doesn't* have these attributes

-- it is just logically impossible that He *does* have them. For God to be

God, by definition He must have them. That's why He's God!! But as for

the logic of this topic, it is discussed in Intro Philosophy classrooms all

over the Western world. Here's a typical kind of argument.

 

Definition: God = the supreme being who is omnipotent,

(He can do anything) and omniscient,

(He knows everything) and omnibenevolent

(He is all-good).

 

Argument:

1. If it rains in Bombay on Februay 25, 2000, then God knows this.

2. If God knows that it will rain in Bombay on Februay 25, 2000, then *it

will* rain at that place on that date.

3. If it will rain at that place and that date, then God is incapable of

stopping it from raining at that place and that date.

4. If God incapable of stopping it from raining at that place and that

date, then God is not omnipotent.

 

Conclusion

==========

Therefore: If it rains in Bombay on Februay 25, 2000, then God is not

omnipotent. (and the same argument can be given for it *not* raining in

Bombay on Feb. 25, 2000.)

 

There is a well-known modern Rabbi who wrote a book called something like

"Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People," and one of the ways he

encourages his readers to think about God is that He is omniscient, but not

omnipotent. In other words, he knew about Hitler's pogroms but was not

able to prevent them.

 

Namaste,

 

--Greg

[Guest guest]

On two different occassions, Egodust wrote:

> thus omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible.

> was all-powerful, [if He wanted] He would be able to

> stop the tree from falling or divert the deer away

> before it did, which would mean His forevision was

> wrong and hence could not considered all-knowing.

 

Greetings, brother/ sister! How amusing is your reply!?

 

I agree with the Maitreya that God is an omniGod in every way.

 

You see... He WILLS the deer to get injured by the tree falling. You say

that He has free will to rescue the deer. I respectfully disagree! God has

no free will! Free will are for those who stay in a world where time moves

sequentially and linearly and only one thing takes place at a time. It is

for those with choices who exercise decision-making. But, Brahman is

beyond time and space. He does not need to MAKE decisions.

 

It is like this... a person dreams. In that dream, he becomes its

observer. The dream is the mAya-jagat, delusional world, the observer in

the dream, the AtmA and the person dreaming, Brahman. Does the dream exist

without the dreamer and/or observer? NO! The dream exists because the

dreamer's "mind" dreamt of it. Does the observer or dreamer intervene in

the dream? NO! The dream is a dream meant to be dreamt. That is all! Do

you *conciously* invent the dream that you dream? NO! It is invented

subconciously, therefore that is pre-destiny or God's Will. However, since

AtmA + Chid (Conciousness) = Ishvara (according to Sathya Sai Baba),

Ishvara is actually, the partially awake observer trying to play a

self-(pre-determined) role in His dream.

 

For example, Brahman always willed the actions that He will make

when He personally played the role in the dream as Krishna. Does

Krishna have Free Will? Do you think that He made a choice when

Draupadi surrendered to Him? NO! Draupadi calling Him with FULL

faith was also part of His Grand Design of the Cosmic Drama. She was doing

her part in the script. It *appeared* to have been done by Krishna.

 

But, what irony! People ignore the bigger things that He has done e.g. the

Creation of the Universe or order of nature etc. and pay attention to one

tiny event that took only a few minutes or hours (Draupadi's saree

episode) compared to the billions of years He has taken to build the

Universe and its residents in His mere dreaming *effortlessly*!

 

"All works are being done by the Gunas (or the energy and power) of

nature, but due to delusion of ego people assume themselves to be the

doer" (BG 3.27)

 

The actions from our bodies and Krishna's body in Dwapara Yuga

comes from His own mAya. Our Free Will is His mAya. Does He

possibly have (the so-called) "free will" like someone who is caught by

mAya?

 

Who are we (jIvas)? We are Ishvara + Manas/ Mind + Buddhi/ Intellect +

ahamkAra/Ego + 5 elements (body) (according to SSB). Now isn't this even

more interesting? "Free will" belongs to one with ahamkAra or Ego. God is

just *FREE*! To one who is free, does He need to make decisions to get out

of troubles since He is above the senses and worldly dilemmas? Therefore,

He does not need free will, like He does not need a human mind etc. He

does not have a single limiting Ego!

 

Sri Krishna reminds us:

"Scarcely one out of thousands of persons strives for perfection of Self-

realization. Scarcely any one of the striving, or even the perfected

persons, truly understands Me." (BG 7.03)

 

In view of this, how can we understand how He could possibly be an

omniGod when we ourselves who are subject to sequential and linear

movement of time which prohibits us from even mentally perceiving His

state of Infinity? Even this reply and Egodust's comments and Firak's as

well as Maitreya's remarks come from His Will!

 

OM namo bhagavathe vAsudevAya! OM SAI RAM!

 

 

 

--

Warmest regards,

Ruben

rubenn

_____________

StudyCircle: Mailing List on multifaith religion & spirituality

see http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9261/studycircle/

[Guest guest]

Ruben wrote:

>

> "Ruben" <rubenn

>

> On two different occassions, Egodust wrote:

> > thus omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible.

>

> > was all-powerful, [if He wanted] He would be able to

> > stop the tree from falling or divert the deer away

> > before it did, which would mean His forevision was

> > wrong and hence could not considered all-knowing.

>

> Greetings, brother/ sister! How amusing is your reply!?

>

> I agree with the Maitreya that God is an omniGod in every way.

>

> You see... He WILLS the deer to get injured by the tree falling. You say

> that He has free will to rescue the deer. I respectfully disagree! God has

> no free will! Free will are for those who stay in a world where time moves

> sequentially and linearly and only one thing takes place at a time. It is

> for those with choices who exercise decision-making. But, Brahman is

> beyond time and space. He does not need to MAKE decisions.

>

 

hariH OM!

 

with the exception of your apparently contradictory assertion

that brahman has no free will, yet agreeing with Maitreya that

"He is an omniGod" (implying He is omnipotent and thus *has*

free will), if you read my post prior to the one referenced

above, you'd see that we're quite in accord. (in that post i

stated: "within the illusion of the doership of an ego, thrives

the illusion of the choice in free will." it then went on to

illustrate that brahman *neither* has free will.)

 

additionally, the illustration of the tree falling on the

deer is an exercise in logic, exposing the incompatibility

of omniscience and omnipotence. it's clear and simple.

 

beyond all this, what could be gained by speculating and

theorizing on the nature of Isvara? or, for that matter,

speculating on the existence of our own free will or not?

this is why Sri Ramana has stressed finding out whether

there is a manifest jiva to begin with, instead of laboring

over its subjection to fate or free will. this is the order

of the moment. the rest is wasting time.

 

namaste