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Free-will vs Pre-determination - poser- 2

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jasn sn • August 6, 2002 


SRIMATHE RAMANUJAYA NAMAHA.
The analysis continues:- 
 
The next Q-2:-

# Does the ability to know, act and experience confer
any freewill to the
jiva.? (Sri Ram kumar_s mail)


The answer given:-

The jIvA is bestowed with knowledge and freedom.
Without the freedom to use
the knowledge the jIvA would merely be a slave and
"initiative" becomes a
moot point.


The poser:-

How does the jiva become bestowed with knowledge and
freedom,
When the ability to know, act and experience are all
determined by
1 karmic ‘limitations’
2.the combination of gunas decided by the above factor
3. ‘It willed and became many’ nature of Brahman in
conferring the above two and  the (now) so-called
free-will too on the created ones.

 When the above 3 are the determinants of freewill,
how can we call it ‘freewill’ at all?


1. Taking up the first notion,
 when all actions of the jiva  are bound or fashioned
by karmic ‘limitations’,  the problem is not as much
to do with free-will as it is to do with karma. Karma
restricts the  elbow room, how-much-ever the jiva is
willing to exercise the free will (if at all it can)

That the karmic limitation is greatly carried from the
purva janma  is being narrated  by Bhishma in the
Bhishma-yudhishtira sambhashana in Anusashana parvam ,
chapter –8, of Maha bharatha.
Bhishma recalls the discussion on issues like this
between Parameshwara and Parvathi and tells them to
Yudhishtira.

In the relevant portion to our discussion, we find an
answer to the hard fact of life.
 Parvathy asks –
why do some people receive results in proportion to
their efforts,
And some people receive results even if they had not
made any efforts
And some people do not receive any or proportionate
results for their efforts?
The answer from Parameshwara include specific
references to efforts of sorts and the results that
accrue depending on the nature, attitude with which
they were  done etc. In effect it is the kind of
karmic experience that the person has to undergo which
decides the nature of effort. (as discussed in the
previous mail (poser –1)

2. In what way the ‘limitation’ is put into operation
is explained by the guna factor.
The lord explains in Gita – the combination of the
three gunas as deciding the performance of action, the
gunas, in turn limited by the vasanas bequeathed from
previous births.
     
 This factor is explained  by the Sankhya school,
further seconded by Sri Ranmanuja himself in V.S
Accordingly, Creation is explained in terms of gunas.
(earlier we discussed in physical terms)
Creation or evolutionary process is possible only when
there is heterogeneity in the constitution of
prakriti. The heterogeneity is the result of
differentiation of the prakriti into the three gunnas.
When the differentiation ceases there is no creation. 
Sattva represents the condition of completed
development and perfect equilibrium. 
Rajas represents the condition of active up-building
heterogeneity, the want of equilibrium in which is the
cause of the progress of evolution.
And Tamas represents that other condition which causes
the evolved universe to tend towards dissolution.

Now the issue of interest to us:-
These three gunas make up the material of the body of
the incarnating soul which decide the mental and moral
qualities possessed by it in the embodied condition.
This material itself is so chosen as to suit the KARMA
of the incarnating soul, is what sankhya and Ramanuja
say.
In other words, the gunas, picked up by karmic
limitations are the determinants of our efforts. If
efforts presuppose freewill, then it is a fallacy. 


3.Now the third, yet the primary  determinant. (The
logical sequence is from 3rd to 1st. For the purpose
of better understanding, the reverse has been
favoured.)
It willed and became many -
Our learned readers must be aware of umpteen number of
interpretations in this regard.(in this context, Sri
sriramÂ’s  analogy (though a clever one) relating the
Brahman –antharyami- to quarks may not stand scrutiny 
– The mystic of Brahman is that it is both the quark
and the element it constitutes – ‘yAnum nee, athandri
en pirAnum nee erAmaneÂ’ (TCV))

While explaining  the pradhana (V.S, adikara v-5)
(prakruti)factor,(see BG 14-3 also) Ramanuja makes
this observation 
“..a thing which exists in the condition of a cause
acquires the character of an effect merely by getting
into another condition. Whatever thing and whatever
(general) nature (thereof) exist in the condition of a
cause, that same thing and that same nature (thereof)
exist also in the condition of an effect.”

Once again
To qoute sri Ramanuja in the Bheda-bheda vada in Sri
Bhashya to Vedanta sutras, 
“By means of the individual self which is held in
bondage by its past karma, there is produced that
limiting condition which is found in association with
that(self) itself;”
preceded by another explanation,
“although the Brahman is not made up of constituent
parts and is found everywhere, yet there certainly
results distinction even in relation to the Brahman by
means of the limiting conditions, such as their
intellect etcÂ…just as (distinction results) in the
case of the spatial ether by means of (limiting
conditions like)pots etc.”

(The pot and spatial ether referred to here describe
the condition as this. The ether which exists within
the pot is said to be conditioned by the
pot.(ghataakaasha) On the destruction of the pot , the
ether which is within it becomes one with the ether
outside (mahaakaaha)which in itself is unconditioned.)
 
The acquirement of ability to know, act etc is to be
seen in the light of ether conditioned by the pot as
against mahaakaasha. What is in mahaakaashaa is in
ghataakaasha too. The conditioning pot is like the
karmic limitation etc. But what is found at this level
( read effect, as per the pradhana logic) is what is
defined at the cause level. That is, it is the
grand-will (if we may call it so)that comes into parts
as freewill, while freewill at the parts level can not
sustain its existence on its own.

Jayasree sarnathan

Quote of the mail:-
The disciple asks “ By whom willed and directed does
the mind light upon its objects? Commanded by whom
does the main vital air(prana) proceed to function? By
whose will do men utter speech? What intelligence
directs the eyes and the ears (towards the respective
objects)?"  
              -KENOPANISHAD. 

The answer is obvious!!






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