Free Will...

Ramesh Balsekar on Free Will with a Ramana quote

“(…)Chapter 4: God’s Will and Man’s Free Will.

My experience has been that most visitors are able to accept the concept of
God’s will prevailing most of the time because they not only see the logic of it but, more importantly, they experience a feeling of tremendous relief and
freedom: freedom from guilt and responsibility. But the problem arises because the concept of personal doership and the corresponding responsibility for their actions is so deeply ingrained that they feel that the spirit of relief and freedom which they have felt may not be practical.

What the problem boils down to is this: ‘Thy will be done is a very fine
concept, but I have to live my life in a society which in practice does not
accept this concept and holds me responsible for my actions. How do I live my life? What do I do every moment that I have to make a decision?’

This is a very valid argument. My answer to this problem is simple: do whatever you feel like doing; do whatever you think you should do according to your own standards of what is right and wrong. In other words, you have the free will to do whatever you choose to decide. Having decided to do whatever you choose to do, thereafter what is your own personal experience? Have all your decisions turned into actual actions? Supposing some of your decisions have indeed turned into actions, have all those actions always produced the results that you have anticipated and for which you have held yourself responsible? The answer is obvious: some of your decisions have turned into actions, some have not; some of your actions have produced the anticipated results, some have not; indeed quite a few of ‘your’ actions have produced results quite contrary to your expectations. Therefore, it is your own experience that your free will extends merely to making a decision. What happens thereafter is, from your own experience, not in your control because various other factors come into play over which you have no control.

Now, let us investigate the supposed free will you have to make a decision. What is ‘your’ decision based on? If you investigate this point you will find out that you always base your decision on your ‘programming’, i.e. the genes or DNA and your conditioning which includes your education and practical experience, over which you truly have had no control. Recent research has brought out the fact that many of your actions – both good and bad, positive and negative – canbe traced to your genes. So consider for yourself: how genuine is my ‘free will’?! (…)

(…) The final question that remains at this stage is: How does one acquire
this total unconditional acceptance that all action is a divine happening and
not the action of any individual person? The obvious answer is that no one can acquire or achieve this kind of acceptance about God’s Will unless that itself is God’s will! But one can take considerable solace from the fact that seeking this peace of mind has already happened in one’s case through God’s grace and it is truly God’s responsibility to further promote the process. In the words of Ramana Maharshi, ‘Your head is already in the tiger’s mouth, and there is no escape.’ But, as has been said before, this fact that nothing can happen unless it is God’s will does not prevent you from doing whatever you think you should do. You do have that apparent free will.

The only spiritual practice I usually recommend for the intellectual acceptance to go deeper into its finality is to experience the truth of this concept from personal experience. The ego may accept this concept of God’s will intellectually, but the acceptance cannot reach the stage of finality unless the ego finds from its own investigation of its own personal experience that this concept is the truth as far as he or she is concerned.

If only one thinks of one’s own past experience, one is bound to come to the conclusion that all of the more significant events in one’s life were not one’s own actions, but happenings over which one had hardly any control and which were the result of circumstances over which one had no control. But that is not enough to convert the concept into actual fact. This must be proved from personal experience from day to day.

There must be an honest and thorough investigation into what you think are ‘your’ actions from day to day. This investigation is really one step further from Ramana Maharshi’s famous ‘Who am I?’. This investigation that I suggest is based on theory: ‘Am I the doer of what I think are my actions?’ (…)

Actions happen – there’s no individual doer thereof. Actions happen
because it is God’s will; the relevant consequences affect those concerned also according to God’s will. ‘God’s will’ can be substituted by the words ‘Cosmic Law’ or ‘Universal Law’.” Ramesh Balsekar