Free will (was: Katha upanishad verse I.2.23)

[Giri]

On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Charles Wikner wrote:

> But to return to some semblance of sanity: so long as there is
> not-Self, there is ego; and where there is ego, there is volition.

Wonderful post, Charles. Ramana Maharshi puts it succintly,
'As long as there is individuality, there is free will.' As long as one
thinks and is under the illusion that (s)he is a separate individual i.e as
long one has an ego, there is free will.

Let us look some more on what RM says,

D: It is said in our scriptures that God creates, sustains, and destroys
all and that He is immanent in all. IF so, and if God does everything,
and if all we do is according to God's law, and had already been planned
in the Cosmic Consciousness, is there individual personality and any
responsibility for it ?

M: Of course, there is. The same scriptures have laid down rules as to
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what men should or should not do. If man is not responsible, then why
should those rules have been laid down ? .... If you believe in God
and His niyati working out everything, completely surrender yourself
to Him and there will be no responsibility for you. Otherwise, find out
your real nature and thus attain freedom.
[...]
Surrender appears easy because people imagine that, once they say with
their lips 'I surrender,' and put their burdens on their Lord, they can
be free and do what they like. But the fact is that you can have no
likes or dislikes after your surrender and your will should become completely
non-existent, the Lord's will taking its place. Such death of ego is
nothing different from jnana.

> Surely non-volition and dharma are contradictory?

        Not necessarily. A jnani upholds dharma but he/she does that
non-volitionally. Of course, one can say that a jnani does not uphold
anything and it appears that he upholds dharma only to the ajnani.

        But you are correct, on the vyavahara level, non-volition and
dharma are contradictory. If one uses non-volition as an excuse not to
uphold dharma, to escape responsibilites, then one is certainly doomed.
Nagarjuna (ok, ok, he is not a vedantist) mentions this is worse than
materialism.

> However, on returning to the vyaavahaarika level, the praatibhaasika
> descriptions revert to theory (i.e. they are not directly perceived),
> and concepts such as non-volition must be abandoned as inapropriate.
> Sadly, it can easily happen that the ego claims the experience as a
> mark of its spiritual development, and thereby stores up great trouble
> for the future: one effect of this claiming is to cling to a concept,
> such as non-volition, as a core belief.  You need not accept my word
> on this, just examine earlier posts on this thread, and you will find
> the admission that non-volition is a _belief_ that is based on a _past_
> spiritual experience.

        One can believe all they want and call it "based on my spiritual
experiences" but if those experiences contradict what is mentioned in the
Shruti, and words of wise sages like Patanjali, Shankara, Ramana, the
experiences are to be thrown out as daydreams.

Namaste.