VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 FALL 2015

created by the mind relate to the imaginary future. If we fully accept that, which is in the present moment, life becomes incomparably easier. If there is a problem in the present, OK, we shall deal with it. We should not, however create problems through imagining the future. Let us live in the present moment. To live in God and to live with God means to live in the present. If we live in the present moment, the “I” or the ego ceases to function. The ego and the individual mind can function only in connection with the past or future. It is only when all the present moments are horizontally linked into time that the mind starts to exist. But if we exist only in the present, where is the ego and where the mind? 3 Discussion At a first glance, the proposition of Balsekar looks fatalistic. [Note: It may had been influenced also by experiments of Benjamin Libet in 1981.] It looks like some of the modern mahāvākyas: ”Do not do anything, just be.” But in reality, it is like the case of monkeys in the Skinner boxes – the one that was nervous as it wanted to avoid the mild electric shock by pressing a lever at a right (but random) moment, died early of stress. The one that did not have the possibility to try to avoid that shock, got used to it. Even this is not a full implementation of the presented model as it also advises to use the provided resources that are granted for achieving our mission on Earth. What is our mission? It can be known only moment to moment and it may change, so no simple model would be able to describe it. So that “mission part” is to be dealt with, which the flow of life brings to us. We can strife for getting to know the Absolute, but the success depends on the provision of conditions, which depends on the will of God, and also on our karma. The karma is created through departure from dharma. But are we responsible if it is the will of God that puts us into the life situations? Well, we are responsible for our responses. We are responsible for the problems that the mind creates when our attention does not rest in the Present. Giving up our “free will” in favour of God in situations when we are not the masters of the processes is fuzzy as at moments, when those 7% of problems arise, we have to apply our mind, and thus we seem to have to depart from staying in the present moment. Sri Ramakrishna asked a disciple of him [note: Girish Chandra Ghosh], who was not able to do his spiritual practices regularly, to give him the power of attorney. He will do the spiritual practices for him, but under the condition that in every step of his life, he will cease to do, speak or think in the way “I will do it” and instead, he was asked to do it like ”I will do it, if it is the will of God”. The disciple acknowledged, that he thought it would make his life simpler, but giving up his “will” was one of the most difficult tasks of his life. Nevertheless, he did not regret it (Saradananda 1952, 328–329; Nikhilananda 1965, 956). A similar idea is expressed also in the Tragedy of Man (Madách 1962), where in the tenth scene, it is acknowledged that humans are subtly forced to do the Will of God. The final advice of God to humans represented by Adam is: “I told you, man: strive, be trustful and trust,“ meaning that whatever life brings Spirituality Studies 1 (2) Fall 2015 59 (5)

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