142. Fate versus Free Will. Part Nine

 

We were discussing another theory, which may be the correct solution, and satisfy the paradox stated in blog 139. 

How does God have foreknowledge? There are two possibilities: 

 1. He knows it because He has an infinite mind that can compute all the possibilities.

2. The play is being played a second time. First time in a computer, similar to some sort of simulation, or actually  in our planet or some other planet. What is going to happen now, in our planet, will be the same as happened the first time around. Suppose you are watching a film second time, you can easily tell how the plot will proceed. What the actors are going to say? If you play the film thousand times, every single detail will occur exactly the same way. The drama of this world is something like that, except that we write, direct and act in this drama, and not the decrees of God. 

               Men of God tell a particular future event. Because God wants them to tell. God gives them permission to tell and they always seek permission from God before they tell, because they fully know that it is a divine law to have the future hidden from mankind (otherwise mankind would not put their full effort). They violate the law with divine sanction. When Brunton asked Chandi Das to tell him his future, Chandi Das rebuked him and said, “Why do you seek to know? The Creator has kept the future hidden for a fit reason” (blog 91)

 Let us now restate the paradox: 

1. Some persons can see future, therefore it exists somewhere

2. Future does not and cannot exist, because it has not been made yet. 

Both statements are true. There is no paradox! 
 

What is required is to restate 1, as:

1. Some persons can see future, therefore it exists somewhere, but not the actual future, but how is it going to transpire, in a screen play, which these persons can access. 

There is one small puzzle to be settled. When Chandi Das told Brunton his future, he also said that he can only see a part of the future:

“Only in part. The lives of men do not move so smoothly that every detail is ordained for them.” 

Did he mean the two-tier hypothesis of Ramakrishna?

‘Just as, when a cow is tied to a post with long tether, it can go to a distance of one cubit, or it can go up to the full length of the tether according to its choice, so too is the free will of the man….God has given man some power and freedom to utilize it as he likes.

That is why the man feels himself free…’ 

This mote thinks that the solution to this problem is not the two-tier hypothesis of religion but that the things get clearer as the event approaches ( a seer told me this fact ). It is as if one was witnessing a city from far distance. One can only see a mass consisting of thousands of house. As one approaches nearer, one can see separate houses and buildings. Still nearer, one can see the multiple storeys and windows in the buildings. As one approaches further, one can see occupants of the houses and whether they are men and women or children. 

In the end, let us see what the components of hypothesis 2 (free will) are:  

1. Man is free to choose his own fate

2. Nothing is preordained.

3. God started this play of universe for His inscrutable reason.

4. God sometimes interferes in the screen play for His unfathomable reason. This part appears contradictory to number 1. This will be discussed in greater detail when I discuss the “system of the world” at some future time.

5. God has foreknowledge of the future.

6. A Master screen play exists.

7. The future can be foretold by some men of God.

8. The difference from hypothesis one (fate) is that the fate is not preordained. Everything happens by the interaction of free will with Mother Nature. Future does not yet exist. The difference from hypothesis two (free will) is that future can be foretold by selected persons. 

Difference from modern scientists is:

(a). That there is God, who created everything

(b). Future can be foretold (according to science, future cannot be foretold because it does not yet exist). It does not yet exist, because it has not been made yet. 

What are the flaws in the components of hypothesis 2?  

 It is based on many suppositions but very little evidence. 

Let us study this criticism. Component number one and two are not in dispute by scientists and logicians. Components number 3-5 depend upon the existence of God. I have written eighteen blogs (blogs 97-114) to prove the existence of God. I presented lot of anecdotal evidence. The reader is at liberty to read those blogs and make his/her own mind. I don’t want them to be repeated over here. Personally, I do not have an iota of doubt.

I have also presented plenty of anecdotal evidence in support of item number seven. I do not have any doubt left, after I learnt the episode of lottery numbers (blog 135), by the seer himself. 

The main supposition, for which there is zero evidence, is the existence of a Master screen play. I arrived at it by logic. It is the only way to reconcile the paradox. The seers have to see something in the present, because as Saint Augustine repeatedly said (and this mote arrived at the same conclusion, independently) that the future does not yet exist. How can anybody see anything which does not exist? Therefore, it is logical to assume that there exists, somewhere in present, a record of future events (I called it screen play).

This mote prayed to God, even today, a way to access the future, at least for once, so that I can then say that I have myself seen some future event. For me, at least, then it won’t be hearsay.

 

139. Fate versus free will. Part Six

 

What are the arguments against free will, or hypothesis two?

 Actually there is only one argument against it, and that is if the future does not yet exist (because it has yet to be made), then how come some men of God are able to tell it, sometimes in precise detail? In blog 135, I narrated how a man of God who foresaw the seven lottery numbers, one day in advance of their live drawing on TV. It is as if future existed somewhere.

 

Thus we arrive at a paradox:

 

1. Some persons can see future, therefore it exists somewhere

 

2. Future does not and cannot exist, because it has not been made yet.

These are two mutually contradictory, immovable statements. Only one of them can be right, or is there some way in which both are right?

Let us first examine the actual evidence of prophecies. I have chronicled 13 such events (excluding the one in blog 135) in blogs 102-3. A summary of them is in blog 114. Since many persons do not have access to computer, I will restate the summary here:

 

               How can anybody tell the future which has not been made yet? To have my grandfather buried in the same grave with his son, required a colossal event to happen, in which millions suffered. For Swami Vivekananda to see the event of the silver cup 43 years in advance, only a Divine power had to be involved. How did Swami Yukteswar know that the veterinarian will fall ill soon, recover, and die 6 months later? How did he know that Yogananda will be fed strawberries in America? And Kashi did die, as predicted.

               How can one explain the vision of the teacher putting a garland of flowers on the president’s neck and receiving a check; Baroda Babu’s telling Dilip Kumar Roy, 12 years in advance, that he will have to wait for Indra Devi to join him as his disciple for his real progress, and also telling him about what Sri Aurobindo advised him regarding his hernia.

               One does not have any explanation of Indra Devi’s vision of the pilot dying in crash one year in advance and then his spirit coming to Indra.

                Brother Lawrence predicted on Friday, that he will die on Monday (blog 15-7). That is how it happened.

                In blog 91, I have narrated the incident of Paul Brunton meeting Chandi Das. Chandi Das, reluctantly, narrated some incidents of Brunton’s future. Some of them came true, by the time book was published.

 

What are the possible explanations of prophecies?

 

1.  All these anecdotes of prophecies are false. They never happened.

2. The anecdotes are true, but the predicted events were made to occur, when their time came, by some powerful living persons or spirits.

3. The causes or signs of future start appearing in the present, from them the future can be predicted.

4. The people who predicted, had the ability to travel in the future

5.  There is a parallel world, which is a copy of our world, like the image in a mirror (or we are the image). It is ahead of us in time. Whatever will happen in future over here has already happened in the other world. Therefore access to that world enables us to know our future.

 

Now, let us examine these speculations in greater detail.

 

1.   All these anecdotes of prophecies are false. These episodes have been carefully selected by this mote. I heard the story of my grandfather and uncle, from the lips of my mother (blog 102). Mr Dickenson told the story of silver cup many times, and Sri Yogananda, being a man of God, would not have chronicled it in his autobiography, were it false. The source of other anecdotes (3-8, in blog 102) is also written by Sri Yogananda in his book. I, myself, talked to the teacher who put garland of flowers, around the president’s neck. He verified it. I, myself, talked to the seer who foresaw the seven lottery numbers. The other episodes are also taken from the books of men of God, like Paul Brunton, Brother Lawrence, and Dilip Kumar Roy. So all these episodes are authentic.

There is a valid criticism, that all of these episodes are hearsay or could have been fabricated by the authors, themselves. I have not mentioned a single episode, watched by me, or experienced by me. I have no answer to this argument. Maybe God will one day grant me such an episode. But it still will not answer the criticism, because how will the readers know that I am not making it up.

 

To be continued

 

135. Fate Versus Free Will. Part two

 

We were discussing the two causes of belief in fate

Prophecy or prediction of future events is a strong argument in destiny, and also God, as I have discussed in great detail in blog 102. If the future exists somewhere, then somebody wrote it, and that somebody can only be God. Nobody else is so powerful. How could Swami Vivekananda predict 43 years in advance that Mr Dickenson will receive a silver cup from his guru (blogs 79-81)? I have described 13 such prophecies in blogs 102-3. Events happened just as they were predicted years in advance. The ability of Chandi Das to go blank for few minutes and then tell Paul Brunton (blog 91) what was going to happen to him, strongly supports the notion that a scene of future was brought to the inner eye of Chandi Das, just as the scene of Sri Yogananda eating strawberries in America, years later, was brought to the mind’s eye of Sri Yukteswar.

One may say, that it would really add to our knowledge, if instead of guessing what transpires, we would know for certain what happens. In other words the person who has the ability to see future, shares it with others. This mote has the privilege of having this knowledge, because the seer shared it with me.

 

A seer wanted to test whether he can see the future in advance. There was a lottery which had live drawing of the numbers, on TV, next day. He used some spiritual procedure, after following its stipulations. After some time, like a flash, one number came. He wrote it down. He concentrated again, and the next number came, in a similar flash. The lottery had seven numbers. One by one, he got all the seven numbers. Next day he watched the live drawing on TV. His seven numbers were correct. He never repeated it, due to the following reasons:

               a. He became quite sick. These practices take a lot out of a person.

               b. He was strongly warned by higher powers, never to do it again. God’s laws, such as hiding the future, are for important reasons. To look into future, without God’s permission, is against God’s plans

 

You may argue that these prophecies do not necessarily prove that God willed all events to happen as they actually happened; he just knows them in advance. In other words, due to his infinite mind, he has foreknowledge of everything, but he does not make it happen. Events happen by free will and chance.

 

This is a valid point; we will discuss it when we discuss free will.

 

Now, let us discuss the arguments against fate:

 

1. It does not explain evil

2. It does not explain injustice

3. Makes God, indifferent, cruel and unjust

4. Why is God hidden?

5. If everything is preordained by God, then what is the purpose of creation by God?

6. It flies against our daily experience of events happening due to free will.

7. Does not explain the cruelty of predator animals to prey.

8. All human effort is completely useless.

 

Let us discuss each point.

1.It does not explain evil in this world. Everybody has heard of Holocaust. There is no greater example of pure evil, on a large scale, in modern human history. If God is responsible for all events then He is responsible for Holocaust. This mote has never in all his life, for even a moment, thought that my beloved God is responsible for any evil. We ourselves ( Nazi Germans in the case of Holocaust) and an indifferent, neutral Nature is responsible. However, my sentiments are not a substitute of argument. The argument is that God could not have created Holocaust because an infinite, limitlessly powerful mind would neither have the need nor derive any pleasure from the slow sufferings of millions of persons. It has to be the system which created such evil philosophy. Since human beings ( Hitler ) created that philosophy, so human beings are responsible. If humans are responsible then they acted by their free will. If that is the case then hypothesis one ( Fate ) is wrong and hypothesis two ( Free will ) is right, as we will discuss later when we examine hypothesis two.

2. It does not explain injustice in this world. We all have seen examples of injustice. Powerful, cruel, and selfish people thrive, while weak and righteous suffer. One sees hordes of professional beggars in India and Pakistan, their bodies distorted from poverty and disease. Some are born blind or crippled and their whole life passes in grief. Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan led lives of power and comfort. All of them died without suffering. Beating and cruelty to slaves was common in the past. I quote Darwin (1):

 

“I feel glad that this happened in the land of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good will - a land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement...On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil, I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a kind-hearted man was on the point of separating forever the men, women, and little children of a large number of families who had long lived together ”

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________(1) Voyage of the beagle by Charles Darwin (1839), chapter V

 

To be continued

 

103. God part seven

               4. Sri Yogananda writes: My Master and I were visiting Kashmir for the first time “ English strawberries for sale!”, an old woman said. Master was curious about this new fruit. He bought some. As soon as I tasted one, I spat out. “Sir, what a sour fruit! I could never like strawberries”

               My Master said, “You will like them. One day, in America, your hostess will serve them with sugar and cream…she will mash them with a fork. You will taste them and say ‘ what delicious strawberries’. Then you will remember this day in Simla”

               Once I was a guest of Alice T. Hasey in West Somerville MA. My hostess mashed some strawberries with a fork, and served them with cream and sugar. “ The fruit is rather tart, you will like it this way” I took a mouthful and exclaimed “ what delicious strawberries”

At once, my Master’s prediction, which had faded from memory, came back to me.   

               5.  Swami Yogananda writes: “My sister’s husband was not in the best of health. The thought came to me that he was not going to live long. My sister surmised my thoughts, and said “my husband is sick while I am healthy, but I want you to know that I am to die first. It won’t be long”. My sister died eighteen months after her prediction.

On her last day, she wore her bridal dress.

What is the occasion? Her husband asked.

“This is my last day of service to you on earth” she had a heart attack that day and died.

               6. Swami Yogananda writes. “In 1918, the great yogi Swami Pranabananda (the disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya) visited my Ranchi school. A boy asked him “Sir, shall I be a monk?” The saint replied, “No, a bride is waiting for you.” The boy eventually married.

               7. Swami Yogananda writes. “During the same visit, I accompanied my father to see the great yogi where he was temporarily staying. His prediction, which he had given in 1905, came rushing back to me. “Your life belongs to the path of renunciation and yoga. I shall see you again, with your father, later on.”

               8. Swami Yogananda writes. “One day in my Ranchi school, a boy named Kashi, a brilliant youth of twelve, asked me “Sir, what will be my fate?”

‘You shall soon be dead’. An irresistible power forced the answer from me.

The boy died the same year.

There is a very interesting saga of Kashi. I am not giving the details because they are not necessary for this discussion... You can read them yourselves. Suffice is to say that Kashi was reborn, and Swami Yogananda helped him, in finding, a master.

               9. Field Marshal Ayub Khan was the president of Pakistan, in sixties. He developed a plan of Basic Democracy (in contrast to adult franchise). In order to popularize the plan in the masses, money was allocated for its publicity and praise. A cash prize was announced for the winner of the contest of writing the best book on this subject. A great mystic by the name of Mr. Qudsi lived in Bhaun, Pakistan(1). One of his disciples, a teacher, happened to visit Mr. Qudsi. The teacher had a dream that night, that he was putting a garland of flowers around the president’s neck, and the president giving him a check. The dream came months in advance of the announcement of the book and a prize for the winner. The teacher writes in his book about Mr. Qudsi, that when he woke up he thought, that he, a hundred and fifty rupees per month, middle school teacher, putting flowers on the neck of the president!

               Once the contest for the book was announced, he thought of participating. He spent a lot of time in the library. His book won the first prize. One day he was summoned by the divisional commissioner. The commissioner told him that the president was stopping at their division. The teacher was chosen to welcome the president at the dais and garland him, and the president was going to give him the check for the first prize.

               After reading this incident in the book, this mote contacted the author, who was now a professor in an Islamabad university. I wanted to hear it from his own lips. He verified it, and gave some more detail.

               Mr Qudsi was a qalander. This mote once, briefly, met Mr. Qudsi

               10. Dilip Kumar Roy writes. In 1925, I was groping in the dark. I did not know which way to turn. There was no end to my vacillation. A friend suggested to meet a mighty yogi, Baroda Babu. I am not going to tell the details of the meeting here, because I want to pick this incident again, in my next topic of ‘ miracles’.

               He met Baroda Babu by accident, twelve years later, in 1937. He had been in Sri Aurobindo’s ashram for 9 years. He thanked the yogi for giving him the right advice, and how happy and blessed he felt at his guru’s feet in Pondicherry. Mr Babu said “ that is  all as it should be. Only I want to tell you that you won’t realize Krishna in Pondicherry. For that you will have to await the advent of a highly evolved lady. When she will come to assist you as your disciple, then only you will get your heart’s desire”. He accepted her(Indra Devi) as his disciple in 1949.

I have already narrated his first supernatural incident, in 1951, of lighting up the figures of Lord Krishna and Mira( blog 86 ). It boggles the mind, that Baroda Babu could see the events 12 years in advance.

               11.  Dilip Kumar Roy writes. One year ago, a neighbor in Belgaum asked Indra Devi what she thought of the proposal of a Bomber pilot asking the hand of his daughter. Indra told them that she had a vision of the pilot dying in an air crash. The parents, declined the marriage. One year later on 1^st June 1959, the young pilot died in an air crash.

               12 Brother Lawrence predicted on Friday, that he will die on Monday (blog 15-7). That is how it happened.

               13. In blog 91, I have narrated the incident of Paul Brunton meeting Chandi Das. Chandi Das , reluctantly, narrated some incidents of Brunton’s future. Some of them came true, by the time book was published. We don’t know about the rest, since Brunton did not mention them in his subsequent books
.........................................................................................................

(1) Qalandar-a-Zaman Shahzada Assad-ul-Rehman Qudsi by Doctor Mehmoud-ul-Rehman

                                                                                                  ‘ 

91. Paul Brunton. Part Three

 

One day, while motoring, he saw a holy man and his disciple by the road. The holy man was meditating. He was dressed in a loin cloth only. Something in the man’s face attracted Brunton. He offered them a ride to the nearby village. The yogi’s name was Chandi Das, and according to the disciple, was gifted with exceptional powers. They had been wandering, village to village, now for two years.

At night, he interviewed the yogi. During the interview the conversation turned to time. The yogi asked Brunton if he was sure there was such a thing as time. Brunton implied, that there was present, past, and future, therefore, there was time, because, otherwise, past and future should be here at this time, but that was not our experience. The yogi countered that such was Brunton’s experience, not necessarily true. Puzzled, Brunton asked Chandi Das whether he could see future. The yogi replied “if I wished……yes.”

Then he uttered this sentence, which this mote has thought about for years.

“Only in part. The lives of men do not move so smoothly that every detail is ordained for them.”

In the discussion about fate versus free will, this sentence carries great significance, because this pronouncement was uttered by somebody who knew what he was talking about.

The yogi told him many things about his future. Some of them had already come true by the time the book was written while others still waited the verdict of time ( see footnote )

One of the things, the yogi said, was that to achieve his goal; he must turn his car back to Bombay. He also said that he will get his wish before the next full moon. A sage awaited him, with whom he was tied by ancient ties. (These predictions came true).

Brunton followed the advice. After great mental conflict and ill health, he decided to cancel his berth in the ship, sailing next week to England, and returned to Maharishee in Arunachala.

Brunton asked Maharishee to become his master. Maharishee refused, and said, “You must find the master within you, within your own spiritual self.” He spent several weeks with Maharishee. Sometimes Maharishee would visit his hut. One day he told Brunton, “The same force which drew you to this place from Bombay, drew me to it from Madura (his hometown )”.

Brunton would get ineffable tranquility by sitting for a while in the neighborhood of Maharishee. Maharishee was not a yogi in the orthodox sense, he had never studied any system of yoga, and he had never practiced under a teacher.

One night, while sitting in the hall, Brunton got his first smadhi. It lasted for about two hours. He lost all consciousness of his surroundings. He felt rapture. He found himself outside the rim of world consciousness. Earth disappeared.  He found himself in the midst of blazing light………………………..

Brunton has described his experience in six pages of his book.

His friend, sitting next to him, told, “the Maharishee watched you closely all the time………” Brunton lost his power of speech for fifteen minutes.

Maharishee returned to his divan and looked intently at Brunton. Their eyes met. Their eyes were locked, across the room, for the next forty minutes. They did not exchange a word. His eyes, as always, had a strange luster.

Brunton reminded himself that never had he met any man with such remarkable eyes. In so for human eyes could mirror divine power, it was a fact that the sage’s did that.

Brunton was happy to achieve certitude. He was also happy that he did not sacrifice his rational way of thinking to blind credulity (also called faith or belief in religion)

What was the purpose of Maharishee’s life, which many Westerners would consider a waste?

This mote thinks his life served three purposes:

1. According to Brunton, people like Maharishee, ensure the continuity down history of a divine message from regions not easily accessible to us all. They make us believe in God

2. They tell us of a method to reach God, or one’s own self. They tell us  what self was and what were its characteristics, and why should one try to reach it. Why is such quest the noblest of all quests?

3. Maharishee, in his own invisible way, applied balm to the wounds of tortured souls, everyday. He imparted peace and tranquility upon them. Even his close disciple , Ramiah, had this power, as experienced by Brunton himself, in his hour of distress.

Remember in blog 89, Brunton stated, that not too long ago, he thought of God as a delusion. Let me quote from his book, “ a hermit in the Himalayas” published in 1937:

‘ I think the final news which I bring…………………….that of God’s reality. The highest power is no mere article of belief to me, but a verity…..authentic, undeniable and supreme………..’

‘ His language is nothing else than this stillness………….we must learn His language……………..’

‘ be still, and know that I am God’                                         

To be continued
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note. Chandi Das said that Brunton would not again meet a saint in Bengal, who Brunton was planning to meet, that he would leave India by the next  solstice, that he would become very sick as he left India, and that the would visit India three times in his life.

,