Does FREE WILL exist at all ? | Swami | Ramakrishna Philosophy

[@shakuntalamohandas7180]

Swamiji my humble Pranams 🙏🙏🙏 My long longing question has been answered with such clarity 🙏

[@an1rb]

9:10 This is the best discussion of the subject of free-will -- and I have been researching this topic for so many years!

[@ChipotleMasala]

A big solute to you on how you clearly explain free with complete logic. Thank you 🙏🙏🙏

[@soumyajitbhowmick3942]

Enriched! Thanks Maharaj.

[@rkowlagi]

Fascinating ❤

[@dr.parashuramnaik7727]

Thank you

[@brotatimridha3259]

🙏🙏🙏🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

[@kantharajmv6616]

🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@willieluncheonette5843]

"This is not a personal problem, it is a philosophical question. Our lives are both predestined and they are not. Both yes and no. And both answers are true for all questions about life. In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness. If you are identified with your body and your material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind - if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind - then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free. Consciousness means freedom; matter means slavery. So it depends on how you define yourself. If you say, ”I am only the body,” then everything about you is completely determined. A person who says that man is only the body cannot say that man is not predetermined. Ordinarily, persons who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness also do not believe in predetermination. Persons who are religious and believe in consciousness ordinarily believe in predetermination. So what I am saying may look very contradictory. But still, it is the case. A person who has known consciousness has known freedom. So only a spiritual person can say there is no determination at all. That realization comes only when you are completely unidentified with the body. If you feel that you are just a material existence, then no freedom is possible. With matter, no freedom is possible. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect. Once someone has achieved consciousness, enlightenment, he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. You cannot say anything about him. He begins to live each moment; his existence becomes atomic. Your existence is a river-like chain in which every step is determined by the past. Your future is not really future; it is just a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning your future. That is why your future is predictable. Skinner says that man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know his total past. The moment we can know his past, we can predict everything about him. Based upon the people he has worked with, Skinner is right, because they are all ultimately predictable. He has experimented with hundreds of people and he has found that they are all mechanical beings, that nothing exists within them that can be called freedom. But his study is limited. No Buddha has come to his laboratory to be experimented upon. If even one person is free, if even one person is not mechanical, not predictable, Skinner’s whole theory falls. If one person in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man is potentially free and unpredictable. The whole possibility of freedom depends on whether you emphasize your body or your consciousness. If you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. Or are you something inner also? Do not give any preformulated answer. Do not say, ”I am the soul.” If you feel there is nothing inside you, then be honest about it. This honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness. If you go deeply inside, you will feel that everything is just part of the outside. Your body has come from without, your thoughts have come from without, even your self has been given to you by others. That is why you are so fearful of the opinion of others - because they are completely in control of your self. They can change their opinion of you at any moment. Your self, your body, your thoughts are given to you by others, so what is inside? You are layers and layers of outside accumulation. If you are identified with this personality of yours that comes from others, then everything is determined. Become aware of everything that comes from the outside and become non-identified with it. Then a moment will come when the outside falls completely. You will be in a vacuum. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, so afraid of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation. One has to be courageous enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. If you are not courageous enough, you will go out and cling to something, and be filled with it. But this moment of being in the vacuum is meditation. If you are courageous enough, if you can remain in this moment, soon your whole being will automatically turn inward. When there is nothing to be attached to from the outside, your being turns inward. Then you know for the first time that you are something that transcends everything you have been thinking yourself to be. Now you are something different from becoming; you are being. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible. Your actions are related to past actions. A created a situation for B to become possible; B creates a situation in which C flowers. Your acts are connected to past acts and this goes back to the beginningless beginning and on to the endless end. Not only do your own acts determine you, but your father’s and mother’s acts also have a continuity with yours. Your society, your history, all that has happened before, is somehow related to your present act. The whole history has come to flower in you. Everything that has ever happened is connected with your act, so your act is obviously determined. It is such a minute part of the whole picture. History is such a vital living force and your individual act is such a small part of it. Marx said, ”It is not consciousness that determines the conditions of society. It is society and its conditions that determines consciousness. It is not that great men create great societies. It is great societies that create great men.” And he is right in a way, because you are not the originator of your actions. The whole history has determined them. You are just carrying them out. The whole evolutionary process has gone into the making of your biological cells. These cells in you can then become part of another person. You may think that you are the father, but you have just been a stage on which the whole biological evolution has acted and has forced you to act. The act of procreation is so forceful because it is beyond you; it is the whole evolutionary process working through you. This is one way in which acts happen in relation to other past acts. But when a person becomes enlightened, a new phenomenon begins to happen. Acts are no longer connected with past acts. Any act, now, is connected only with his consciousness. It comes from his consciousness not from the past. That is why an enlightened person cannot be predicted. Skinner says that we can determine what you will do if your past acts are known. He says that the old proverb, ”You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is wrong. You can force him to. You can create an atmosphere so that the horse will have to drink. The horse can be forced, and you also can be forced, because your actions are created by situations, by circumstances. But even though you can bring a buddha to the river, you cannot force him to drink. The more you force him, the more impossible it will be. No heat will make him do it. Even if a thousand suns shine on him it will not help. A Buddha has a different origin of action. It is not concerned with other acts; it is connected with consciousness. That is why I emphasize that you act consciously. Then, every moment you act, it is not a question of a continuation of other acts. You are free. Now you begin to act, and no one can say how you will act. Habits are mechanical; they repeat themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort is possible. With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious. So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, ”Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined. If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous."

[@anandpandey5012]

When the comment is more enriching than the video

[@sujaysinha81]

Osho the genius

[@willieluncheonette5843]

@@sujaysinha81 yes

[@willieluncheonette5843]

@@anandpandey5012 taken from a talk by Osho. He is the best.

[@JigyaasuBhaiyya]

​@@willieluncheonette5843do you have any link of that video or any book where this is covered?

[@nezukoshiki3579]

I deserve to be the first comment 😂😂😂😂

[@sanjaychoudhary-tz6qx]

Swami ji Pranam I am feeling some events which repeats in one year, two years. That time same events and meet same people. Is it not predistined? May be quantum entanglement

[@actualization6827]

What a thought

[@dnag02]

Very good there is no free will. If that is true and we have no free will and whatever happens, does happen because of God's will, then there should not be any karmaphol. We must not suffer for bad karmas because it was God's will. And if there is karmaphol, Mr/Mrs God should suffer why us? Swamiji it's more complex than what you think I believe.

[@the-absolute-light]

No one suffers. Suffering may appear to happen to the ego. That is a result of self-ignorance. The ego does not exist. You remain unharmed by the karma. God does not suffer as God is uninvolved in the story of what happens.

[@dnag02]

@@the-absolute-light Sorry. This doesn't satisfy me. Not sure what you are talking about. You are mingling words like ego self-importance blah blah your way without making much sense.

[@dnag02]

@@the-absolute-light no one suffers? Really? Are you drunk? Sufferings can be real.

[@the-absolute-light]

@ you are striking me as someone unfamiliar with Advaita concepts. Maybe the title of the video mentioning ‘free will’ brought you in and you’re in unfamiliar territory. I won’t elaborate then, as I’m not sure how many questions you’d have to ask until you’re satisfied. Feel free to indulge in Swami Sarvapriyananda’s content if you’re open to it.

[@dnag02]

@@the-absolute-light I am ready to listen and pay attention when someone is saying from his/her genuine spiritual experiences. I doubt if rationalizing intellectully using concepts blah blah takes one very far when one is on a spiritual path. Swami V was terrific intellectually but that did not take him far till one day his Guru whose divine life was filled with spiritual experiences, bestowed on him profound and life transforming spiritual experiences. He then experienced some truths which his rational mind was not ready to accept.

[@shawrove]

You have a free will within a framework.

[@jayachandranthampi4807]

Newton's law state that any object will continue it's state, unless acted upon by an external force - that's the law - No freedom, but only dependence called, Inside dependence - Independence!!! It's free, when Intentionally it's done - Intentionally be dependent!!! This in - tension, is Intention! That's freedom....Free Will is Freeing the Willing process. Ie, "Willed" (Intentional) Freedom, through Dependence....

[@nightwing8666]

are u on drugs?

[@MM-dh3wr]

Space and time are not causal….also karma, matter No causality among these but causal within space, within time, ….but no causality between space and time…they are relational or dependent

[@nameless-yd6ko]

Does FREE WILL exist at all ? ~~~ Bad question. Existence is ALL inclusive, so 'free-will/choice MUST exist! Now, the question is where. Is it some universal Reality, a constant, or does it exist solely in the ego of the beholder, and as the topic of conversations, and as the reason that we punish each other yet it does nothing positive... If we imagine that we are Superman and flying, in our mind we are, it exists in our mind. Thus everything exists, the only question might be 'where'. If we want to limit the parameters of the discussion to philosophy and science, then; The "free-will/choice' vs 'determinism' argument is already a fallacy; a false dilemma. That they are already a fallacy, it shouldn't be shocking that there is a superior theory. The quote from Feynman at the end is the death knell of both 'free-will' and 'determinism' and their bastard children 'compatabilism and un-compatabilism! But first, a definition; "Free-will/Choice"; an egoically satisfying theory as to the meaning of a feeling/thought (ego). Get it? Whether the concept of 'free-will/choice' is anything more than an egoic delusion seems to be simply answered by 'deconstruction'. The punch line is that All is One! The Enlightened/Saved, Mystic know this experientially. Quantum physics certainly supports this. So, starting from this point, One single Universe, in perfect balance... One Truth perceived by Consciousness through infinite unique Perspectives (Souls), us. Not anything is actually moving, time is the theory to 'splain the illusion of motion, and now there are concepts of a 'self' distinct from Self with the ability to alter the entire Universe to, most often, make their own little life a bit more comfortable. After all, if you could actually 'change' anything, in the great One, you'd have to also 'change' everything! Talk about an ego trip, a God complex, no wonder people believe in 'free-will/choice'. Not to mention that everyone has the Godlike ability to alter the Universe for a Big Mac! Is this not the very definition of 'chaos'? The concept/belief does have quite the twitching support group, though. I suspect that the notion of free-will/choice is just another acquired belief virus. The symptoms of the defenders supports that theory. So, deconstructing Truth, 'free-will/choice' is impossible, other than as a notion/belief/delusion. Every moment of existence exists Now! "The Laws of Nature are not rules controlling the metamorphosis of what is, into what will be. They are descriptions of patterns that exist, all at once... " - Genius; the Life and Science of Richard Feynman All 'eternity' at once; Here! Now!!

[@manjunatha8131]

Where is free will? He born here because of his accumulated past KARMA,and he again perform lots of karmas knowingly or unknowingly. His life situations forces him to do good or bad karmas. I don't think man has got free will of his own.

[@0004W]

Instead of asking whether humans have free will, ask whether God has free will ? He does not . He cannot have free will and be omniscient at the same time . If you change what you knew in advance then you were not omniscient in the first place . And if you cannot change what you knew in advance you are not omnipotent. Omnipotence contradicts omniscience

[@0004W]

We only have free will … There is no God’s will because there is no God

[@nightwing8666]

these types of videos are not for you then just move along and don’t waste ur time commenting

[@ketakimunshi3354]

🙏🙏

[@rajorshitapas1623]

🙏🙏