free will and prArabdha (was - does Advaitha has an explanation for epilepsy

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advaitin , Shyam <shyam_md wrote:

>

> Pranams

> This is my understanding.

> Whenever there is a violent event like an accident or

> murder what happens is one person's abuse of his free

> may be resulting in an abrupt end to another person's

> life before that person's prArabdha karma may have had

> a chance to get fully fructified.

>

> Of course it is entirely possible that this may been

> exactly by design based on the " victim " 's prArabdha

> karma (as when Krishna tells Arjuna that these

> Kauravas have already slain by me – all you are is a

> nimitta – a instrument for this to happen - Ch11 -

> mayyevaite nihatAh pUrvameva nimitta-mAtram bhava) -

> this is probably what Shri Shastri-ji is referring to.

>

>

> But there may be situations when one takes birth with

> a certain prArabdha-designated course chartered by

> destiny and someone else's abuse of free will may have

> brought about a premature end to that – what happens

> in this case is of course that Ishwara's ever-perfect

> Order takes over and the residual prArabdha of the

> victim which is now added onto the prior sanchita

> karma fashions his next equipment suitable for its own

> ordained self-expression.

>

> Hari OM

> Shri Gurubhyoh namah

> Shyam

 

Namaste Vedantins,

 

Sometimes I write a response to a post on the

list, but find myself reluctant to post it.

At this point, from experience I say to myself,

'no doubt someone will come along and say it

better,' and invariably they do.

 

However, just this once I will post what I

wrote last night, in reply to Dennis, even

though Sri Shyamji has said it above much

more clearly and better.

 

Pranams,

Durga

 

 

advaitin , " Dennis Waite " <dwaite wrote:

 

> Also, I find the statement that 'So long as the individual's karma

lasts,

> his speech and mind return from a swoon, but when the karma

> has no residue, his breathing and warmth depart' intriguing. I am

certainly

> no expert on karma but this is something I don't think I have

encountered

> before. Does this mean that, if X kills Y, this is *because* the

(prArabdha)

> karma for Y is exhausted? (The alternative explanation, that one can

bring

> someone's karma to an end prematurely by 'knocking it out of them'

with a

> club does not seem plausible.)

>

>

>

> Best wishes,

>

> Dennis

 

Namaste Dennis,

 

What you have said above reminded me of something

which I learned last summer.

 

I had always been perplexed by prArabdha vs.

free will. If one person, through an exercise

of free-will killed, another, would it not

have been that person's prArabdha to die?

 

And if so, then how could that predestined death

be a result of another person's act of free will

through which the killer would acquire papa?

 

These two, one person's act of free will on the

one hand and another person's prArabdha on the other,

in this instance did not seem to fit together.

 

IOW, how could the same event be a result

of both prArabdha and free will?

 

Last summer while I was attending a Vedanta retreat

someone kindly answered this question for me.

 

He said that through the exercise of

free will one person could, in a sense,

interrupt or interfere with the prArabdha

of another.

 

Let's take a less extreme case than

murder. Say one person's prArabdha

was that he was destined to receive a job promotion.

Then a second person came along, and through

the exercise of the second person's free will,

(maybe by slandering the first person to the

first person's boss), the first person

didn't receive the promotion which

according to his prArabdha he should

have had.

 

What was explained to me is that the

balance of the first person's karma

was upset or interrupted, by an

excercise of the second person's

free-will. However, the prArabdha karma

of the first person would correct itself,

i.e. something else good would happen to

the first person, and for the second person

who had performed the bad action,

that person would of course, at some point

receive some papa as a result of his action.

 

This explanation satisfied my mind.

I found it interesting, logical and

acceptable. I also found that it accommodated

the co-existence of free-will and prArabdha.

 

In terms of a person dying while in a swoon,

or perhaps these days under anesthesia, or

something of the sort, well it would make

sense that if the person's prArabdha was

exhausted that he or she would not regain consciousness,

but would die instead.

 

Sometimes when I think of some events in my own life

(and I'm sure most of us can think of these types of

circumstances) I realize that if something had just

been a tiny bit different, I might have died. At times

looking back I think, it's an absolute miracle

that I survived certain things. But there it is.

My prArabdha had not been exhausted. :-)

 

Pranams,

Durga