free-will - (was Deep Sleep & Sub-conscious mind...)

September 30, 2008

Namaste Shri Sadananda and Shri Shyam,

Thank you for your kind messages of Sat Sep 27 (Shri Sadananda's message #41977 and Shri Shyam's #41981). 'Free will' is of course a very tricky concept, and I seem not to have got across what I was trying to say. So let me try to clarify.

Shri Sadananda interprets my meaning as follows:

I have true freedom of action - when I am free from attachment of personality.

Very sorry to have given this impression. What I was trying to say is that action is never actually free. The very idea of 'free action' is essentially confused. All action belongs to the changing world of appearances produced by nature or prakriti. This is a world of vyavahara, of transactions that are driven by the world's conditioning in space and time. All actions in this world are driven by conditioning; and they can appear to be 'free' only to the extent that we are ignorant of the conditioning that drives them.

It is this world that Shri Shankara called 'maya' or 'delusion'. Here, 'mithya' or 'confusion' appears, founded upon 'ajnyana' or 'ignorance'. In this world of changing acts, all seeming freedom is a deluded and confused appearance. Yes, some acts in this world may appear to be partially free; but this partial freedom never actually belongs to any act where it confusedly appears. Any such appearance of freedom is expressed from elsewhere, from an unaffected and impartial consciousness that is completely uncompromised by any conditioned and partial act in the apparent world.

That consciousness alone is truly free. And it alone is unattached, completely impersonal. It is that consciousness which shines all by itself in deep sleep, completely free from any taint of ignorance. The ignorance that is associated with deep sleep is a mistaken attribution from outside, from the confused perspective of false identification as a waking person in the seeming world.

Shri Shyam says, concerning the attainment of freedom through a reflective and spiritual enquiry:

I fail to see what this has to do with free will. Freedom as jIvanmukti and a limited freedom for every jIvA in exercising a choice to act, not to act and how to act is talking about two different things. The latter is needed to channel the jIva to the former. That is what you yourself admit - "to the extent that someone may reflect back down" this someone who is reflecting back down is he exercising free will or is this reflecting also completely driven? If it is driven then why use the term "may?" - The very term "may" betrays a conscious choice relevant to the individual - is it not?

Yes indeed, I quite agree that the idea of 'free will' needs to be carefully distinguished from the true 'freedom' or 'moksha' that is sought through spiritual enquiry. The idea of 'free will' is a self-contradictory confusion which appears quite perplexingly, in a world that we perceive and think and feel through our falsely personal identities. This is a conditioned world, made up of perceived and thought and felt appearances. In it, what may truly be called 'freedom' cannot anywhere be found.

What's truly free can only be found by reflecting back within, to an impersonal consciousness where a jivan-mukta is said to be 'established'. Through such an establishment, a jivan-mukta is said to express more directly and more clearly that true freedom which is to be found in each of us -- in an impersonal consciousness that we all share in common, beneath our personalities.

Where someone is identified as a person, there needs to be a reflection back beneath the personality, so as to find that consciousness from which all freedom is expressed. For anyone who is personally identified, such a reflection is essential, in order to see that person's actions as expressing freedom.

A jnyani is said to be one who rightly understands that all her or his acts express true freedom perfectly, from underlying consciousness. But further, such a jnyani is said to also rightly understand that every person's and all nature's acts express that same true freedom perfectly, from that same underlying consciousness.

In short, it is said that a jnyani sees all others as jnyanis and all nature as expressing consciousness with perfect freedom. It's only us ego-ridden persons who mistakenly see ourselves and others (including jnyanis) and all nature as suffering from any kind of limitation or bondage or partiality or imperfection.

Thus it is said that so long as we maintain an egotistical perspective, lack of freedom and such other imperfections will appear. But, if someone is fortunate enough to meet a jnyani, that someone may be led and inspired by the jnyani to reflect beneath the ego into a consciousness from where no limitation nor bondage nor partiality nor imperfection is ever truly found.

And here, when it is said that someone 'may' be led and inspired, I have a little bone to pick with Shri Shyam, in his interpretation of what I said. The word 'may' primarily indicates a doubt or ignorance that arises from not knowing properly. This word 'may' only indicates 'a conscious choice' if the reader confusedly superimposes a muddled sense of knowing and choice upon the basic ignorance that this word 'may' primarily implies.

It's only by this confusing superimposition of 'conscious choice' upon an underlying ignorance that the concept of 'free will' arises, in a seeming world of partial appearances. In the case of a sadhaka who 'may' be led and inspired by a jnyani, the confusion is shown up in particular. Who is it in the end that decides? Is the leading and inspiring determined more by the troubled will of the sadhaka or by the untroubled knowing of the jnyani?

But, having picked this little bone, I must heartily agree with Shri Shyam about the primacy of nature or prakriti, in the motivation of all action and happening. Unlike the action of an instrument, nature's motivation is not forced from elsewhere. As nature motivates all actions in the world, that motivation does not arise from any external object. It arises essentially from consciousness within, as an inner inspiration that arises freely, completely of its own accord.

Originating thus, in everyone's experience, all nature's happenings express that inmost consciousness from which they each arise. What's thereby shown is nothing else but consciousness -- as all of the reality that is expressed in all phenomena which nature manifests to anyone, at any place or time.

And I must also heartily agree with Shri Sadananda, that the reflective logic which I try to use is 'circular' and paradoxical. It is essentially circular: in the sense that it always cycles back from our pictures of the world, to the knowing ground where they originate. Returning thus to its subjective ground, this logic is also necessarily paradoxical: in the sense that it must go beyond (para) all belief (doxa) from which our pictures originate.

Because our pictures are incomplete, they do not tell us everything. In particular, they leave us uncertain about what is going to happen; and thus it seems that our personalities are free to make choices which decide the course of events in the future. But as we know more about the future and about our personalities, such 'knowing more' must accordingly reduce the choices that our personalities can make. If we knew everything, then the course of events would be fully predetermined, and all freedom of choice would be logically ruled out.

Hence, freedom of choice must logically depend upon the ignorance that we find mixed into our incomplete pictures. Depending thus on ignorance, any so-called 'freedom of choice' must be logically confused and it must contradict itself. This is its self-contradictory circularity.

The only way out is to reflect back down, from the building up of our constructed pictures. Reflecting thus, we may return beneath our built-up pictures, beyond their foundations of belief. Thus we may investigate eventually beyond all compromise, towards an unpictured ground where a completely impartial knowing is quite free from any taint of involvement with some partial choice. It's only there, beneath all choice, that any freedom can in truth be found.

Ananda

September 30, 2008

praNAms

Hare Krishna

Due to 3rd Qtr. end, I am unreasonably busy at office :-)) just tempted to poke in with couple of points....

Sri Ananda Wood prabhuji wrote :

That consciousness alone is truly free. And it alone is unattached, completely impersonal. It is that consciousness which shines all by itself in deep sleep, completely free from any taint of ignorance. The ignorance that is associated with deep sleep is a mistaken attribution from outside, from the confused perspective of false identification as a waking person in the seeming world.

bhaskar :

That is beautifully said prabhuji...When I said the same thing, somebody (I think it was Sri Jaishankar prabhuji...pardon me if I am mistaken) said, if that is the case, I'll go to sleep instead of trying for realization :-)) I'd like to hear the comments of those who have seen the avidyA bIja shakti even in this state of deep sleep:-))

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!

bhaskar

October 1, 2008

Dear Sri Ananda,

I very much agree with your words:

“What I was trying to say is that action is never actually free.

The very idea of 'free action' is essentially confused. All action belongs to

the changing world of appearances produced by nature or prakriti.”

We do appear to make choices from moment

to moment and we may also ‘feel’, at least at times, that we are

free in our choosing. Yet, interestingly, while we may deliberate and

come to a decision which we regard as a free and independent choice, those who

know us very well may simply find our behaviour, whether physical or mental,

quite predictable. In other words, we may experience a process of free

will or free choice, yet those who know us observe what they regard as the operation

and result of temperament, which is no more than predictable repeated patterns

based on the past.

For all our angsting we often ending doing

what others expect or predict.

In the Gita III:5 Krishna

states:

“Indeed, no one ever exists for even

a second

without performing action because everyone

is made to perform action helplessly by the

(three) qualities born of causal nature.”

(Swami Dayananda’s translation.)

Of course, these are the three gunas born

of prakriti.

Sri Ramana offers a sobering thought on

this topic:

“Only those love to dispute which of

the two, fate and the will, will prevail are they who have no experience of

(the truth of) him named ‘I’ who is the one root of both.”

(from Ulladhu Narpadhu: v19)

Regards,

Peter

advaitin [advaitin ] On Behalf Of Ananda Wood

30 September 2008 01:51

advaitin

Re: free-will

- (was Re: Deep Sleep & Sub-conscious mind...)

Namaste

Shri Sadananda and Shri Shyam,

Thank you

for your kind messages of Sat Sep 27 (Shri Sadananda's message #41977 and

Shri Shyam's #41981). 'Free will' is of course a very tricky concept, and I

seem not to have got across what I was trying to say. So let me try to clarify.

Shri

Sadananda interprets my meaning as follows:

I have

true freedom of action - when I am free from attachment of personality.

Very sorry to have given this impression. What I was trying to say is

that action is never actually free. The very idea of 'free action' is

essentially confused. All action belongs to the changing world of appearances

produced by nature or prakriti. This is a world of vyavahara, of

transactions that are driven by the world's conditioning in space and time. All

actions in this world are driven by conditioning; and they can appear to be

'free' only to the extent that we are ignorant of the conditioning that drives

them.

<snip>

October 3, 2008

Namasthe,

Some questions seeking answers. I am sure these and many more are there as one passes every milestone on the path to more 'knowledge'.

What exactly do we mean by 'free will'? Is it derived from 'mind'? Who runs the 'mind'? The 'conscious self' or the 'mind' runs the 'conscious self'? Getting answers for these may lead one to clearer aspects of 'free will'. The 'journey' 'within' happens in 'silence'. 'Mind' is quietened. 'Speech' fails to pass on the 'experience'. The best one can give is only the 'road map'. 'Journey' has to be undertaken by the BMI. The 'knowledge' cannot be transmitted. What we 'think' as 'knowledge' is only plain information of the 'roadmap'. Probably that is why the insistence of 'guru'. The beauty is 'guru' appears. Till then 'swadhyaaya' may continue.

Regards

Balagopal

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