[Advaita-l] Self-effort or Fate?

[Aditya Kumar]

 Namaste Bhaskarji,

>  IMHO, if everything is pre-destined Upanishad would not have asked us to do brahma jignAsa :-) It would have said : wait when the time comes it would hit you :-)
A : Hahaha. True. 


 As you know that is not the case, in sAdhana chatushtaya, approaching a right guru (shrOtreeya brahmansishata etc.), guru seva, shravaNAdi sAdhana etc.  there will be an insistence on self-effort.  So, we can conclude that to get the mind set to put self-effort, we need some samskAra (pUrvajanma saMskAra) and that saMskAra is nothing but  that fate which is the driving force behind our self-effort :-)  
A : This is a good answer and probably the standard one. I kind of feel the same but Moksha cannot be attained by Katma phala right? Another sub-question is : To learn from Guru, should he/she be a brahmanishta? Most people say we will never know if the Guru is Brahmanishta, but is this true? There are obviously some initial signs like an auspicious presence, good conduct etc and some more evident signs like having Yoga siddhis.   
>  There is a beautiful and meaningful dialogue between HH Sri Chandrashekhara bhArati and a disciple with regard to fate and free will.  I reckon it is available somewhere in the web.  Pls. go through it. 
A : Sure, I will have a look, thanks. 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar