[Advaita-l] (no subject)

[Anbu sivam2]

Dear Andreas,

I am continuing my previous post this time with emphasis on idea of karma
and karmaphala.

In this universe all causes have effects.  There is no cause that does not
have an effect.  This is the cardinal principle of the theory of 'cause and
effect'.

Everything that a person does causes something to happen and this called the
fruit of action.

All fruits of actions are enjoyed or suffered.  That is how it is
exhausted.  In other words no fruit of action ever go futile.

It would be illogical for someone else to enjoy your fruit of action.  So
much so the fruit of action follows the person in this life or the future
life.  The raison d'etre for all future life is because of this unehausted
karmaphala or fruits of action.

Bhagavan Ramana said: "Karma kim param? karma thajjadam".  All karmas are
inert and have no volition of their own.  This means the karma in itself
because of its inertness cannot bear fruit unless there is some sentient
being playing a role in retributing the fruit.

In order for the fruit to be one of our enjoyment or suffering it had to be
retributed to us otherwise we would be doing karma without the fruit coming
to us.  This firmly places the need for the role of a sentient being as the
retributor of karma.  Let us call Him Easwara.

How would we convince ourselves that Easwara is fair in his retribution?  A
certain standard or qualification has therefore to be defined to our
satisfaction for us to accept his role as the judge of our actions and fair
retributor of their fruits.  For example in the biblical concept a person,
in spite of his differences with another in the nature of one's actions, in
differing abilities, his differing longevity of life with another and so on,
is picked to be 'saved' and such whimsical action is termed as grace.  Those
abandoned are to suffer in eternal hell.  Many have not reconciled to such
arbitrariness.

What are therefore the qualifications?

First of all Easwara has to be a witness of all our actions.  He has to be
awake to our actions all the time in order to be a true witness.  We as
humans are aware of only a single this at a single moment to the exclusion
of everything else.  Also we humans do lapse into sleep and become unaware.
A being with such drawback of knowledge is called 'kinjignyan' or little
knower!  Thus a human being with these drawbacks cannot be the judge for he
is not endowed with the faculty to be aware of all things at all times.
Such ability to know all things at all times is called 'sarvagnyathwam' and
therefore Easwara has to be a sarvagnyan or all knower.

Secondly, we see in our legal system that the judge depends on others
because  he cannot be a witness of all things at all times and also that
bias can be imputed on his version.  Therefore he depends on 'witnesses'
whose version is subject to questioning by competing lawyers.  This seems
just given the difficulty in finding an all knowing person.  However we do
see that these 'witnesses' are manufactured and set up by the learned
counsels to win the case! No fool proof system is possible because of
inherent limitations in this universe which we call as prakrthi.  However
that cannot be an excuse to set up a faulty system to rule our lives and we
would rebel against it.  So we have to ensure that the judge has to be all
knowing without the limitations of time, space and cause and thus dispense
with the need for other witnesses and their lawyers.  But then the question
of bias on the part of the judge has to be satisfactorily addressed.

If you happen to be your own judge of your own actions and given the fact
that all actions are desire born to satisfy one's own self it would make you
to minimize all your crimes and even portray them in best light and as
unavoidable necessity and even reward yourself for the crimes!  And all good
actions will be magnified and again rewarded enormously!  Actually there
will never be any punishment at all!

This would be a farce of a judge and so you cannot be your own judge.

When anyone else is a judge there is always the possibility that such a
person can be contended to be biased against you for no one would ever
accept harm to oneself and so invent excuses to show that he is blemishless.

This again excludes anyone else being a judge including God who is seen as a
different entity than oneself.

So Eswara who has the qualification of being sarvagnyan has also to be your
own self in order that he be not accused of any bias and that he would the
very best not to harm you or abandon you to the tender mercies of a devil.

These two conditions viz. being sarvagnyan and being the self of you makes
Easwara the true judge.

He would therefore not eternally damn you, for being your own self he would
get eternally damned and there is no way He would do that.  He therefore
gives appropriate fruit that is enjoyed or suffered by you and he keeps
constant company with you.

So much for the retribution of the fruits of karma.  Now we have to ensure
that such retribution is not diminished or avoided or in any way violated
because such an eventuality would defeat the need for Easwara that we
asserted in the first place.

So we contend that He will be the space and time and cause and even you in
the matter of your enjoyment and suffering.  Our Veda says:

Purusha eva idhagm sarvam
God is all this world of experience indeed

Yath bhootham yat cha bhavyam
Which has gone before and yet to come

Utha amrithathvasya easaanah
Yes, God is the controller of immortality

Yath annena atirohati
unlike food, is not consumable i.e He cannot be exhausted.

(For more on creation please read my Second Musing:
http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2009-September/044094.html)

As human beings endowed with a mind full of desires we would not like to
suffer and therefore would like to avoid suffering which we know comes to us
because of our own action only and no other.  So the mind will give new
dimensions to its concept of its freedom and liberty unfettered by its own
past.  Such is the claim for free-will.  Yet we do have the free will but
the question is do we need the free will to do karma to rot in a world of
misery or do we need the free will devoid of karma?


Regards,
Anbu

On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Dear Andreas,
>
> Your have raised some good points.
>
> I did tell you that you can do whatever you want but I did not mean that
> there will not be  consequences.
>
> Even in the western religion a person is judged for his actions and is sent
> to heaven or hell for ever, all on the basis of his actions in one single
> life that is short or long, fully equipped or ill-equipped.  Even in this
> world the ruler of the land has authority over you and judge your actions
> and punish a transgression of the law he has laid.  If you are one of those
> who accept that there is consequence for your action then you would
> condition your action in such a way that the consequence is not
> unpleasant.   In other words, your free-will has limitation galore.  Did you
> consider that?
>
> Suppose you contend that no one should judge your actions, you still have
> to contend with the lack of abilities to do what you want and the obstacles
> that may thwart your desire. Hindus contend this limitation in the idea of
> thaapathrayam.
>
> So you have to be clear to yourself as to how free is the free-will that
> you are talking about.
>
> You have said: "I didn´t remember my previous births and the times when I
> have to enjoy or to suffer for my previous deeds are unknown to me.
>
> Will such knowledge really help you or disturb you?  The entire life is one
> of dhukkam only and who wants to know what all one has to suffer?
>
> The third point you have raised is:  "Is there an action possible that
> completely new and uninfluenced by the past karma."
>
> No one can do anything new without recourse to some knowledge and
> experience gained by some past actions.  You would agree that most of the
> time this past knowledge and experience play an unconscious role.   We
> merely extend this idea to our experiences in previous life.  In our concept
> even Easwara when he re-creates the world he recalls his past.  (In our
> concept there is no first creation for all that is created is destroyed and
> then recreated.  Thus there is no way an initial creation can be
> satisfactorily established.)
>
> The fourth point you have raised is as follows:
>
>
> "If all my actions in life were  destined, whenever I have done an action
> in this life in the impression of free will then it means the idea of a free
> will is just an illusion of my mind, because the real source of my actions
> is always karma."
>
> If you are bringing in the idea of illusion about your free-will, then let
> me add to it that the karma per se is equally an illusion, for you and I are
> one Parabrahmam and there is nothing other than this Brahmam.  No world, no
> karma and no suffering, not now, not in the past and neither in the future.
> In fact there is no time at all for us! There is nothing different from us.
> No sajaatheeya, vijaatheeya and swagatha bEdham.
>
> I am going to keep the concept of karma and karmaphala in some detail in
> another post for that  needs your whole attention.  I will deal with why the
> idea of destiny is involved in it.
>
> In sum and substance please understand that you are Brahman who is
> completely and totally free however due to beginningless avidhya you have
> forgotton your nature. Such an urge for realization does not occur to anyone
> unless he is accutely aware of his sufferings and yearn for the release.
>
> Regards,
> Anbu
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <
> svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> >
>> > 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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