Free will - Fate and surrendering both

[Guest guest]

PraNAms to all.

 

The discussion has been drifting from different directions ultimately to

surrender all this at the alter of devotion.

 

Actually Free-will and fate are two sides of the same coin. Starting from free

will you will have fate to deal with and starting from fate you will have

free-will to deal with. Fate is the result of freewill and freewill leads to

fate. Both involve ignorance on the part of jiiva as there is kartRitva bhaava

or I am a doer notion in the mind. The wheel of freewill - fate is an eternal

cycle giving rise to birth and death with transmigratory existence. Any argument

that there is freewill without fate or fate without freewill and that there is

freewill and fate are all within the realm of ignorance as three is a notion of

doership and enjoyership or an agent of an action or the recipient of the

results of actions in the past.

 

To get out of this wheel of freewill-fate is goal of life and ultimately it

involves the elimination of the root cause for this cycle - the ignorance of

oneself and recognition that one is neither doer not enjoyer - akartaaham

abhoktaaham.

 

In order to appreciate that I am akartaa or abhoktaa, neither doer nor enjoyer,

I have to surrender the wrong notions that I am kartaa and bhoktaa.

Surrenderance is action based on clear understanding that these are notions in

the mind. Since mind feels that kartRitvam and bhoktRitvam are real, since the

survival of ego rests on both - it is not easy to give up the notions that are

suicidal for its existence. Hence appreciation of the Vedantic truth

intellectually would conflicts the emotional attachments of longing by the ego

to its fancies including the notion that I have to surrender (one day) and I am

advaitin and I am spiritual etc. Hence from practicle considerations, there is

a need to bring an object of love where surrendering is easier. That is the

essence of sharaNaagati.

kaayena vaacaa manasendriyam va

bhudhyaatmanaava prakRiteswabhaavaat

karomi yadat sakaalam parasmai

naaraayanaayet samarpayaami||

has to be done not just vaacaa - but with mind and intellect - where the ego

itself has to be surrendered. Then only the freewill-fate cycle gets eliminated

leaving just vibhuuti of the Lord.

 

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda

[Guest guest]

kuntimaddi sadananda <kuntimaddisada wrote: > Actually Free-will and fate are two sides of the same coin. Dear All,Please allow me, Sri Sadaji, to complement your posting with a short transcript of ne of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi's talk on the subject. [The words between braquets is the commentary of the Editor, Arthur Osborne.]Yours in Bhagavan,Mouna................................Devotee: Has man any free will or is everything in his life predetermined?Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi: Free will exists together with the individuality. As long as the individuality lasts, so long is there free will. All the scriptures are based on this fact and advise directing the free will in the right channel.[is this really a contradiction of the reply given earlier? No, because, according to Bhagavan's teaching, individuality has only an illusory existence. So long as one imagines that one has a separate individuality, so long does one also imagine its free will. The two exist together inevitably. The problem of predestination and free will has always plagued philosophers and theologians and will always continue to do so, because it is insoluble on the plane of duality, that is on the supposition of one being who is the Creator and a lot of other, separate omnipotent and omniscient - he does not know what will happen, because it depends on what they decide; and he cannot control all happenings because they have the power to change them. On the other hand, if he is omniscient and omnipotent he has the fore-knowledge of all that will happen and controls everything, and therefore they can have no power of decision, that is to say no free will. But on the level of advaita or non-duality the problem fades out and ceases to exist. In truth the ego has no free will, because there is no ego; but on the level of apparent reality the ego consists of free will - it is the illusion of free will that creates the illusion of the ego. That is what Bhagavan meant by saying that "as long as the individuality lasts, so long is there free will.'' The next sentence in his answer turns the questioner away from the theory of practice.]Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi: Find out who it is who has free will or predestination and abide in that state. Then both are transcended. That is the only purpose in discussing these questions. To whom do such questions present themselves? Discover that and be at peace......................................