https://selfrealization.home.blog/2018/10/12/ramana-maharshi-on-free-will-and-destiny/
The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their past deeds.
Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try how hard you may.
Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to stop it.
This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.
Questioner: “Are only important events in a man’s life, such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts in his life, such as taking a cup of water or moving from one place in the room to another, also predetermined?”
Ramana Maharshi: Yes, everything is predetermined.
Questioner: Then what responsibility, what free will has man?
Ramana Maharshi: What for then does the body come into existence? It is designed for doing the various things marked out for execution in this life. The whole programme is chalked out. “Not an atom moves except by His Will” expresses the same truth, whether you say “Does not move except by His Will” or “Does not move except by
karma”. As for freedom for man, he is always free not to identify himself with the body and not to be affected by the pleasures or pains consequent on the body’s activities.
Free-will and destiny are ever-existent. Destiny is the result of past action; it concerns the body. Let the body act as may suit it. Why are you concerned with it? Why do you pay attention to it? Free-will and Destiny last as long as the body lasts. But wisdom (jnana) transcends both. The Self is beyond knowledge and ignorance. Should anything happen, it happens as the result of one’s past actions, of divine will and of other factors.
(Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 193)
Whose will is it? ‘It is mine’, you may say. You are beyond will and fate. Abide as that and you transcend them both. That is the meaning of conquering destiny by will. Fate can be conquered. Fate is the result of past actions. By association with the wise the bad tendencies are conquered. One’s experiences are then viewed to their proper perspective.
I exist now. I am the enjoyer. I enjoy fruits of action. I was in the past and shall be in the future. Who is this ‘I’? Finding this ‘I’ to be pure Consciousness beyond action and enjoyment, freedom and happiness are gained. There is then no effort, for the Self is perfect and there remains nothing more to gain.
So long as there is individuality, one is the enjoyer and doer. But if it is lost, the divine Will prevails and guides the course of events. The individual is perceptible to others who cannot perceive divine force. Restrictions and discipline are for other individuals and not for the liberated.
Free-will is implied in the scriptural injunctions to be good. It implies overcoming fate. It is done by wisdom. The fire of wisdom consumes all actions. Wisdom is acquired by association with the wise, or rather, its mental atmosphere.
(Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 209)
M.: “All right. What need be said has been said. Well.
What is destiny? There is no destiny.
Surrender, and all will be well.
Throw all the responsibility on God.
Do not bear the burden yourself.
What can destiny do to you then?”
D.: Surrender is impossible.
M.: Yes. Complete surrender is impossible in the beginning. Partial surrender is certainly possible for all.
In course of time that will lead to complete surrender. Well, if surrender is impossible, what can be done?
There is no peace of mind. You are helpless to bring it about. It can be done only by surrender.
D.: Partial surrender – well – can it undo destiny?
M.: Oh, yes! It can.
D.: Is not destiny due to past karma?
M.: If one is surrendered to God, God will look to it.
D.: This being God’s dispensation, how does God undo it?
M.: All are in Him only.
(Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 244)
Make no effort either to work or to renounce work.
Your effort is the bondage.
What is bound to happen will happen.
If you are destined to cease working, work cannot be had even if you hunt for it. If you are destined to work you cannot leave it; you will be forced to engage in it.
So leave it to the Higher Power. You cannot renounce or hold as you choose.
(Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 268)
D.: Has man any Free-Will or is everything in his life predestined and preordained?
M.: Free-Will holds the field in association with individuality. As long as individuality lasts so long there is Free-Will.
All the sastras are based on this fact and they advise directing the Free-Will in the right channel. Find out to whom Free-Will or Destiny matters. Abide in it. Then these two are transcended. That is the only purpose of discussing these questions. To whom do these questions arise? Find out and be at peace.
(Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 426)
D.: What is the relation between my free-will and the overwhelming might of the Omnipotent?
(a) Is omniscience of God consistent with ego’s free-will?
(b) Is omnipotence of God consistent with ego’s free-will?
(c) Are the natural laws consistent with God’s free-will?
M.: Yes. Free-will is the present appearing to a limited faculty of sight and will.
The same ego sees its past activity as falling into a course of ‘law’ or rules – its own free-will being one of the links in that course of law.
Omnipotence and omniscience of God are then seen by the ego to have acted through the appearance of his own free-will.
So he comes to the conclusion that the ego must go by appearances. Natural laws are manifestations of God’s will and they have been laid down.
223. The state in which our power of attention, which now sees the objects that exist in front of our eyes, sees its own existence “I am”, having suddenly become introverted by giving up all objective attention and turning towards “I,” is alone the state of true austerity (tapas) or yoga.
If our power of attention is used in any other way, that is only an objective attention that is opposed to true tapas or yoga
259. Those people who have a clear and unshakeable understanding of their own reality, having thus discriminated and concluded that Self, the existence-consciousness “I am,” alone is real and eternal, will gain unlimited love to abide as Self and will thus attain the state of one-pointed Self-attention.
265. Why is it said, “Abide in this existence consciousness repeatedly” and “Abide in this state with great love?” Because until all the tendencies (vasanas) which drive us out of this state have ceased to exist, this state will seem to come and go.
Therefore, until those vasanas have been completely destroyed, it is necessary to have love and to make repeated efforts to abide in this state.
asanga shastrena drudena chittva
..........
Simpler translation of purity is vairagya.
.....
maya durataya...very difficult to cross.
maam evam prapadyate.. placing hand under leg
,,,only those will be able to cross maya
.................................
(Source: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 28)
Question: I don’t understand what work I should do and what not.
Ramana Maharshi: Don’t bother. What is destined as work to be done by you in this life will be done by you, whether you like it or not.
(Source: Day by Day with Bhagavan, 3-1-46 Afternoon)
Mrs. P. C. Desai quoting the Bhagavad Gita asked Bhagavan, “If (as Arjuna was told) there is a certain work destined to be done by each and we shall eventually do it however much we do not wish to do it or refuse to do it, is there any free will?”
Bhagavan said, “It is true that the work meant to be done by us will be done by us. But it is open to us to be free from the joys or pains, pleasant or unpleasant consequences of the work, by not identifying ourselves with the body or that which does the work. If you realise your true nature and know that it is not you that does any work, you will be
unaffected by the consequences of whatever work the body may be engaged in according to destiny or past karma or divine plan, however you may call it. You are always free and there is no limitation of that freedom.”
(Source: Day by Day with Bhagavan, 3-1-46 Afternoon)
K.M. Jivrajani: In the early stages would it not be a help to man to seek solitude and give up his outer duties in life?
Bhagavan: Renunciation is always in the mind, not in going to forests or solitary places or giving up one’s duties. The main thing is to see that the mind does not turn outward but inward. It does not really rest with a man whether he goes to this place or that or whether he gives up his duties or not. All that happens according to destiny. All the activities that the body is to go through are determined when it first comes into existence. It does not rest with you to accept or reject them. The only freedom you have
is to turn your mind inward and renounce activities there.
K.M. Jivrajani: But is it not possible for something to be a help, especially to a beginner? Like a fence round a young tree. For instance, don’t our books say that it is helpful to go on pilgrimage to sacred shrines or to get satsang.
Bhagavan: Who said they are not helpful? Only such things do not rest with you, as turning your mind inward does. Many people desire the pilgrimage or sat sang that you
mention, but do they all get it?
(Source: Day by Day with Bhagavan, 1-6-46)
G. Mehta had also asked a personal question: Whether he should remain abroad or return to India, but to that Bhagavan said: “Don’t worry what you should do. Things
will happen as they are destined to happen.”
(Source: Day by Day with Bhagavan, 19-6-46)
Khanna: Is there destiny? And if what is destined to happen will happen is there any use in prayer or effort or should we just remain idle?
Bhagavan: There are only two ways to conquer destiny or be independent of it. One is to enquire for whom is this destiny and discover that only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, by realizing one’s helplessness and saying all the time: ‘Not I but Thou, oh Lord!’, and giving up all sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and leaving it to
the Lord to do what he likes with you. Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord. True surrender is love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of salvation. In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self-enquiry or through bhakti-marga.
(Source: Day by Day with Bhagavan, 28-6-46)
Another visitor asked, “The present is said to be due to past karma. Can we transcend the past karma by our free will now?”
Bhagavan: See what the present is, as I told you. Then you will understand what is affected by or has a past or a future and also what is ever-present and always free, unaffected by the past or future or by any past karma.
I [Mercedes de Acosta] sat in the hall with Bhagavan three days and three nights. Sometimes he spoke to me, other times he was silent and I did not interrupt his silence. Often he was in samadhi. I wanted to stay on there with him but finally he told me that I should go back to America. He said, “There will be what will be called a war, but which, in reality, will be a great world revolution. Every country and every person will be touched by it. You must return to America. Your destiny is not in India at this time.”
(Source: Face to Face with Sri Ramana Maharshi, No. 114)
Q: Is it possible to overcome, even while the body exists, the prarabdha karma which is said to last till the end of the body?
A: Yes. If the agent upon whom the karma depends, namely the ego, which has come into existence between the body and the Self, merges in its source and loses its form, how can the karma which depends upon it survive? When there is no ‘I’ there is no karma.
