Q) If everything is according to the will of the Lord, who is the overall controller, there is no independence for any human being in this world. In such case the human being should not receive the fruits of its actions. How do you justify this?[/b]
Ans) The Lord is controlling all the souls as per Veda “Aatmeshwaram”, which means that all the souls are ruled by the Lord. Gita also says the same “Bhuthanaam Eeswarah”. But this does not mean that there is no independence for the soul. When the king rules the kingdom, all the people in that kingdom are independent in their activities, but they are within the rules of the king. Thus a short span of independence in the human life exists under the control and supervision of the Lord. A cat caught a rat by its jaws. It leaves the rat after a bite for a short span of time.
In that span the rat gets independence and runs in any side as it likes. But the cat is watching the rat and catches it again whenever the rat is out of the limits of the supervision. Similarly the Lord called “Kaala” (death) catches a human being and bites. The bite is the illness of the human being. The repeated diseases are the repeated bites of the ‘Kaala” or the Lord. During the bite the rat looses completely its independence. Similarly any human being, which is attacked by the disease becomes a patient and looses its independence completely. The cat plays with the rat for sometime like this and finally swallowes the rat. Similarly, the human being is swallowed by the Lord at the end. The whole creation itself is like a rat for the cat like Lord, which is told in Brahmasutra “Atta Charaachara Grahanaat”.
Thus the short span of independence of human beings under the supervision of the overall controlling Lord, creates the full game and entertainment for the Lord. The entertainment is the basic reason of the creation by the Lord as said in Veda (Ekaaki Na Ramate) and as said in Brahmasutra (Lokavattu). Within the limits of the supervision of the cat, the rat will receive the result of the direction in which it runs. In one direction there may be fire and the rat may receive the heat. In another direction there may be cold water and the rat will receive the coolness in that direction.
The rat is independent to receive the result of the direction and has full independence to go in any direction. The final death of the rat shows that the rat is under the control of the cat during its choice of direction also, which is not interfered by the cat. Similarly the human life is with full of independence but the final end proves that the independence is under the control of the Lord. Yet, since there was no interference of the Lord during the human life, the human being receives the results according to its actions. Thus the “whole game is perfectly justified in any angle”.
God is not like a King. You can run away to another country, obey the law, disobey the law, overthrow the king, etc. A King wants taxes and fealty whether it is truly from the heart or not. I’m sure God would care about the quality of loyalty and, truth be told, monetary support for religions is the religions’ idea.
If God cares about Truth(knowledge, justice, love and beauty) (which I feel certain He does), He couldn’t tell us Himself to pursue it without exerting some mighty pressure just by His divine mention (in the Wall Street Journal? What?) The only way we can be without strings, is if there are no strings, which means He has to have relinquished control–and this free will means that He doesn’t know and can’t know what we are going to do.
I believe that the latter is THE reason He created this universe to spawn such sentient creatures as us, to delight and surprise Him when we figure out the right thing to do, and then do it. He want’s us to use our heads and our courage. If some choose evil, oblivion–and maybe even if we just coast through life; not by His choice, but our own.
Some people criticize that God is enjoying the creation by entertaining Himself while the souls are troubled with problems and the blame God with sadism. The entertainment of God is not at all the sadism. Sadism is based on two points. One is: that the sadism is exhibited in reality in the world and not in the imaginary world. For God, this world is imaginary and not real. However, the sadism in the imaginary world may also show the attitude towards sadism in the mind. Even that point is ruled out because the second point for the sadism is: that a sadist enjoys by torturing some innocent person without justified reason. Here in the case of God, the problem of the soul in the world is based on its own actions and the punishment is given based on perfect justice. Hence, the point of sadism cannot be attributed to God even in mind. Moreover, the soul is not concerned with the entertainment of God because the soul is not punished on any unjust reason.
If the soul follows the rules of God in the justice, no problem can be seen by the soul. A rich person started a college for entertainment or to escape the income tax on his wealth. This point is unnecessary for the student as long as the college is running on the rules of University. The student has scope to argue against the management provided any type of injustice takes place in teaching or in the examinations. As long as the academic program is perfectly implemented, the student has no scope of argument against the original intention of the management in starting the college. Only a student, who is not perfectly following the academic schedule, will bother about such irrelevant points to mask his own defects.
If some body still argues on this point due to foolishness, the only answer is that God is the supreme most boss and there is no body to argue with Him. If an ant comments on the driver of car, such comment is not even heard by the driver! Since you do not know all the actions of a soul from its childhood, you should not say that a particular soul is good and yet is punished without justice. Neither you are capable of noting all the actions of a soul nor you are capable of judging the action in depth. Shankara established the nature of the world as unreal by itself and is felt real as long as the world exists based on God. Such unreal world is imaginary. The dream cannot be real without its basic material, which is the soul or awareness. Similarly, a pot without mud and a chain without gold are unreal and they are imaginary or illusory. But the world is imaginary to God only and not to your self. If you say that the world is imaginary for your self also and try to do sins, you will have to undergo all the punishments and you must feel the punishments also as imaginary like your sins! Your sins and their punishments are within the realm of the world only and hence both must be imaginary!
Lord is substratum of the whole creation and hence forms base. Without Him creation cannot sustain. Lord created the universe for entertainment. He has given free will to all the human beings to do whatever they like. But, the results will follow the deeds. So, He is indirectly controlling, that is to say that enjoyment for good deeds and misery for bad deeds. Misery is to bring realisation only and not to repeat the same bad deed. Otherwise, He is not responsible for one’s deeds.
Creation is in Lord but Lord is not the creation. But such a Lord can enter creation at the request of devotees who wants Him only and His service. He comes down to give four fortunes to His devotees (to talk, to touch, co-living and to serve).