FREE WILL AND PREDESTINATION - DO THEY CO-EXIST?

As opposed to Free Will, predestination seems to be a philosophical fact. After all Karma or the law of cause and effect would have no place in philosophical thought if there wasn't some truth in it - but is there? Or does it only have a place because you have accepted it as a fact from others?

We know that in physical law there is a cause and effect, but in the mental realm? That is just an assumption that everyone accepts as being true because they have been told it, and for some reason or other believe it so readily.

This argument of predestination and free will has been going on for centuries, not because people are being obstinate in their belief, but because there is a semblance of truth in both, and because of that, each adherent wants to make it the WHOLE truth. It never is.

Ramana Maharshi was almost right making that statement about predestination on the assumption that if one was not meant to have work , no matter how hard he looked for it he would never find it. There is some truth to what he said for two reasons, the culture he came from and the fact that the average man is bound by the influences of his own making, i.e.: personal karma.

But the whole argument right from the beginning has been stated very well in the Upanishad when God created the world, he made two princes who he gave free will to . With this free will, to make a long story short, one returned to his father God ,and the other through ego, created a number of worlds, Koshas, which have their own concomitant laws attached to them. It is these concomitant laws which gives the appearance of predestination on the one hand , and no proof that there is not Free Will on the other hand.

It is really the belief in past and future lives - reincarnation, that gave rise to predestination - and reincarnation cannot be proved or known either. There is not one iota of evidence anywhere that the mind in itself is affected by anything other than free will. It is equally through free will that a lazy man will not find work no matter how hard he tries to because of the obstacles he sets up for anyone hiring him, then it does for a lazy man to find work while following all the correct procedures in finding a job. He usually finds the job.

Was Ramana wrong in what he said? Not really, as most people fall under the influence of their own mind's patterns and succumbing to those influences which are so easily accepted. But that is not to say that most people cannot jump outside the boundaries of their own limitations .What makes them want to is the crux of the matter. But it doesn't matter what makes them want to. The fact they CAN DO it disproves what Ramana said. For all intents and purposes, what Ramana said could never be proved.

Again there are too many murderers who get away with their foul deed without reaping anything. So that disproves karma and predestination. So not taking such an extreme example, there are too many acts which have an apparent "non reaction".

It seems because both arguments have been going for as long as man has delved into his own behaviour that one finds people of a dull mentality have no free will and are at the beck and call of the concomitant laws of this physical world, and apparently of their mental one also, for the common man, in brooding over negativities, will enhance his capacity to reap nothing but destruction for himself, as he can't but help to make the wrong CHOICES, which presupposes predestination and here you must realizes it is he that chooses to think negatively, which presupposes free will.

There comes a point to all men, that a fork in the road is reached and no matter how he reasons it, he will by his own will take one of the roads, whether one tosses a coin or incants eeny meeny miny mo, or for that matter constructs some self-accorded reason for choosing one over the other.

Science itself proves by the action of the subatomic particle, as light that moves without any apparent reason or law to appear here and there with out any sign or pattern or cause and effect, and thus exemplifies that without it's free willed action, the shadow of the wave of that light would not appear equally as random.

The true - so called Master creates no karma, thus his Will is totally free and without affect on himself, thus as the average man's consciousness is expanded towards that exhalted state he is less controlled by his superstitions and karma and is not therefore predestined to act in a controlled manner, but can exert his own will. If it is his own will then it must be free. A non free will, presupposes there is another willing you "to do".. Having the concept of THE OTHER, again presupposes that there is a God or some outside entity such as experienced by a schizophrenic mentality, to will him "to do".

It is even more apparent that most people use their own free will in what would be considered a controlled pattern. In other words, like sheep, their will seems to be of a collective nature and they act together as one, most of the time. That concept can easily ring a bell as it sets up the stage for the argument that we are in fact all ONE, collective particles of a whole.

Should that be so, that we are all one, and also in fact must be God, then God having free will, implies that we as particles of that Oneness and acting in unity ,have free will also. It is this act of unity that the species seem to behave in an apparently predestined way. Even the ant who we presuppose acts for the common good in a common manner is in fact using his individual free will, BUT IN UNISON WITH ALL THE OTHER ANTS . It is no less so for us.

So as we awaken out of deep sleep and the first personal pronoun emerges, it moves in a free willed manner which only "appears" to be predestined. This appearance is had only because we cannot conceive that we as individual particles are the one particle of free will itself . For example , you have billions of cells in your body that are self willing to "be an arm" or to be a leg or an eye. Scientists have taken a cell from the leg of a frog and grafted it onto the belly of a frog, and that cell "knows" that it is a leg, and it wills another leg to grow out of the belly of the frog.

One can think of another of Ramana's axioms. All sentient beings perceive, therefore they must also apperceive, therefore they are self aware. If they are self aware and they will the leg, then they self-willed the leg. That is free will.

Man of course being the complexity of his entire function goes free- wheeling -willing on his merry way working out some karma via his base nature and getting away with others, and the higher evolved he is, the less karma he has, and the more free will he exemplifies. Free will is like a commodity. Some men can amass money. Well some people amass free will in the same way. The slug type man does not have much free will therefore he is more predestined to become what he set in motion prior, but you cannot judge all men by the slug mentality. There are some men who create no karma either and they have total free will. Somewhere in between, each argument is exemplified by various stages in man's journey towards pure consciousness.

The argument is not a fair one, as both Free Will and Predestination exist side by side - and yet thinking of it, as it should be thought of, in a mental way, I would say that we have our own Free Will to use all the time if we but knew it. All the rest is natural and bound by concomitant law. That can't be helped. The world as we know it cannot exist without it.