Fate & Freewill

I was recently at a meditation retreat and came across a small old book called, Dialogues with the Guru. You can find a copy here...

http://www.amazon.com/Dialogues-Guru-Changrasekhara-Bharati-Swaminah/dp/B0026WAR80/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249418331&sr=8-1

The following is an excellent excerpt from that book called Fate A Guide to Conduct.

"D.: Does your Holiness then mean to say that we must resign ourselves to fate?

H. H.: Certainly not. On the other hand, you must devote yourself to freewill.

D.: How can that be?

H. H.: Fate, as I told you, is the resultant of the past exercise of your free will. By exercising your freewill in the past, you brought the resultant fate. By exercising your freewill in the present, I want you to wipe out your past record if it hurts you, or add to it if you find it enjoyable. In any case, whether for acquiring more happiness or for reducing misery, you have to exercise your freewill in the present.

D.: But the exercise of freewill however well directed, very often fails to secure the desired result, as fate steps in and nullifies the action of free-will.

H. H.: You are again ignoring our definition of fate. It is not an extraneous and a new thing which steps in to nullify our freewill. On the other hand it is already in yourself.

D.: It may be so, but its existence is felt only when it comes into conflict with freewill. How can we possibly wipe out the past record when we do not know nor have the means of knowing what it is?

H. H.: Except to a very few highly advanced souls, the past certainly remains unknown. But even our ignorance of it is very often an advantage to us. For, if we happened to know all the limitless varieties of results which we have accumulated by our actions in this life and the countless lives that have preceded it, we will be simply staggered at the magnitude and number of such results and give up in despair any attempt to overcome or mitigate them. Even in this life, forgetfulness is a boon which the merciful God has been pleased to bestow on us, so that we may not be burdened at any moment with recollection of all that has transpired in the past. Similarly, the divine spark in us is very bright with hope that makes it possible for us to confidently exercise our free-will. It is not for us to belittle the significance of these two boons, forgetfulness of the past and hope for the future.

D.: Our ignorance of the past may be useful in not deterring the exercise of free-will and hope may stimulate that exercise. All the same, it cannot be denied that fate very often does present a formidable obstacle in the way of such exercise.

H. H.: It is not correct to say that fate places obstacles in the way of freewill. On the other hand, by seeming to oppose our efforts, it tells us what is the extent of freewill that is necessary to bear fruit. Ordinarily for the purpose of securing a single benefit a particular activity is prescribed; but we do not know how intensively or how repeatedly that activity has to be pursued or persisted in. If we do not succeed at the very first attempt, we can easily deduce that in the past we have exercise freewill just in the opposite direction, that the resultant of that past activity has first to be eliminated and that our present effort must be proportionate to that past activity. The obstacles which fate seems to offer is just the gauge by which we have to guide our present activities.

D.: The obstacle is seen only after the exercise of our freewill; how can that help us to guide our activities at the start?

H. H.: It need not guide us at the start. At the start, you must not be obsessed at all with the idea that there will be many obstacles in your way. Start with boundless hope and with the presumption that there is nothing in the way of your exercising the freewill. If you do not succeed, tell yourself then that there has been in the past a counter influence brought on by yourself by exercising your freewill in the other direction and, therefore, you must now exercise your free will with redoubled vigor and persistence to achieve your object. Tell yourself that, in as much as the seeming obstacle is of your own making, it is certainly within your competence to overcome it. If you do not succeed even after this renewed effort, there can be absolutely no justification for despair, for fate being but a creature of your freewill can never be stronger than freewill. Your failure only means that your present exercise of freewill is not sufficient to counteract the result of the past exercise of it. In other words, there is no question of a relative proportion between fate and freewill as distinct factors in life. The relative proportion is only as between the intensity of our past action and the intensity of our present action.

D.: But even so, the relative intensity can be realized only at the end of our present effort in a particular direction.

H. H.: It is always so in the case of everything which is adrishta or unseen. Take, for example, a nail driven into a wooden pillar. When you see it for the first time, you actually see, say, an inch of it projecting out of the pillar. The rest has gone into the wood and you cannot now see what exact length of the nail is imbedded in the wood. That length therefore is unseen or adrishta, so far as you are concerned. Beautifully varnished as the pillar is, you do not know what is the composition of the wood in which the nail is driven. That also is unseen or adrishta. Now, suppose you want to pull that nail out, can you tell me how many pulls will be necessary and how powerful each pull has to be?

D.: How can I fix the number of pulls now? The number and intensity of the pulls depends upon the length which has gone into the wood.

H.H.: Certainly so. And the length which has gone into the wood is not arbitrary but depended upon the number of strokes which drove it in and the intensity of each such strokes and the resistance the wood offered to them.

D.: It is so.

H. H.: The number and intensity of the pulls needed to take out the nail depend therefore upon the number and intensity of the strokes which drove it in.

D.: Yes.

H. H.: But the strokes that drove in the nail are now unseen and unseeable. They relate to the past and are adrishta.

D.: Yes.

H. H.: Do we desist from the attempt to pull out the nail simply because we happen to be ignorant of the length of the nail in the wood or of the number and intensity of the strokes which drove it in? Or, do we persist and persevere in pulling out by increasing the number and intensity of our present efforts to pull it out?

D.: Certainly as practical men we adopt the latter course.

H. H.: Adopt the same course in every effort of yours. Exert yourself as much as you can. Your will must succeed in the end."

Best Wishes,
Ryan Kurczak