The non-reality of free will

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Thu, 1 May 1997, Jonathan Bricklin wrote:

> Falling down a flight of stairs can lead to an experience of non-duality,
> just as thoughts of a law suit against the building owner can bring them
> back again.  Which one is a superimposition of ignorance?  We're talking
> about what the sages of the Upanishads (and others who may have never heard
> of them) may have been talking about.  It is their experience, after all,
> that gives their texts their sacred authority, and not the other way
> around.
>

Says who?  The Vedas were emphatically _not_ authored by anyone even God.
(Rshi means mantra-drshta or see-er of mantras.) As the Mimamsa shastra
explains, the association of certain names to certain texts is purely a
matter of convention and we are under no obligation to believe the Vedic
sages ever even existed.

> A falsehood, such as the reality of free will, always depends on the
> experience of a person, itself a false experience.  There are  myriad
> quotations from the Upanishads that support the non-reality of a free
> standing agent.  The textual support for this is hardly an issue.
>

Rubbish.  All the words of the Upanishads describe a free-standing agent
called Brahman.  Advaita Vedanta identifies this Brahman with the atma or
individual soul.  Therefore you cannot deny free will on these grounds.

> A tenuous connection to Advaita parampara is not necessarily a tenuous
> connection to enlightenment.  Or do you not accept that there have been
> adepts who became enlightened without the benefit of a human teacher?

I personally don't know of any.  But the Advaita parampara tells me there
are some. :-)

> Well, if you would like a 200 page manuscript to peruse, I'd be happy to
> send it to you.
>

The little you written here tells me enough.

> The authority of advaita lies with the experience of the sages who composed
> its words.  This is a traditional point of view.

Which tradition?  Certainly not Advaita Vedanta which as mentioned above
follows the Mimamsak view on the apaurusheyatva of Shruti.

> Apparently, as other
> sacred literature attests to (see above), their shruti ("revelation") was
> not confined to a particular time or culture.

First one point, shruti (literally that which is "heard") doesn't really
map to the English word revelation.  The attitude Hindus have towards
Shruti is it is something innate.  It's like when we talk about Newtons
Law of Gravity.  Gravity existed long before Newton and would have existed
whether he had lived or not.  Gravity wasn't "revealed" to him nor did he
really "experience" it.  He just saw it for what it was and explained it.
And so his name got attached to it.  That's how I feel about Shruti and
rshis.

> Perhaps if you were to take
> a peak at, say, the Tao Te Ching by the aforementioned Lao Tzu, your sense
> of  what is relevant to advaitism might expand.

I may have read about Lao-Tzu but if I did I've forgotten what he said or
did.  I'm more familiar with another person you mentioned, the Baal Shem
Tov, I daresay more than you seem to be.  I mean you do realize an
essential part of his teaching was the practice of the 613 commandments of
Judaism don't you?  I know there was mystical stuff too but this cannot be
ignored.  What relevance does that have to Advaita Vedanta?  None.

> I prefer to equate smirti
> with dhyana, as Vacaspati Mishra did, and defer to its authority, but I am
> prepared to consider it in your terms, as authoritative traditional
> literature.

Vachaspati Mishra like every other pandit before and after him considers
Smriti to mean the authoritative texts based on the Vedas.  Now the word
smrti literally means memory so perhaps you are confused by this.  Or
perhaps you may be referring to some passage in the Tattvavaishradi.
Which is a work on Yoga not Vedanta.

> Since a nondualistic metaphysics (such as advaitism) lacks, by
> definition, the support of an agent self, I ask you for a quote that
> supports the reality of free will.  I ask this in the name of  logic.
>

I don't know about this advaitism but Advaita Vedanta considers there to
be Brahman.  That Brahman is limitless and is capable of doing anything.
In fact it does do everything.  It is everything.  So you cannot say
Brahman lacks free will.  The individual soul or atma is not different
from Brahman.  (You wanted a quote.  Ahambrahmasmi.)  It only considers
itself different because of Maya or delusion.  Therefore only the
delusional person will think he is not free.  In truth you are as free as
Brahman is.

--
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