Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER X
THE EFFECT OF KARMA AND FREEDOM OF WILL
What can there be "except imprisonment and serfdom where a man has not the smallest authority or will ? Like the bullocks tied to a plough, every one will have to toil under the authority of Prakrti, and as our poet Shankara says, "the shackles of the inherent qualities of substances" must be perpetually kept by oneself on his feet ! The attention of all scholars has been fixed on the question of the Freedom of Will, as a result of Karma-Vada ( Theory of Karma ) or Daiva-Vada ( Theory of Destiny ) in our country, and of the Theory of Providence in the Christian religion in former years, and of the Theory of the Laws of Nature propounded by Materialistic philosophers in modern times ; and any amount of discussion has taken place, and is still taking place on this question. But as it is impossible to deal with the whole of that matter here, I am in this chapter dealing only with what the idea of the Bhagavadgita and of Vedanta philosophy on that question is. It is true that the course of Karma is eternal, and that even the Paramesvara does not interfere with the course or cycle of Karma which has once been started. But according' to our philosophers, the doctrine of Adhyatma ( Philosophy of the Absolute Self ), that the visible world is not purely Karma or merely Names and Forms, that there is some imperishable independent Atman-formed Brahman-world which is clothed by these Names and Forms, and that the Atman within the human body is a particle of that permanent and independent Parabrahman, shows the path for getting out of this seemingly unconquerable difficulty. But, before explaining this path, it is necessary to complete the description of the process of .the. Effects of Karma, which has remained incomplete. It is not that the rule that one has to suffer according to what one does, applies only to a particular individual. . A family, a. community, a nation, or even the whole universe cannot .escape suffering the consequences of their Actions in the game way as an individual cannot do so ; and in as much as every human being is born in some family, some community, or some country, it has to soma extent to suffer on account of the Actions not only of itself, but also of the community or society, such as, the family etc. to which it belongs, But, as one has to refer ordinarily only to the Actions of a particular individual, the divisions of Karma, in the Theory of the Effects of Karma, have been made primarily by reference to a single individual. |
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