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Free-will vs Pre-determination (Ramanuja)

From the Bhakti List Archives

jasn sn • August 14, 2002 


SRIMATHE  RAMANUJAYA NAMAHA.

The analysis continuesÂ…

Based on the responses received so far, certain
clarifications are given here:

# Freewill must not be equated with positive effort.
A sense of discomfiture owing to the mix-up of
freewill and positive effort is palpable, because of
precepts handed down to us. These precepts, which have
been handed down to us in the post-Ramanuja period,
can not be countered. Therefore our attempt must be on
lines of how to see them in the backdrop of a wider
perspective without undermining their import. An
attempt to that effect is given in poser-5, which will
be sent to the list shortly. 

# Contention of lack of or absence of freewill also
does not undermine the importance of action, as it is
not synonymous with non-action or inaction. The
contention only reiterates that what is perceived as
freewill at any given point of time by a jiva is
actually a scripted will. The entire exercise is to
see the same thing through two different paradigms.

# The discussion is necessitated by the fact that this
question has not been dealt with in direct terms by
sruti texts. What is available is for interpretation
and inference only. (I stand to be corrected by our
learned friends. If  sruti texts are available, It is
requested that readers produce them in this forum.)
The reason could have been that whatever people did
those days, they did as a commandment of the Lord. I
have heard that even beggars in those days who sought
alms chanted bhagavan nama and accepted them (alms) as
what had been given by the lord.

# Therefore the analysis is continued, quoting
relevant portions from Sribhashyam to Vedanta sutras,
(in this mail) and sruti texts in the next mail and
some arguments drawing inspiration from RamanujaÂ’s way
of argument in another mail. Then the poser –5 is
planned. Meanwhile readers are requested to correct me
wherever I sound wrong or absurd and contribute their
thoughts too. 

The following has been taken from the Sribhashyam to
Vedanta Sutras- iii-3, wherein Ramanuja spells out the
reasoning for why and how the Brahman can be proved by
shatras only. In the course of ascertaining whether
Brahman is the sole producing agent of the produced
things, he says that this cannot be proved by logic.
Because our logical inference stops with the jiva as
an agent for produced effects and the produced
effects, though have resulted from the ‘desire’
(freewill?), are due to karma and the qualities of
goodness that the jiva has come to possess from the
Brahman plus prakruthi sambhandam. In the matter of
how to relate this to someone (Brahman) who is
distinct from the jiva, our logical inference fails to
help us and so the search goes on and ends up in
shastras – so says Ramanuja.

In RamanujaÂ’s words :-
(Note: - wherever the expression qualities of
‘goodness etc’ is used, it must be read that
‘goodness’ stands for the auspicious qualities that
the jiva comes to possess when the Brahman which was
One in beginning ‘became many’ and etc stands for the
three guna-mix)

“…all produced effects such as bodies, etc are seen to
be associated with pleasures, etc, which are
themselves the produced effects of the qualities of
goodness, etc. Therefore it has necessarily to be
admitted that all produced effects result from the
qualities of goodness etc. The qualities of goodness
etc which form the source of wonderful variety of
produced effects, are indeed the special
characteristics found in the (producing) cause. It is
(only) in consequence of the modification of the
internal organ (or manas) of the person who is
possessed of those (qualities) that it becomes
appropriate to declare that those produced effects
result from those (qualities).
And in the case of such a person, the possession of
those (qualities) is due to karma. (*The footnote here
says that karma here means actions done in previous
births and the effects of those actions.*)
Therefore for the very commencement of any particular
work, like the producing agentÂ’s knowledge and power,
his association with karma (also) has necessarily to
be admitted to form, indeed, the cause of produced
effect.
(It has necessarily to be so admitted) for the reason
that the wonderful nature of (the agentÂ’s) knowledge
and power is (itself) due to karma. Even when it is
held that the desire is the cause of the commencement
of work, it is not possible to give up the (agentÂ’s)
association with karma, for the reason that that
(desire), which is specially characterized by its
relation to some particular object or other, is itself
due to the qualities of goodness, etc.”


This passage seems to well substantiate our inference
in poser –1,

THAT IT IS THE KIND OF KARMA ONE HAS TO ENDURE THAT
DECIDES THE ACTION, PROMPTED BY THE SO-CALLED
FREE-WILL AND NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND-  
Established by the example of the bird trapped inside
the room.
Jayasree  sarnathan.

 


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