[Advaita-l] (no subject)

[Anbu sivam2]

Dear Sri Andreas,

I hope you are aware of the law of karma that is one of the fundamentals of
Hindu Dharma.  Merely it is what you sow so you reap.   But we say it in a
different way viz. for every karma there is an appropriate fruit of karma
dispensed by God as the judge and *everyone should enjoy or suffer this
fruit and that is unavoidable.*  That is one reason we keep coming back
again and again.  From this idea it should be clear to you that we are here
to enjoy and suffer the fruits of our karma of previous births. Not all of
them are exhausted in one birth, so we keep coming again.  (Since we were
here before it is clear that we were never created, but this is a different
topic altogether!)  As we do come we have acquired a taste to do certain
things from the previous birth and that lingers in us and prompts us to do
new karma.  Whatever is your free will one cannot deny the power of this
taste in overriding our intentions.  This explains why in spite of our best
intentions we do 'mistakes'!

In other words what we do is because of our taste for it that we have
acquired in the last birth yet *because* we do something here and enjoy and
suffer something here that we acquire new tastes.  These tastes that prompts
us to do resides in us and operates through what we call Guna which are
three in number.  So a person is born with one Guna that is more pronounced
than the other two.  So we acquire the body and mind (by God's will) that is
capable of doing certain things to the exclusion of others and enjoying
things differently from others.  For example you like to be in business
rather than in the army or teaching.  And again someone is prone to kill
while another is like a dog which can only lick a flood of milk and no
more.  In a way certain limitation is set upon our birth in the matter of
doing and enjoying.  This is our destiny.  You have to  understand that we
are born here to enjoy and suffer.  Karma is essentially painful and it is a
suffering. Yet we do have a mind that can or cannot accept this destiny.  We
would like to do whatever we want.  That is the essential idea of a free
will.  Do the Hindus hold that there is free will?  Yes,  We do!  Do the
Hindus hold that there is destiny?  Yes, we do!  Is there a contradiction in
this?  No, not at all.  All you have to understand is that you can do
whatever you want and if it is possible for there are a number of things
that are not in your control that may prevent you from doing.  *However the
outcome is always the same viz. the enjoyment and suffering that you are
destined for.  *

*Just remember, you can do whatever you want but the outcome will always be
the same!*

Whenever you do anything with all the free will you think you have employed,
just understand that it was destined!

Regards,
Anbu

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Andreas Leitz <Murugan2003 at web.de> wrote:

> PranAm Anbu Sivam,
>
> please excuse my late answer.
>
> Sri Vidyasankar gave to me the answer about the qualities from the student.
> I am not sure if the student will have the qualities from the very beginning
> or if he has to earn some of them while studying. But before I go on to ask,
> I will look for the commentary of Shankara when I stay in India in July.
>
> At the moment I think there is free will, but some time ago there was a
> discussion on the free will by some members of this list. Their discussion
> confused me a little. Sri Vidyasankar is right, I am just a beginner of this
> philosophy and some parts I didn´t understand till now. So I placed the
> question before the learned members of this list. If there is free will, no
> explanation is needed. But when you give a negative answer to the free will,
> the question arise, who takes the decision to become a student. The same
> question arise to all aspects where  a decision has to be done. But I didn´t
> have an answer to this question. Who takes the decision to become a student,
> if not the student ( aham) himself?
>
> Thanking you
> Andreas
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