Pariprasna

Q & A with Srimat Swami Tapasyananda (1904 to 1991), Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Order.

- Bhagavad Gita

QUESTION: If we resign ourselves to the will of God, would it not amount to our succumbing to a fatalistic attitude? Would there be a place in such a scheme for moral action, which presupposes freedom?

MAHARAJ: According to Sri Ramakrishna and all other great seers, prophets, and incarnations, there is only one will behind the universe and that is the will of God. Whether we recognize this or not, this is the ultimate fact. To one who recognizes this in truth and spirit, the question of fatalism does not arise, as there is no place for a second will in his outlook. The sign of such a person is that he ceases to be self-centered or ego-centered in life, is free from the worrying and planning mentality of ordinary men and is always at peace with himself and with the rest of the world.

The question of the fatalistic attitude arises only in the case of men who are still ego-centered and yet recognize a supreme Divine Will. As long as we are ego-centered, we have to accept the idea of a ‘limited free will’. As in many ultimate questions, the mean between two extremes is a virtue, as far as men, in general, are concerned. At the one extreme, there is the idea of absolutely free will, which is untenable even from a purely mechanistic and biological point of view. At the other extreme, there is fatalism, which implies the recognition of the distinctiveness of individuality without any freedom.