Lessons - 2

[Gregory Goode]

At 07:07 PM 3/17/98 +0530, Swami Vishvarupananda wrote:

>If there was no free will, there would also be no karma associated with our
>actions.
>Freewill exists relative to the individual. I.e. it is as real/illusionary
>as the individual, its actions and the responsibility as well as the effect
>of its actions.
>What I mean to say is, as long as we experience ourselves as individuals we
>have a free will and we reap the results of the actions this individual is
>performing. Of course from the paramartika level the individual as well as
>its free will, its actions and the results, all are illusionary.


>Though duality is an illusion, the illusionary individual does have the
>freedom of deciding his albeit illusionary karma by his also illusionary
>actions. That is the law of the vyavaharika level. Non existence of free
>will applies only to the 'realm' of nonduality where no action, no karma, no
>thoughts, no feelings, no happiness and no pain exist either.

OM!

I agree with Swami that in the realm of Brahman, nonduality, that none of
these concepts or entities exists.  But the nonexistence of free will can
be experienced on the vyavaharika level as well.  There are many bhaktas in
every religion who see everything that happens as totally ordained by God.
Even their thoughts.  Not to mention, there are the well-respected Western
theories of determinism and compatibilism that, when  can give the
experience of everything happening via some causal process, no freedom
anywhere.

--Greg