message to my friends

[Sankaran Jayanarayanan]

"Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM> wrote:

>On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, f. maiello wrote:
>

[..]

>> Concerning Bhagavan RM's sannyas:
>>
>> Q. "Why then did you leave home in your youth?"
>> A. "That was my prarabdha.  One's course of conduct in this life
>> is determined by one's prarabdha.  My prarabdha lies this way,
>> yours lies that way."  Talks p251
>>
>
>Sorry but this notion of destiny is baloney.  All that prarabdha is, is
>the effects of your prior actions.  Those actions required free will
and a
>sense of doership.  Similiarly it is ones actions today which determine
>the "destiny" of tomorrow.  Renunciation means the renunciation of
>prarabdha karma as much as any other kind.
>

Actually, what *you* are driving at is strictly non-sense. For one
thing, Ramana did not say "one's conduct is determined by one's
praarabdha." He said "one's course of conduct..." which is something
quite different. If I'm born in India as a male, it is quite unlikely
that I wear a kimono when I greet people, as I almost certainly would
were I born a Japanese woman. What I am born as is determined by my
praarabdha karma, which in turn decides my "course of conduct" not my
conduct per se.

Perhaps Ramana meant that he had performed some saadhana in his previous
life in which he had never striven to move "up" in the eyes of the
society, and the current of his spiritual thoughts led him away from the
society in his present life.

Moreover, Ramana might have renounced his praarabdha karma and still
have spoken those words for making the listener understand better. An
excellent parallel is JaDa Bharata's answer to the king when the king
asks Bharata "Tell me who you are, disguised under the appearance of a
fool!" Bharata answers,"Being born in such-and-such manner is for the
sake of fruition of previous actions. Why then do you enquire the reason
as to who I appear to be?" What Bharata meant was that to the king, he
[Bharata] appeared as a stout person of medium height, and the reason
for this was the karma in his previous lives, although it makes no sense
to say that Bharata saw himself a transmigrating individual, which is
clear from consideration of the context.

[..]

>Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
>

Kartik

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