Realisation???- fault-finding?

[Guest guest]

Hello One and all and the all in the 'one' :

 

nice thread ! Lot of water has flown under the 'advaitin' bridge

since the shabda jaalam thread! nothing much has changed ! both

the 'shabda' jaalam ' and 'maya' jaalam are still present but that

is what makes this group interesting, informative and above all

entertaining.

 

may i please be allowed to share this Rumi poem with you all on this

fascinating subject of fault-finding or seeing the negatives in

others ?

 

Hide the faults of others deep in the earth

 

If shame is what their actions make you feel.

 

But if you mirror both their good and bad

 

Then you yourself must be like polished steel.

 

 

 

 

>From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar (Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1988).

 

Translated by Zara Houshmand

 

http://www.iranian.com/Arts/rumi.html

 

wow! what a tall ommand ! how many of us are like polished steel ?

 

enjoy!

[Guest guest]

Namaste Friends...

 

It has been a long time since i last posted, i am living in another city etc, so i no longer have enough time to participate in the discussions as much as i did a while back...

However, funny enough, i was just discussing free will around here yesterday, when this morning i chanced upon the discussion that had taken place in the list... Somehow my point in here was exactly what Tony-ji has said in his reply to Sada-ji...

 

I only depict things a little differently. I am used to explaining this to my friends, the way i see it, as:

 

"Suppose i ask you what's your favorite color. Suppose you reply green, for any other reason. If, in turn, i should ask you, why is green your favorite color, there would probably be no answer, or something like - because i just like it so."

 

Since we don't really know why we like and dislike a miriad of different things, and this ignorance of not being able to tell why we like this or that does not weakens the bond between our minds and its likes and dislikes, it is, in my opinion, fair enough to say that we are pre-programmed.

 

Our ragas and dveshas influence even the smallest decisions we make in our daily lives, and since it might now be common knowledge in the list that the essence of samsara is to shun the pain and embrace the pleasure, and that both of them reach our cores thru likes and dislikes, it should also be fair enough to say that we are deeply driven in our samsaric lives to act in ways we really can't explain why, but they all just feel either right or wrong.

 

This is the illusion of free will. To think that the ability to choose between things we like more or less is freewill is how time gets entangled in our minds, since the illusion of choice aligns mind and time together in a straight linear perspective (i choose, so i should expect the consequences in a - later - moment). To do all this, without even questioning why we like some things more than the others is to embrace ignorance and forever be bound by the cycle of birth and death.

 

To acknowledge that we act based on a set of parameters that were not really chosen by ourselves is to be humble enough to say that beyond the horizon of time, free will is an illusion.

 

And to reach beyond the horizon of time seems to be one of the main outcomes of being reached by truth.

 

I close my point with a question. Given the nature of our likes and dislikes, wouldn't the assertion of free will configure one of the most powerful forms of preventing realisation from taking place?

 

 

 

Get on board. You're invited to try the new Mail Beta.

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

 

> "Suppose i ask you what's your favorite color. Suppose you reply

green, for any other reason. If, in turn, i should ask you, why is

green your favorite color, there would probably be no answer, or

something like - because i just like it so."

 

 

I liked this argument though I am not sure if it is universally

applicable to all mental processes.

 

In gIta Krishna says that Ishwara causes all beings to move as though

mounted on a machine. I dont know if this can be interpreted to be

against free will.

 

Meanwhile neuroscience has something to say on free will. There were

some experiments conducted in the 1980s about free will. You may read

about it here -

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#The_science_of_free_will

 

I am posting the relevant portions here -

 

 

"It has also become possible to study the living brain and researchers

can now watch the decision-making "machinery" at work. A seminal

experiment in this field was conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s,

wherein he asked subjects to choose a random moment to flick their

wrist while he watched the associated activity in their brains. Libet

found that the unconscious brain activity leading up to the conscious

decision by the subject to flick his or her wrist began approximately

half a second before the subject consciously decided to move. This

build up of electrical charge has come to be called readiness

potential. Libet's findings suggest that decisions made by a subject

are actually first being made on a subconscious level and only

afterward being translated into a "conscious decision", and that the

subject's belief that it occurred at the behest of their will was only

due to their retrospective perspective on the event. However, Libet

still finds room in his model for free will, in the notion of the

power of veto: according to this model, unconscious impulses to

perform a volitional act are open to suppression by the conscious

efforts of the subject. It should be noted that this does not mean

that Libet believes unconsciously impelled actions require the

ratification of consciousness, but rather that consciousness retains

the power to, as it were, deny the actualisation of unconscious impulses."

 

"A related experiment performed later by Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone

involved asking subjects to choose at random which of their hands to

move. He found that by stimulating different hemispheres of the brain

using magnetic fields it was possible to strongly influence which hand

the subject picked. Normally right-handed people would choose to move

their right hand 60% of the time, for example, but when the right

hemisphere was stimulated they would instead choose their left hand

80% of the time; the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for

the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere for the right.

Despite the external influence on their decision-making, the subjects

continued to report that they believed their choice of hand had been

made freely. Libet himself [7], however, does not interpret his

experiment as evidence of the inefficacy of conscious free will — he

points out that although the tendency to press a button may be

building up for 500 milliseconds, the conscious will retains a right

to veto that action in the last few milliseconds. A comparison is made

with a golfer, who may swing the club several times before striking

the ball. In this view, the action simply gets, as it were, a rubber

stamp of approval at the last millisecond. Also, for planning

tomorrow's activities or those in an hour, millisecond offsets are

insignificant."

[Guest guest]

narayana_kl_71 <narayana_kl_71 > wrote: From

Sankarraman

 

Dear Sir,

In the wikipedia quoted by you I read the following interesting excerpts of the Sringeri Swamigal apropos fate and free will.

"Fa

te, as I told you, is the resultant of the past exercise of your free-will.

By exercising your free-will in the past, you brought on the resultant fate. By exercising your free-will in the present, I want you to wipe out your past record if it hurts you, or to add to it if you find it enjoyable. In any case, whether for acquiring more happiness or for reducing misery, you have to exercise your freewill in the present."

I understand the concept of our fate being the result of our having exercised our free will in the past which we believed to exist. I don't understand as to how the fate, the resultant, can be wiped out by exercising free will in the present. Is not the idea of removing the fate through another act of free will counterproductive, or at best a mechanism to carry on in the relative existence with the cycle of fate and freewill still persisting? Bhaghavan Ramana says that both free will and fate have to be understood by raising the question, " To whom do these belong," which he calls, "Mula Vivekam." Fate and freewill belong only to the realm of individuality, according to Bhaghavan. I may be clarified the correct position of fate/free will vis-a-vis the understanding of the self or the eradication of both of these dichotomies root and branch without a linear action of thought.

Sankarraman

 

 

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[Guest guest]

advaitin, "narayana_kl_71" <narayana_kl_71

wrote:

>

> From

Sankarraman

 

 

May I be permitted to quote the following excerpts from the work,

"Be what you are," by David Godman, containing a dialog on freewill

and fate, the book written by Godman himself being derived from the

original ,"Talks," by Munagala Venkatramaya. What Bhaghavan says is an

ashtonishing commentary on the natural state not admitting of all

pshychological duality.

Q. Is there such a thing as free will?

 

A: Whose will is it? So long as there is a sense of doership (ego),

there is a sense of enjoyment and of individual will. But if this

sense is lost through the practice of vichara, the divine will will

act and guide the course of events. Fate is overcome by jnana,

Self-knowledge, which is beyond will and fate.

 

Q: What becomes of a man's freedom and responsibility for his actions?

 

A: The only freedom man has is to strive for and acquire the jnana

which will enable him not to identify himself with the body. The body

will go through the actions rendered inevitable by prarabdha (past

karma) and a man is free either to identify with the body and be

attached to the fruits of its actions, or to be detached from it and

be a mere witness of it's activities.

 

Q: So free will is a myth?

 

A: Free will holds the field in association with individuality. As

long as individuality lasts there is free will. All the scriptures are

based on this fact and they advise on directing the free will in the

right channel.

 

Find out to whom free will or destiny matters. Find out where they

come from, abide in their source. If you do this, both of them are

transcended. That is the only purpose of discussing these questions.

To whom do these questions arise? Find out and be at peace.

 

Sankarraman

[Guest guest]

advaitin, Ganesan Sankarraman <shnkaran

wrote:

>

>

>

> narayana_kl_71 <narayana_kl_71

wrote: From

> Sankarraman

>

>

> Dear Sir,

> In the wikipedia quoted by you I read the

following interesting excerpts of the Sringeri Swamigal apropos fate

and free will.

> "Fa

> te, as I told you, is the resultant of the past exercise of your

free-will.

> By exercising your free-will in the past, you brought on the

resultant fate. By exercising your free-will in the present, I want

you to wipe out your past record if it hurts you, or to add to it if

you find it enjoyable. In any case, whether for acquiring more

happiness or for reducing misery, you have to exercise your freewill

in the present."

> I understand the

concept of our fate being the result of our having exercised our

free will in the past which we believed to exist. I don't understand

as to how the fate, the resultant, can be wiped out by exercising

free will in the present. Is not the idea of removing the fate

through another act of free will counterproductive, or at best a

mechanism to carry on in the relative existence with the cycle of

fate and freewill still persisting? Bhaghavan Ramana says that both

free will and fate have to be understood by raising the question, "

To whom do these belong," which he calls, "Mula Vivekam." Fate and

freewill belong only to the realm of individuality, according to

Bhaghavan. I may be clarified the correct position of fate/free will

vis-a-vis the understanding of the self or the eradication of both

of these dichotomies root and branch without a linear action of

thought.

> Sankarraman

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

In that discourse the Swamigal has said that the exercise of free

wiill in the present to wipe out the past (fate) is to take the

appropriate steps that would bring about that result. He gives the

example of a nail that has been driven into a pillar. To remove that

nail, the pressure that is now required is proportional to the one

that drove it into the pillar earlier. In effect, what he advices is

that for the woes of samsara that have been brought about by our past

exercise of free will by making ignorant, wrong choices, now, the

shastra prescribes appropriate methods. It is definitely within our

free will to apply them and overcome the 'fate' that is none other

than past wrong exercise of free will. The solution that you have

suggested as that of Bhagavan is no different from this.

 

Regards,

subbu