16 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 In accordance with their-their prārabdha, he who is for that, being there-there, will cause to dance. What will never happen will not happen whatever effort one makes; what will happen will not stop whatever obstruction one does. This indeed is certain. Therefore being silent is good. [23] “In accordance with their-their prārabdha” (Ta. “avar-avar pirārabdha-p prakāram”) means in accordance with the prārabdha of each one of us; “he who is for that” (Ta. “adaṟkāṉavaṉ”) means God, who allots our prārabdha and makes our mind, speech and body act in accordance with it; “being there-there” (Ta. “āṅgāṅgu irundu”) means being in each place, implying not only that God is omnipresent but that he is at all times in the heart of each one of us; and “will cause to dance” (Ta. āṭṭuvippaṉ) means that he will make our mind, speech and body act in accordance with the prārabdha he has allotted for us. Therefore, when Bhagavan says in this third sentence of the thirteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?: “Since one power of the Supreme Lord is driving all kāryas” (Ta. “sakala kāriyaṅgaḷai-y-um oru paramēśvara śakti naḍatti-k-koṇḍirugiṟapaḍiyāl”), what he means by “driving all kāryas” is not only making us experience whatever prārabdha he has allotted for us but also making our mind, speech and body act in accordance with it. However, this does not mean that all the actions we do by mind, speech and body are actions that he makes us do in accordance with our prārabdha, because we also act under the sway of our own “inclinations” (Sa. vāsanās), meaning in accordance with our own will. The actions he makes us do are only those actions that are necessary in order for us to experience our prārabdha, but even such actions are generally actions that we do not only in accordance with our prārabdha but also in accordance with our own will. Whereas “fate” (Sa. prārabdha) determines what we are to experience, our will determines what we want to experience and what we want not to experience, and accordingly what we try to experience and try to avoid experiencing, so fate and will each have their own jurisdiction, and neither can interfere in the jurisdiction of the other. That is, just as prārabdha cannot prevent us wanting and trying to experience anything or to avoid experiencing anything, our will cannot prevent us experiencing whatever prārabdha we have to experience. Everything that we are given to experience is our prārabdha, meaning that it is predetermined, so though we are free to want and to try to experience anything we want, we are not free to actually experience anything other than what we are given to experience as our prārabdha. In other words, we have “freedom of will” (Sa. icchā-svatantra) and “freedom of action” (Sa. kriyā-svatantra) but no freedom of experience, because whatever we experience is prārabdha, which is determined by the will of God, as Bhagavan makes clear in the second, third and fourth sentences of this note he wrote for his mother: “What will never happen will not happen whatever effort one makes; what will happen will not stop whatever obstruction one does. This indeed is certain” (Ta. “eṉḏṟum naḍavādadu eṉ muyaṟcikkiṉum naḍavādu; naḍappadu eṉ taḍai seyyiṉum nillādu. iduvē tiṇṇam”). Whatever actions we do by mind, speech or body under the sway of our viṣaya-vāsanās (Sa. “inclinations to experience objects or phenomena”) are a misuse of our “freedom of will and action” (Sa. icchā-kriyā-svatantra), and such actions (which are called āgāmya) are what produce fruit, which are stored in saṁcita and may in a later life be allotted by God for us to experience as prārabdha. Since the nature of ego is to constantly attend to “phenomena” (Sa. viṣayas) under the sway of its viṣaya-vāsanās, so long as we rise and stand as ego we act under their sway, so the only way in which we can avoid being swayed by them is to cling to self-attentiveness so firmly that we thereby do not rise as ego. This alone is the correct use of our “freedom of will and action” (Sa. icchā-kriyā-svatantra), and is what Bhagavan implies in the final sentence of this note he wrote for his mother: “Therefore being silent is good” (Ta. “āhaliṉ mauṉamāy irukkai naṉḏṟu”). That is, “being silent” (Ta. “mauṉamāy irukkai”), or more literally “being as silence” or “silently being”, means being without rising as ego, and when we do not rise as ego we do not identify the mind and body as ourself, so whatever actions God may make the mind, speech or body do in accordance with prārabdha are not experienced by us as actions we are doing. By rising as ego and thereby identifying the mind and body as ourself we become the doer of actions and the experiencer of their fruit, so when we are so steadfastly self-attentive that we thereby do not rise as ego, we remain silent without doing any action or experiencing any fruit. In other words, “being silent” (Ta. “mauṉamāy irukkai”) is surrendering ourself completely to God, so it is “good” (Ta. naṉḏṟu), as Bhagavan says in his characteristically understated fashion, thereby implying that it alone is what is truly good, because in comparison to it, all other things that we normally judge to be good pale into insignificance. It is therefore the supreme good or summum bonum, so it is the ultimate aim of all spiritual paths and the only real purpose of our life.
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