[Advaita-l] A Conversation between Divine Will and Free Will

[Mahesh Ursekar]

Pranams:

Beautiful! What better expression of Advaita than how aBhinavaguptA explains it!

Many thanks, Mahesh



On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 02:31:20 -0800, praveen.r.bhat at exgate.tek.com
<praveen.r.bhat at exgate.tek.com> wrote:
> praNAm Masheshji & others,
> 
> >> But one may argue about why others see as a jnAni acting
> >> if there's no prarabdha.
> 
> Maheshji wrote:
> > I think the Gita gives a clue to this in one of the tougher verses to
> > understand. 4/18:
> > "One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is
> > intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position,
> > although engaged in all sorts of activities"
> 
> > So, while the Jnani is acting also, s/he is not acting i.e. creating
> > no kriyamana karma and whose prarabdha karma and sanchita karma is
> > destroyed. This view is covered by  "inaction in action". But what is
> > "action in inaction" i.e. while not acting, how can one do action? I
> > have read a number of commenteries on this aspect but none have been
> > very satisfying. Any thoughts?
> 
> I hope the following extracts on above Shloka justify "action in inaction"
> 
> from Shankara's commentary, translated by swami GambhirAnandA:
> "...he who sees action because of egoism being implicit in the idea, 'I am
> happily seated quietly, without doing anything'..."
> 
> from aBhinavaguptA's commentary, translated by Dr. S. Sankaranarayan:
> "he who recognises the non-actions [of his] i.e., the actions performed by
> others, as actions being performed by himself (or who recognises the
> non-actions undertaken by others as being undertaken by himself), because of
> his intrinsic nature of the fully risen state"
> 
> kriShNArpaNamastu,
> --praveeN
>