Lot of discussion is going on today about Fate and Free will. I thought of conveying the message of Bhagavan Ramana regarding the same. This is his famous saying to his mother. “The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their Prarabdha Karma. Whatever destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever destined to happen will happen, do what you may do to prevent it”.
FREEWILL AND DESTINY ARE EVER EXISTENT. Destiny is the result of past action; it concerns the body. Freewill and destiny last, as long as the body lasts. But jnana transcends both. The Self is beyond knowledge and ignorance. Whatever happens happens as the result of one's past actions, of divine will and of other factors. Success and failure are due to prarabdha karma, and not to willpower or the lack of it. All the activities that the body is to go through are determined when it first comes into existence. One should try to gain equipoise of mind under all circumstances. That is willpower. Everything is predetermined. But a man is always free not to identify himself with the body and not to be affected by the pleasures or pains resultant on the body's activities.
There are only two ways to conquer our destiny or be independent of it. One is to enquire for whom is this destiny, and discover that only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent.
The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, by realizing one's helplessness and saying all the time, `Not I, but Thou Oh Lord' and giving up all sense of `I' and `mine', and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you. Complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny. You can achieve this effacement through Self- enquiry or bhakti marga through sharanagathi.
Fate and free will arises to those alone who have no knowledge of the Source, and they will dispute which of them can conquer the other. Those who have realized their Self, which is the source of both fate and freewill have left such disputes behind, and will have nothing more to do with them.
Any comments welcome.
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Dear Vedanti, I enjoyed reading your posting on 'Fate and free will'. Your quote of the great sage of Arunachala was enlightening.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that destiny is the result of past action. But, some sages try to distinguish between,Destiny or fate and Karma. If we believe in destiny or Fate,our free will may not have any meaning.Because, we may not be able to correct our past actions or misdeeds or Sins. No doubt, these things belong to the body,as you mentioned.But, we are embodied at this stage.
As we are embodied, as we are endowed with free will, we can correct our mistakes by good deeds and purge our vasanas ,purify our mind and with equanimous mind,we can ultimately meditate to transcend our mind intellect equipment and become aware of our true nature.Untill then, we have no choice,but to accept this embodiment,and get rid of past Karmas or sins by good deeds and Sattwic qualities and not to relegate every thing to destiny or fate. My point is: Past sins are responsible for the present sorrows and present sins are responsible for future sorrows.It is nothing to do with Destiny. It is every thing to do with Karma-phala. In other words, we are responsible for our actions and not destiny. This is Theory of Karma.
I do agree with you that Jnana transcends body,mind, ego and destiny and karma.Ego is bound by Karma.
Your last statement is beautiful and enlightening.When once, I am aware of my true nature,I am not this body,mind or intellect or ego,and I am that immutable,omniscient,all-pervading,selfluminous, imperishable,infinite Brahman.
I enjoyed reading your post.Please consider my comment as a complement to your post and not any criticism.
Regards,
Eswara Dutt.
Thank you Dr. Dutt for your detailed comments. I am glad we started the discussion on this very important topic in Vedantha. This is a very complex and difficult subject to understand. Here is my reply to your concerns.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all self-realized Indian masters unequivocally denied the possibility of Freewill. Example Swami Vivekananda, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi etc. Bhagavan says that the only freedom we have is to turn our mind inwards and renounce all activities there. Since we all are bound by MAYA, we don’t realize that the individual is an illusory entity, produced by the imagination of the mind, being itself an illusory entity springing from the ‘I’ thought. Our ‘mind’ cannot be stopped by our will. The ‘WILL’ that controls even the minds reaction to events, its ability to remain detached as mere witness, without the sense of doer ship must be the one “SUPREME WILL”. This ability then, from the individual standpoint cannot actually be freewill but rather ‘FREEING WILL’.
Then what of the struggle that takes place in a person between his desire for ‘MOKSHA’ and the pull of the vasanas to enjoy the name and fame or sorrow for pain and sufferings?
We must view both forces in the eternal struggle as “DIVINE FORCES”. Each as the manifestation of the divine will. Both the enslaving and redeeming elements have but only one origin and that is the ‘SELF’. This can be illustrated with the following example.
Both the villain and the hero enact a play on the stage. The story is written by only one novelist and they have to act according to their lines and cannot exchange lines to their desire. That is why this is the wonderful play of MAYA, the basic mechanism of the world illusion. For the truth of the matter can only be convincing with surrender of our wills. As Bhagavan says, by turning the mind inward through vichara or through sharanagathi, in the process one can achieve the sattvic qualities by nishkama karma. When once the jnana dawns on the individual, all his agami and sanchita karmas are burnt. Only he has to exhaust the prarabdha karma through the existing physical body. He gets the videha mukti.
I hope I made my point clear to you. If not we can further discuss about it after the class.
Sorry I mean to say Jeevanmuktha.
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