KARMA, FATE, FREE WILL & LIBERATION
Do all animals have souls. including insects and
bacteria ?
How does the cycle of rebirths cease when one
attains MOKSHA ?
Detailed descriptions are available in Bhagavata and Bhagavadgita when the process of creation is described.
84 lac species we go through a a jeeva ( soul) and human species is the one we reach as the last one of the 84 lac species. Today science has identified only about 10% of these species.
Jada and living are two categories, and amongst living, the faculty of thinking, discernment, and free will with communicating skills of very high order are gifted to human species while others have to lesser and lesser degrees.
Every living entity hence must have a soul. Trees too live but do no karma. They just serve , serve and serve!!!
The moment you are given intelligence, thinking, desires and physical prowess to deploy, you start karma and the details of karma, akarma, vikarma all are well described in Bhagavadgita.
The same karma depending on the intention, becomes binding or liberating...
All karmas which do not involve indriya's satisfaction will lead to moksha. It is a state of untainted full ananda state, where you become mere observer and just a tool of the cosmic force while remaining totally free from any karma phala.
To my little brain the little I know from this life I tried to put down.
FATE & FREE WILL
Karma is what you do and the result is what you are scripting the future course of forced events in the next janma. The cyle time for drawing the balance sheet for us is multiple births. If all bad karma phalas are grouped and given in one go we just cannot stand it. So from the bag of parabdha karmas, some good and some bad are judiciously combined and the fate is presribed aon those lines. Suddenly we find some good things happen to us without our asking nor seeking, and some times nothing we want happens whatever we strive for.
But the good effort to strive to do good, though apparently is blocked currently from delivering the results, this effort is not going waste... it is adding to the good karma defining the fate for the next birth. The free will is still available for us to do the karma either good or bad, but the result is where the "free will" does not apply. The result cannot be dictated by our will.
But short cycle events like you work hard and improve your running, your knowledge etc always give the immediate results. Similarly, when in difficulty prayer to a local goddess or saint, can give relief for the moment... but this also is part of the larger design to give the short term results. The differentiation is whether it is temporary and lasts only for a short time followed by again the lows or of such permanent nature that you do not have to face the lows again.
Krishna is very clear, it is only the nature or swabhava of a jeeva which gets fixed for the prana or jeeva or soul, but not fate. The fate is written by the jeeva himself. Every karma one does leaves behind the seed for the way fate grows for the jeeva to perceive in his next janma.
All the Gods we see pray around like Indra or Varuna are not independent to grant what they want nor deny what they feel like to a jeeva. They can only obey the larger cosmic law to give what is due for the karma. Ones own karma is what decides. So our well being or otherwise is totally in our hands. There is no magic cure of secretly pleasing Indra or some goddess, to by pass the route and get undue benefits. This is what is taught in Krishna's govardhana parvata lifting and denying pooja to Indra. Krishna emphasised service to cow and the nature of mountain.
There is only one independent or more correctly Sarva swantatntra force... which rises above all these but also resides in all these jagat and viswam and in every sub-atomic part of us and every thing around us , which is powering the entire universe, creating, maintaining and destroying cyclically to create again.
Jeevas , matter remain indistructibe, but transform in to non-manifest but readily available again to start becoming manifest that too not suddenly but gradually spread over long cycles of time.
Krishna insisted on correctly knowing the Bhowtica sastra, Adhyatmica sastra etc almost 8 branches are described in Bhagavadgita and we are hardly doing work in one area and call it as science.
Satya /Jnana are concepts least understood but much maligned by many of modern educated but practically illiterate in our ancient knowledge in its width,breadth and depth.
SO fate is what we experience currently but manufactured by ourselves earlier and we alone are responsible for it. Free will is what we can do and current intention and karma, which manufactures future fate. There is no God's hand in this...but our own. The rules of Dharma are well defined and the need to try hard to do nishkama karma, and karma only to help sustain the universe with least concern to own self, is the key for eternal ananda and liberation from the cycles of births, by destroying the future fate to suffer.
Yoga as described by Lord Krishna demands discipline and abhyasa and it is a matter of choice and free will whether we follow or not.
Om Sri Narayanaya ! He alone drives our Buddhi and I may be pardoned for any show of arrogance in my statements. In all humility I submit Sir, these thoughts as inspired by your questions, are from HIM only..
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