No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Ramana Maharsi is one of the lesser lights of modern Indian thought but a major figure in the context of modern Advaitic thought in Hinduism. Modern Indian thought in general is distinguished by a robust confidence in the efficacy of effort as an expression of free will, a confidence it shares with the temper of the West in general and which it may have imbibed by coming in contact with it. Modern Advaitic thought, as represented by its popular modern exponents such as S. Radhakrishnan and T. M. P. Mahadevan, shares this confidence. Ramana Maharsi, however, strikes, at least at first glance, a somewhat discordant note. The purpose of this paper is to present his view on the time–honoured debate between predeterminism and free will and to analyze its philosophical implications.
page 615 note 1 See Osborne, Arthur, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self–Knowledge (New York: Samuel Weiser Inc., 1971) p. 42.Google Scholar Also see Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words (London: Rider and Company, 1962) p. 66Google Scholar, wherein he adds: ‘He sometimes also made such statements to devotees.’ For a poetic rendering see Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Collected Works of Ramona Maharshi (London: Rider & Company, 1972), p. 95.Google Scholar
page 616 note 1 Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, p. 84.Google Scholar
page 616 note 2 Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, p. 55.Google Scholar
page 616 note 3 Osborne, Arthur, op. cit. p. 42.Google Scholar
page 616 note 4 Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Teachings of Bhagvan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, p. 66.Google Scholar B.stands for Bhagavān = Ramana Maharhi.
page 616 note 5 Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, infra, p. 55.Google Scholar Note that enough free will to try to engage in karma even when it is not one's lot is conceded.
page 617 note 1 Sastri, D. S., tr., Letters from Sri Ramansramam Volumes I & II by Nagamma, Suri (Turuvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1970), pp. 225–6.Google Scholar
page 617 note 2 Osborne, Arthur, op. cit. p. 185.Google Scholar
page 618 note 1 Ibid.
page 618 note 2 Osborne, Arthur, op. cit. p. 70.Google Scholar
page 618 note 3 Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Teachings of Bhagaoan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, p. 66.Google Scholar
page 618 note 4 Ibid. p. 67.
page 619 note 1 Ibid. p. 66.
page 619 note 2 Ibid.
page 619 note 3 Osborne, Arthur, op. cit. p. 43–4.Google Scholar
page 619 note 4 Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasrama, 1963), p. 476.Google Scholar ‘M’ stands for Mahai.
page 620 note 1 Ibid.; see pp. 15, 187, 312, 379, etc. Also see Sat-Darshana Bhasya and Talks with Maharshi by K (Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasram, 1968) pp. 76–8.Google Scholar
page 620 note 2 Talks with Sri Ramano Maharshi, pp. 624–5.Google Scholar
page 621 note 1 Upadesa Saram of Bhagwan Raman Maharshi (Bombay: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, no year) pp. 1–3.Google Scholar
page 621 note 2 Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi, p. 406.Google Scholar
page 621 note 3 Ibid. p. 38.
page 622 note 1 Osborne, Arthur, op. cit. p. 44.Google Scholar
page 622 note 2 Osborne, Arthur, ed., The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, p. 73.Google Scholar
page 623 note 1 Sastri, D. S., tr., op. cit. Vol. 1, p. 240Google Scholar; also see pp. 46, 103, etc.
page 623 note 2 Ibid. p. 239.
page 623 note 3 Deutsch, Eliot and van Buitenen, J. A. B., A Source Book of Advaita Vedanta (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1971), p. 312.Google Scholar
page 624 note 1 Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, pp. 421–2.Google Scholar The statement made at the beginning of the passage that ‘Karma is posited as past karma, etc., Prārabdha, Āgdmi and Sanchita’ is not strictly correct as āgāmi karma ‘is the coming karma which includes also karma that is being gathered at present' ( Mahadevan, T. M. P., Outlines of Hinduism (Bombay: Chetana Limited, 1971) p. 60Google Scholar). In terms of the analogy of prdrabdha being the arrow shot by an archer, sancita being those in the quiver, āgāmi again is ‘one he is about to send forth from his bow’ (Ibid. p. 60), the fact that Ramana Mahashi regards even āgāmi karma as tied to past here karma indicates the thoroughgoing nature of his predeterminism.
page 624 note 2 Saraswathi, Swami Ramanananda, tr., Kaivalya Navaneeta (Tiruvannamali: Sri Ramanasramam, 1974) p. 22.Google Scholar Also see Section II. Also see Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi, p. 293.Google Scholar But also see Sastri, D. S., tr., op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 254–5.Google Scholar
page 625 note 1 Osborne, Arthur, op. cit. p. 42–3.Google Scholar
page 625 note 2 In the Ādhyātma Rāmāyapa for instance; see Renou, Louis, ed., Hinduism (New York: Washington Square Press Inc., 1963) pp. 172–3.Google Scholar
page 625 note 3 See Stcherbatsky, Theodore, The Soul Theory of the Buddhists (Varanasi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1970) PP. 45–7.Google Scholar
page 625 note 4 See Gibb, H. A. R. and Kramers, J. H., Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974) p. 200.Google Scholar
page 626 note 1 Gibb, H. A. R., ‘Islam’, in Zaehner, R. C., ed., The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959) p. 200.Google Scholar
page 626 note 2 Watt, W. Montgomery, Bell's Introduction to the Qur'ān (Edinburgh University Press, 1970) p. 149.Google Scholar