lessons-2

[Swami Vishvarupananda]

Harih Om,

>I am grateful to Swami Vishvarupananda for his response. I am not
>advocating that the human does not make any effort. If my post came
>up that way, I did not mean that. May be, I did not put sufficient
>introductory sentences to my post.

I'm sorry for misunderstanding you. And I did not mean whatever I said
personally. I was actually reacting more to the general ongoing trend on
effortlessness and non existence of free will. Please forgive me for
misinterpreting your statements they were a little misleading to me.


>that I have repeatedly stated that the human has to work and I
>referred many times to Isha upanishhad statement "... kurvann eva
>iha karmANi..", that the jeeva has to do the work (effort) and do
>the work. One cannot escape from that.

I must confess that I was off the list for quite a while and have not
followed up your postings. What you say here is exactly the point I was
trying to make.

>Swami Vishvarupananda and I differ in the interpretation of what is
>called *human* effort. What the swamiji calls *human* effort, I call
>that effort is put in (by the jeeva) only by divine grace. I am saying
>that the human cannot and should not take credit for it. What is the
>*human effort* due to ? I suggest that it is by bhagavadkr^pa.

Yes I agree.

>The swamiji did not address the two rhetorical alternatives that I
>suggested. Ishwara does not require *human* effort to supplement His
>blessings. Nor, if Ishwara blesses otherwise, the so-called "human effort"
>does not make a difference.

But to receive the grace it has to be earned by the same way you state above
in your citation of ishopanishad.

>Swamiji says "... till the ego surrenders.". Exactly. But the
>ego-surrenderance would not be there as long as the human thinks he/she is
>making an effort to better him/herself.

Yes. You are very right. Just that unfortunately some people think, rather
than the tought of 'I'm the doer' the effort itself may be abandoned. That
was the reason of my argument.


>I am not attributing Shri Shankara says anything about human effort here.
>I am interpreting "...aham bhAvodayAbhAvo..." to say that the human should
>not have even the *thinking* of the egoistic I and that is the culmination
>of knowledge. The human should not even be conscious that he/she is not
>having the thinking of the egoistic I. That feeling should not even arise
>in the mind and that is the culmination of knowledge. I submit that when
>the human is thinking that he/she is putting an effort, the egoistic I is
>very much present. I referred to Shri Shankara's Viveka ChuDAmaNi verse in
>that context.

Again, sorry for misunderstanding your statement, yes, now that you explain
it more clearly I fully agree with you.


>I did not say anything about effortlessness., only on taking credit for
>the effort. I suspect the Swamiji may have another objective in mind in
>making the above statement, rather than to respond to what I posted.

Yes. I responded not so much to your post than to an entire idea that has
been in discussion. I'm sorry if it sounded personal. That was not what I
intended.

BTW, to clear a rather trivial misunderstanding: you may refer to me by
'she' rather than 'he' :-) :-)

Om Om Om
Swami Vishvarupananda

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