Ø Weakness is an innate tendency in human beings. If you say, “I am weak, I am weak,” the weakness will not go away. Rather, a person can become strong by wholeheartedly cultivating positive thoughts: “Why should I be weak? I must be strong.”…. Shun that thing immediately which you think makes you weak. Accept the thing with earnestness which you think will make you strong. (Swami Turiyananda)
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Ø Everything happens by the will of God. This may lead one to think that the individual has no scope for moral effort. This is not correct. The individual is given a limited freedom to function within certain limits. Suppose a person has a calf. He ties it to a peg with a long rope to grace round about. It is given the freedom to go up to a certain extent but not further. If it exhausts the grass, then the owner either lengthens the tether or removes the peg to another place. So also, we are given a certain amount of freedom which we all feel within and which our moral nature helps us to intuit. If we use it properly, we evolve into higher and higher stages and if we do not, we stagnate and degenerate. Our higher evolution depends on our proper use of this limited freedom.
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Ø How are we to know God’s will? Let us take that He has kept it away from us in His wisdom and let us not pry into it. To know God’s will beforehand is to paralyse moral effort through which alone man evolves. God has given us the power to strive for what is right and He has given us the scriptures to enlighten us as to what is right and good. With the aid of the scriptures, we must strive to our utmost, and we shall know God’s will, at the end, when success or failure attends the effort. Whether it be success or failure, we have to take it with resignation, that is without elation or depression, accepting the ultimate results of our efforts as God’s will. So we can know God’s will only at the end and not beforehand, and it is good that this is so, we were to know for certain beforehand that we would die at the end of a year, it will paralyse all our actions and even make life a bundle of fears. But if we accept in a general way that we shall die only when God wills, without however knowing when His will is going to be operative, we shall face even dangers without fear, and when death actually comes we shall be well prepared for it. (Swami Tapasyananda)
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Ø Everything happens by the will of God. This may lead one to think that the individual has no scope for moral effort. This is not correct. The individual is given a limited freedom to function within certain limits. Suppose a person has a calf. He ties it to a peg with a long rope to grace round about. It is given the freedom to go up to a certain extent but not further. If it exhausts the grass, then the owner either lengthens the tether or removes the peg to another place. So also, we are given a certain amount of freedom which we all feel within and which our moral nature helps us to intuit. If we use it properly, we evolve into higher and higher stages and if we do not, we stagnate and degenerate. Our higher evolution depends on our proper use of this limited freedom.
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Ø How are we to know God’s will? Let us take that He has kept it away from us in His wisdom and let us not pry into it. To know God’s will beforehand is to paralyse moral effort through which alone man evolves. God has given us the power to strive for what is right and He has given us the scriptures to enlighten us as to what is right and good. With the aid of the scriptures, we must strive to our utmost, and we shall know God’s will, at the end, when success or failure attends the effort. Whether it be success or failure, we have to take it with resignation, that is without elation or depression, accepting the ultimate results of our efforts as God’s will. So we can know God’s will only at the end and not beforehand, and it is good that this is so, we were to know for certain beforehand that we would die at the end of a year, it will paralyse all our actions and even make life a bundle of fears. But if we accept in a general way that we shall die only when God wills, without however knowing when His will is going to be operative, we shall face even dangers without fear, and when death actually comes we shall be well prepared for it. (Swami Tapasyananda)
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