{"id":2659,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:03","slug":"47-destiny-karma-death-and-rebirth-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/28-letters-on-yoga-i\/47-destiny-karma-death-and-rebirth-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","title":{"rendered":"-47_Destiny, Karma, Death and Rebirth.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\tSection Three <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tDestiny, Karma, Death and Rebirth
\n  <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t \t\t\t<\/b>
\n\t<\/p>\n

\n

<\/b>
\n\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tChapter One <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tFate, Free Will and Prediction
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n


\n\tDestiny <\/a> <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions \u2014the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be under
\nstood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary
\nmind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey, the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the transition which will carry it beyond these things
\nto a higher consciousness and higher life. When one comes to that line of crossing one has to leave behind one the old mind
\nand feelings. One looks then on those who are still fixed in the pleasures and sorrows of the ordinary world with sympathy and
\nwherever it is possible with spiritual helpfulness, but no longer with attachment. One learns that they are being led through
\nall their stumblings and trusts to the universal Power that is watching and supporting their existence to do for them whatever
\nfor them is the best. But the one thing that is really important for us is to get into the greater Light and the Divine Union
\n\t\u2014
\nto turn to the Divine alone, to put our trust there alone whether for ourselves or for others. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it
\n\tlives in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of
\n\tthe present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has
\n\taccumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present
\n\tattempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of
\n\tspiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes
\n\tin a new factor, the<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 509<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature. One’s spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future. The only doubt is about the
\nvicissitudes of the path and the time to be taken by the passage. It is here that the hostile forces playing on the weaknesses of the
\npast nature strive to prevent the rapidity of the progress and to postpone the fulfilment. Those who fell, fell not because of the
\nattacks of the vital forces, but because they put themselves on the side of the hostile Force and preferred a vital ambition or
\ndesire (ambition, vanity, lust, etc.) to the spiritual siddhi. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Each has his own destiny which he brings with him into the world. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Each has his own destiny and his entering into a particular family
\nin one life is only an incident. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Obviously, neither Nature nor Destiny nor the Divine work in the mental way or by the law of the mind or according to its
\nstandards \u2014that is why even to the scientist and the philosopher Nature, Destiny, the way of the Divine, all remain a mystery. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Nature is very largely what you make of her
\n\t\u2014or can make of
\nher. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Destiny is not an absolute, it is a relative. One can alter it for the better or the worse. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tFree Will and Determinism <\/a> <\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tIt is difficult indeed to make out what Planck means in these  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 510<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

pages1
\n\u2014what is his conclusion and how he arrives at it; he has probably so condensed his arguments that the necessary explanatory links are missing. The free will affair, I see by glancing through the previous pages, arises only incidentally from his
\nposition that the new discoveries grouped round the quantum theory do not make a radical difference in physics. If there is a
\ntendency to regard laws as statistical \u2014in which case there is no “strict causality” and no determinism
\n\u2014still there is nothing
\nto prove that they cannot be treated and may not be advantageously treated as dynamical also
\n\u2014in which case determinism
\ncan stand; the uncertainty of individual behaviour (electrons, quanta) does not really undermine determinism, but only brings
\na new feature into it. That seems from a hasty glance to be his position. Certain scientific thinkers consider this uncertainty of
\nindividual behaviour to be a physical factor correspondent to the element of free will in individual human beings. It is here that
\nPlanck brings in the question of free will to refute the conclusion that it affects strict causality and the law of determinism. His
\nargument, as far as I can make it out, is this: <\/p>\n

(1) The law of strict causality stands because any given
\naction or inner happening of the individual human being is an effect determined completely by two causes, (a) the previous
\nstate of his mind taken as a whole, (b) external influences. <\/p>\n

(2) The will is a mental process completely determined by
\nthese two factors; therefore it is not free, it is part of the chain of strict causality
\n\t\u2014as are also the results of the free will. <\/p>\n

(3) What is important is not the actual freedom of the will, but the man’s consciousness of freedom. This creates an inner
\nexperience of conscious motive which again creates fresh motives and so on indefinitely. For this reason it is impossible for
\na man to predict his future action \u2014for at any moment a fresh motive may arise. But when we look back at the past, then the
\nconcatenation of cause and effect becomes apparent. <\/p>\n

(4) The fact of strict causality (or at least the theory of it) <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 Max Planck, <\/i>The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics (London: George Allen<\/i>
\nand Unwin, 1931), pp. 84 \u00ad 87.<\/i>
\n  
\n512<\/i> <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 511<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

stands therefore unshaken by the consciousness of free will of the individual. It is only obscured by the fact that a man cannot
\npredict his own actions or grasp the causes of his present state; but that is because here the subject and object are the same
\nand this subject-object is in a state of constant alterative motion unlike an object outside, which is supposed not to change as a
\nresult of the inner movements of the knower. <\/p>\n

There is a reference to causal law and ethical law which
\nbaffles me. Is the “ethical law” something outside the strict chain of effects and causes? Is there such a thing at all? If “strict
\ncausality” rules all, what is such an ethical law doing there? <\/p>\n

That is the argument so far as I can follow it, but it does
\nnot seem to me very conclusive. If a man’s conduct cannot be predicted by himself, neither can it be predicted by anyone else,
\nthough here the subject and object are not the same; if not predictable, then it must be for the same reason, the element
\nof free will and the mobility created by the possible indefinite intrusion of fresh motives. If that is so, strict causality cannot
\nbe affirmed, though a plastic causality in which the power of choice called by us free will is an element (either as one among
\nmany contributory causes or as an instrument of a cause beyond itself) can still be asserted as possible. <\/p>\n

The statement that the action of the individual is strictly determined by his total mental state + external influences is
\ndoubtful and does not lead very far. It is possible to undermine the whole idea of inevitable causality by holding that the total
\nexisting state before a happening is only the condition under which it happens \u2014there are a mass of antecedents and there
\nis a sequent, if it may be so called, or a mass of sequences, but nothing proves that the latter are inevitable consequences of the
\nmass of antecedents. Possibly this total existing state is a matrix into which some seed of happening is thrown or becomes active,
\nso that there may be many possible results, and in the case of human action it is conceivable that free will is
\nthe <\/i>or at least a<\/i>
\ndetermining factor. <\/p>\n

I do not think therefore that these arguments of Planck carry
\nus very far. There is also of course the question raised in the book <\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 512<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

itself whether, granting determinism, a local state of things is an independent field of causality or all is so bound together that it
\nis the whole that determines the local result. A man’s action then would be determined by universal forces and his state of mind
\nand apparent choice would be only part of the instrumentation of Universal Force. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

In the case of Socrates and that of the habitual drunkard raised
\nby you, the difference you make is correct. The weak-willed man is governed by his vital and physical impulsions, his mental
\nbeing is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not “free” because it is not strong enough to be free,
\nit is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. In the case of Socrates the will is so far free that it stands
\nabove the play of these forces and he determines by his mental idea and resolve what he shall or shall not do. The question
\nremains whether the will of Socrates is only free in this sense, itself being actually determined by something larger than the
\nmentality of Socrates, something of which it is the instrument, whether Universal Force or a Being in him of which his daemon
\nwas the voice and which not only gave his mind that decisive awareness of the mental ideal but imposed on it the drive to act
\nin obedience to the awareness. Or it may be subject to a nexus between the inner Purusha and the Universal Force. In the latter
\ncase there would be an unstable balance between determinism of Nature and a self-determination from within. If we start from
\nthe Sankhya view of things, that Being would be the soul or Purusha and both in the strong-willed Socrates and in the weak
\nwilled slave of vital impulse, the action and its results would be determined by the assent or refusal of the Purusha. In the latter
\nthe Purusha gives its assent to and undergoes the play of the forces of Nature, the habit of the vital impulse, through a vital
\nsubmission while the mind looks on helpless. In Socrates the Purusha has begun to emancipate itself and decide what it shall
\naccept or shall not accept \u2014the conscious being has begun to impose itself on the forces that act on it. This mastery has become
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 513<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

so complete that he can largely determine his own actions and can even within certain limits not only forecast but fix the results
\n\u2014so that what he wants shall happen sooner or later. <\/p>\n

As for the Superman, that is the conscious being whose
\nemancipation is complete by his rising to a station beyond the limits of mind. He can determine his action in complete accord
\nwith an awareness which perceives all the forces acting in and on and around him and is able, instead of undergoing, to use
\nthem and even to determine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

After reading Krishnaprem’s exposition [on
\nfree will and determinism<\/i>], I saw what might be said from the intellectual point
\nof view on this question so as to link the reality of the supreme Freedom with the phenomenon of the determinism of Nature
\n\u2014
\nin a different way from his but to the same purpose. In reality, the freedom and the determination are only two sides of the same
\nthing \u2014for the fundamental truth is self-determination, a self-determination of the cosmos and in it a secret self-determination
\nof the individual. The difficulty arises from the fact that we live in the surface mind of ignorance, do not know what is going on
\nbehind and see only the phenomenal process of Nature. There the apparent fact is an overwhelming determinism of Nature
\nand as our surface consciousness is part of that process we are unable to see the other term of the biune reality. For practical
\npurposes, on the surface there is an entire determinism in Matter \u2014though this is now disputed by the latest school of Science.
\nAs Life emerges a certain plasticity sets in, so that it is difficult to predict anything exactly as one predicts material things that
\nobey a rigid law. The plasticity increases with the growth of Mind so that man can have at least a sense of free will, of a
\nchoice of his action, of a self-movement which at least helps to determine circumstances. But this freedom is dubious because it
\ncan be declared to be an illusion, a device of Nature, part of its machinery of determination, only a seeming freedom or at most
\na restricted, relative and subject independence. It is only when one goes behind away from Prakriti to Purusha and upward
\n   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 514<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

away from Mind to spiritual Self that the side of freedom comes to be first evident and then, by unison with the Will which is
\nabove Nature, complete. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Well, the determination of human life and events is a mysterious thing. Can’t help that, you know. Fate is composed of many
\nthings \u2014Cosmic Will + individual self-determination + play of forces + Karma + x + y + z + a + b + c ad infinitum. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tPredictions and Prophecy <\/a> <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am afraid I have no great confidence in Cheiro’s ideas and
\nprophecies \u2014some prophecies are fulfilled but most have gone wrong. The idea about the Jews is an old Jewish and Christian
\nbelief; not much faith can be put in it. As for the numbers it is true that according to occult science numbers have a mystic
\nmeaning. It is also true that there are periods and cycles in life as well as in world-life. But too exact a meaning cannot always
\nbe put in these things. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Mother says Cheiro has always missed his predictions. They are (at best) half truths which you have to turn this way or that to
\nget something out of them corresponding with the fact. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Your extracts taken by themselves are very impressive, but when one reads the book, the impression made diminishes and fades
\naway. You have quoted Cheiro’s successes, but what about his failures? I have looked at the book and was rather staggered by
\nthe number of prophecies that have failed to come off. You can’t deduce from a small number of predictions, however accurate,
\nthat all is predestined down to your putting the questions in the letter and my answer. It may be, but the evidence is not
\nsufficient to prove it. What is evident is that there is an element of the predictable, predictable accurately and in detail as well
\n  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 515<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

as in large points, in the course of events. But that was already known; it leaves the question still unsolved whether all is so
\npredictable, whether destiny is the sole factor in existence or there are other factors also that can modify destiny,
\n\u2014or, destiny being given, there are not different sources or powers or planes of destiny and we can modify the one with which we
\nstarted by calling in another destiny source, power or plane and making it active in our life. Metaphysical questions are not so
\nsimple that they can be trenchantly solved either in one sense or in another contradictory to it
\n\u2014that is the popular way of
\nsettling things, but it is quite summary and inconclusive. All is free will or else all is destiny
\n\u2014it is not so simple as that. This
\nquestion of free will or determination is the most knotty of all metaphysical questions and nobody has been able to solve it
\n\u2014
\nfor a good reason, that both destiny and will exist and even a free will exists somewhere
\n\u2014the difficulty is only how to get at
\nit and make it effective. <\/p>\n

Astrology? Many astrological predictions come true, quite a
\nmass of them, if one takes all together. But it does not follow that the stars rule our destiny; the stars merely record a destiny that
\nhas been already formed, they are a hieroglyph, not a Force, \u2014or if their action constitutes a force, it is a transmitting energy,
\nnot an originating Power. Someone is there who has determined or something is there which is Fate, let us say; the stars are only
\nindicators. The astrologers themselves say that there are two forces, daiva <\/i>and puruṣā<\/font>rtha<\/i>, fate and individual energy, and the individual energy can modify and even frustrate fate. Moreover
\nthe stars often indicate several fate-possibilities; for example that one may die in mid-age, but that if that determination
\ncan be overcome, one can live to a predictable old age. Finally, cases are seen in which the predictions of the horoscope fulfil
\nthemselves with great accuracy up to a certain age, then apply no more. This often happens when the subject turns away from
\nthe ordinary to the spiritual life. If the turn is very radical the cessation of predictability may be immediate; otherwise certain
\nresults may still last on for a time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or<\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 516<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

can be a higher-power or higher-plane or higher-source spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lower
\npower, lower-plane or lower-source vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can
\nalso be indicated from the horoscope much more completely and satisfactorily than the events of the life. <\/p>\n

The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us
\nbinds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating new fate for the future even while
\nundergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European
\ncritics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again our will and action can often annul or modify even
\nthe past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called utkata<\/i> .<\/i>
\nkarma<\/i>, that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give
\nthe power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it
\nhad sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created; the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more plastic
\nfreedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate. <\/p>\n

As for prophecy, I have never met or known of a prophet, however reputed, who was infallible. Some of their predictions
\ncome true to the letter, others do not, \u2014they half-fulfil or misfire entirely. It does not follow that the power of prophecy is unreal
\nor the accurate predictions can be all explained by probability, chance or coincidence. The nature and number of those that can
\nnot is too great. The variability of fulfilment may be explained either by an imperfect power in the prophet sometimes active,
\nsometimes failing or by the fact that things are predictable in part only, they are determined in part only or else by different factors
\nor lines of power, different series of potentials and actuals. So long as one is in touch with one line, one predicts accurately,
\notherwise not \u2014or if the line of power changes, one’s prophecy also goes off the rails. All the same, one may say, there must be, if
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 517<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

things are predictable at all, some power or plane through which or on which all is foreseeable; if there is a divine Omniscience
\nand Omnipotence it must be so. Even then what is foreseen has to be worked out, actually is worked out by a play of forces,
\n\u2014spiritual, mental, vital, physical forces \u2014and in that plane of forces there is no absolute rigidity discoverable. Personal will
\nor endeavour is one of those forces \u2014Napoleon when asked why he believed in Fate, yet was always planning and acting,
\nanswered, “Because it is fated that I should work and plan” \u2014in other words, his planning and acting were part of Fate,
\ncontributed to the results Fate had in view. Even if I foresee an adverse result, I must work for the one that I consider should
\nbe; for it keeps alive the force, the principle of Truth which I serve and gives it a possibility to triumph hereafter, so that it
\nbecomes part of the working of a future favourable Fate, even if the fate of the hour is adverse. Men do not abandon a cause
\nbecause they have seen it fail or foresee its failure; and they are spiritually right in their stubborn perseverance. Moreover, we
\ndo not live for material result alone, \u2014far more the object of life is the growth of the soul, not outward success of the hour or
\neven of the near future. The soul can grow against or even by a material destiny that is adverse. <\/p>\n

Finally, even if all is determined, why say that Life is, in Shakespeare’s phrase or rather Macbeth’s, “a tale told by an
\nidiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Life would rather be that if it were all chance and random incertitude. But
\nif it is something foreseen, planned in every detail, does it not rather mean that life does signify something, that there must
\nbe a secret Purpose that is being worked up to, powerfully, persistently through the ages, and ourselves are a part of it and
\nfellow-workers in the fulfilment of that invincible Purpose? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Well, one of the greatest ecstasies possible is to feel oneself carried by the Divine,
\n\u2014not by the stars or Karma, for the latter is
\na bad business, dry and uncomfortable \u2014like being turned on
\n a machine, “yantrā<\/font>rū<\/font>ḍ<\/font>hā<\/font>ni mā<\/font>yayā<\/font><\/i>“.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 518<\/font><\/p>\n

\n


\nAstrology and Yoga
\n<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Astrology is an occult science
\n\t\u2014it is not a part of the Yoga
\nexcept as anything can be made part of the Yoga \u2014if done in the right spirit. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

That is not the question.2 The question is what influence has the
\nsadhak on the stars at his birth? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2 The correspondent asked, “Can astrological truths have any influence on a sadhak?”<\/i>
\n\u2014Ed.<\/i>   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 519<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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