The non-reality of free will (2.5.97)

[Cameron Reilly]

-----Original Message-----
From:   Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian [SMTP:rbalasub at ECN.PURDUE.EDU]
Sent:   Friday, May 16, 1997 3:18 AM
To:     Multiple recipients of list ADVAITA-L
Subject:        Re: The non-reality of free will (2.5.97)

Cameron Reilly wrote:

>I believe I also demonstrated some weeks ago, through a variety of =
>Maharshi's quotes, that he would & did support the position of =
>non-volition, as does every jnani.

Not the way you think. It's quite clear that you have read none of the
posts on this topic and continue to make obtuse and tangential remarks.
Quotes were also posted by Giri where the Maharshi makes it clear that
one has to make an effort to follow the shastra-s and that involves
free-will.

Again, I point out that the existence of effort does not imply free will.
Effort is always spontaneous. What Maharshi said is correct, there MUST be
effort. This has nothing to do with free will.

There is no free-will in the absolute sense _because_ there
is no action in the first place. However if you admit something acts
then there is free-will.

I do not admit that something acts. There is the appearance of something
acting, that is all. And there is the appearance of free will, but both are
illusory. This is not a case of semantics, as you obviously seem to think.
Free will implies the existence of an entity which has the capacity for
independent action. And this entity does not exist, not even in Maya.

Charles pointed out the fallacies of your
thinking quite well.

This is exactly why I asked you to stop taking maharshi's quotes out of
context.

>We can all extract quotes and use them to our purpose. I am trying to =
>encourage the members of the list to look within for their answers, not =
>to quotes.

Thanks for the encouragement. However remember that inner voices told
Jeffrey Dahmer what to do and inner voices also told Idi Amin what to
do. This inner voice bussiness is usually resorted to by people only
when they cannot logically explain their position.

Ramakrishnan.