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svargA /narakA: A la Smt. SumitrA -2: Answer to Shri Krishna

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Visu9 • July 9, 2002 


Sri ramAnujsya caraNau Saranam prapadyE

/namaskAram to all /bhaktAs.

In her latest posting on the topic of /svargA and /narakA, Smt. Jayasree saranathan and Sri Tathacharyar seem to agree that 

/prapatti is an ideal, reaching which is not entirely in our hands. The example I gave of the game of /paramapata cOpAnap paTam contains an element of chance. Chance is not a concept that is directly built into our /SastrAs. 

There is another nagging question: That of Free Will acting upon us. This was built into a question posed by Shri Krishna to our moderator. Opposed to the concept of Fre Will, is the concept of Determinism, often also referred to as Fate. The two are also balanced by the concept of Grace, which even though an English word is borowed from the /samskruth /grahnAtu: "Receive us". That is what we say when we do /homam or any offerings offered in fire. "Please come and take or recive our offerings". His very receiving these offerings is a Grace. Since He does not take without giving, we also get what we want. /aNu/gruhnAtu is what follows after /gruhnAtu. That is /aNugraham. You make Him recive to get what follows after His taking our offerings. 

It is safe to say that our ancestors did not believe in chance. They saw God in everything --- even in evil. Death is called /nidhanA. /nidhanA is actual wealth (Blessing) that always is before us!  Death is not a good translation. A better translation is Peaceful Death, the Death that we all crave for, when the time woul come. What other wealth (Blessing) can be more desirable. Death is always before us and we crave for a nice peaceful death. 

No element of chance is allowed as part of a thought. In practice we use the word chance to indicate both success and failure are possibilities. For us this is part of Grace with a difference. 

How does this chance work in life? Mahatma Gandhi was often denigrated by the descendants of the erstwhile East India Company and their media lords (Reuters and the Daily Mirror in those days) as a saintly leader against modernity and machines. This was a powerful combination of words: Saintliness is old and surely an old thing cannnot be modern. That is a popular conception in Europe. The war lords of the East India Comapny's descendants played on this imagery. 

But Gandhiji has emphatically stated that he does not know of any machine greater than the human body [including the mind]. He was truly fascinaed by its automation. He stated that his goal was to make his daily functioning automatic to the accuracy of a machine. He pointed out at the vital fucntions: breathing, the heart's working, digestion, etc. He wanted daily routines to be done systematically in the manner of vital functions with a machine-like automation. He stated this explictly in these very terms. 

I will give an example from Gandhiji's life: Louis Fischer was a Washington Post correspondent. He asked Gandhiji for an interview. Gandhiji was time-conscious and functioned like a clock. Even though he did carry a pocket watch, it was more for checking others! Gandhiji gave him a one-half hour interview. The secretary of Gandhiji (Shri Mahadeva Desai) had told Fischer that Gandhiji was strict about time enforcement. Later Fischer wrote a nice book on Gandhiji.

The interview was coming along well. Then all of a sudden Gandhiji took the pocket watch out of his dhOti roll and told Fischer that his 30 minutes were up. That was the end of the interview. /kAlan (Lord of time) had taken over. 

Gandhiji was a firm believer in automation of routines. Time was only one factor; he chose routines very carefully as part of the automatic system. 

Our ancestors saw God's system as an automation. It rolls with precision  like any automatic system should. Manual manipulation is of course possible by God. That is the message of the /gItA, the concept of /avatAr being the ultimate manipulation. Grace can be routine as well as contrived. 

This automatic system contains a subsystem of decision points. If the answer to a question is (/yA: yes: Do: Defined as right), the system's flow of control for a subsystem takes one route. If the answer is (/mA: No: Don't), then the flow of control takes another route. The decision box is a combination of alternatives: /mA + yA, which is /mAyA. /mAyA is a system of "Dos and Don'ts" with its causes and consequences. But it is a system which means one decision simultaneously affects all others of a certain subsystem. This is like a third-party control system something like a remote system of which we are not aware, but God is. Because God's mayA is the system. Thus it is God's /mAyA which is acting as a total system. Visu is only part of that. My brother Balu is also part of that. We may be for each other or we may be against each other. I may not even know what the real truth is as it is also time- and place- dependent.

So /mAya has built into it what is called a system of checks and balances. The /mAs act as /checks against something which is corrupt. The result is a balance and because of this balancing /mAyA, the world spins liks a top in motion. Top is /pamparam in /tamiZ. One may also think of /mAyA as balancing my interests with those of my brother. /rAmA's interests and /rAvaNA's interests have to be balanced against the interests of the whole system of the automation. If the balancing consideration is in favor of /rAmA then /rAvaNA must fall in a way that is just for him as well. This is an example of /mAyA.

The /gItA has to say this on /mAyA as an automation:

Verse 18:61:

/IsvaraH sarva bhUtAnAm hruddEshE/arjuna tishtati |

/bhrAmayan-sarva/bhUtAni yantR/ArUdhAni mAyayA ||

The loving God, ArjunA, resides in the hearts of ALL BEINGs |

Through /mAyA He causes ALL Beings to revolve (act and roll) as though they are ALL mounted on a spinning top (/pamparam). 

Thus God has the task of dealing with visu, balu, the cat, the bacteria, the trees and everything as part of one gigantic system. He does this as a routine through /mAyA. /mAyA is God's Routine. 

/prapatti must be viewed as part of this /maYA Routine. Even though I may work hard for /prapatti, I do not know how my desire for /prapatti fits into the /mAyA Routine. There my success of becoming a prapannA is God's Grace. 

I can only strive; I have the power to execute. : /karmanyEva adhikAraH tE, mA phalEshu kadAcana | I do not have the power to produce the result of my actions. 

Here /mA is part of /mAyA. Let us leave the fruit of /prapatti to God's /mAyA, while striving for it. He knows best. This concept of Grace is built into the system of pra/patti. 

I would like to request our moderator Shri Mani Varadarajan to excuse me. I would like with his permission to attempt an answer for a question adressed to him by Shri Krishna.

In a message dated Wed, 3 Jul 2002 17:05:41 +0530, kadirik@infosys.com writes:

> In your reply to tg_ram, you wrote:
> 
> >tataH anumatya'.  Broadly put, the Supreme Self, though no doubt
> >capable of totally being in control, is at first neutral (udAsIna)
> >regarding the activity at any particular instant of the individual
> >self.  He waits for the individual to choose a course of action,
> >as it were. Once the individual has decided on a particular course of
> >action, the Supreme Self "permits" (anumatya) the individual to
> >proceed and facilitates the course of action to continue.
> 
> Very basic questions:
> 
> (a) How would you answer this: Isn't the act of 'choosing a course of action' also another action? 

That is one of the inputs to a decision box in the /mAyA Routine.

> (b) How would you interpret Gita's reference to the Jiva as akartA (in 13.30), given that there is some space given to the jIva to act on its own here?

My input is one input at a given point of time into the /mAyA Routine. Simultaneously there are several inputs at the same point of time unknown to me all being fed for them to be processed at a single point of decision.  The Routine accepts all inputs and considers this as the input of pra/kruti to be able to process it.  The individual /jIvA is not the actor except in the execution of his part. To considr him as the actor (/kartA) is to forget that there are other actors in the play and without the participation of all there is no play. Even if the individual chooses to act badly, it is of no consequence for the play in most instances. There will be an output, whether the individual likes it or not.

> (c) Does the Lord know what the Jiva is going to choose? If no, He is not omniscient. If yes, why does He 'wait' for the choice to happen?

He knows in the sense that he is secure that his Routine is unfailing, as the routine is run by His Holiness Shri //Adhi/seshA with chips made of the dust beneath the Feet of /ambAl, the Shri /vasihNavi! (Song No. 2, /SankarA's soundarya/lahari.) God does not worry about individual details. He acts when the Routine or parts of the routine come of age. This may depend upon how much input, what kind of input, how often etc. I suppose so. This is just an attempt. 

For example, in Gandhiji's example, Mr. Fischer could have stopped on his own and thanked Gandhiji at the end of 29 minutes. Mr. Fischer did not do so and Gandhiji's Routine acted to get the required output. Did Gandhiji know that Fischer was not going to stop? Should he have warned Mr. Fischer as they do in exam halls? Would it make any difference? How did Gnahdiji know without looking into the watch what Mr. Fischer did not know, but sould have known?
> 
> Thanks,
> Krishna

/naH svI/kurvaka asmAt krupAm: Wherefore, cause us to have Your Grace. 

Visu


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