[Advaita-l] (no subject)

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> 
> PranAm Anbu Sivam,
> 
> thank you for your explanation. In the view of studentship it helped me. But the law of karma is the reason for my problems with the free will. How can there be free will, if the actions in the circle of life are ruled completely by karma? 
> 


Any karmA requires a kartA, a doer. However, no one can perform any action
without escaping its consequences. The doer, the kartA, is also nececssarily
an experiencer, the bhoktA. Unless there is a place for both doer-ship and
experiencer-ship, with all that these two entail for the freedom or otherwise
of the doer-cum-experiencer, the law of karmA doesn't even begin to operate. 

 

vedAnta teaches you that doership is itself an illusion, but this is a higher
level truth, transcending both free will and destiny, as also the law of karmA.
Realizing this liberates you from being an experiencer also and from the circle
of life and death. Till such time, however, so long as you still wrestle with the
notion of being a doer, what the law of karmA does for you is to place you in
situations where you experience the fruits of your past karmA and give you
chances to do new actions. You had to have been a kartA in the past, in order
to be a bhoktA in the present and you need to be a kartA in the present, in
order to be a bhoktA in future.


The momentum of your previous actions does not predetermine every little
action that you do now, but it does influence you in how you make your choices,
by influencing what it is that you desire, what you find repulsive, what you are
indifferent towards, etc. ISvara as the giver of fruits of action is like a judge.
He may find you not-guilty of a given offence, but that does not completely
ensure that you will never commit that offence in future. He may find you
guilty of some offence and award an appropriate sentence, but does not
prevent you from trying to set it right at a future time. So long as you
consider yourself a doer of actions and an experiencer of their results,
you have and need a mixture of destiny and will. Destiny is not ironclad
and immutable, and will is not completely free! 

 

Regards,

Vidyasankar

       
 		 	   		  
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