I made man just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall,
Such I created all th' ethereal powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd,
Truly, they stood who stood, and fell who fell.—Milton
This controversial subject has been debated and argued for ages. It has occupied the minds of thinkers, philosophers and scientists and its main opponents have been theologians and materialistic scientists. We are free to choose our own premises, i.e., exercise Free Will, based on our concept of Deity, Nature and Man—and make our own assumptions. If the premises are faulty, the conclusion and reasoning, however logical, are wrong, which becomes the inevitable fate. We then struggle against this fate. This struggling, inherent in each, is Free Will. H.P.B. writes:
The great majority of our learned "Didymi" reject the idea of free will. Now this question is a problem that has occupied the minds of thinkers for ages; every school of thought having taken it up in turn and left it as far from solution as ever. And yet, placed as it is in the foremost ranks of philosophical quandaries, the modern "psycho-physiologists" claim in the coolest and most bumptious way to have cut the Gordian knot forever. For them the feeling of personal free agency is an error, an illusion, "the collective hallucination of mankind." (Raja-Yoga or Occultism)
In order to understand this subject one has to have the knowledge of the Three Fundamental Propositions of The Secret Doctrine. The Three Fundamentals are: God, Law and Being, or Spirit, Matter, Mind.
Theosophy posits One, Eternal, Immutable, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient principle, pervading the entire universe. It is the Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root of all that was, is or shall be. It has two polarities—Purusha, Prakriti; Spirit, Matter. This one Reality manifests in the universe as Law—Law of periodicity, Law of cycles, Law of Karma. The whole universe exists for the evolution and emancipation of the soul. All souls are emanations from the Universal Over-Soul—itself an aspect of the Unknown Root. We have been through all forms of matter and acquired experience through the elemental, mineral, vegetale and animal kingdoms up to the stage of man. Evolution proceeds by natural impulse up to the human stage. When man arrives on the scene, evolution is no more propelled by natural impulse as man's free will overrides his natural instinct.
Man, endowed with the light of mind by the Solar Angels, has the power to think and choose. Hence, for humanity, evolution proceeds only by one's own individual efforts. There are no special gifts or favours bestowed on anyone, except what one acquires through one's self-choice and effort. Man is dual—permanent in his higher aspect and evanescent in his lower aspect, i.e., immortal in his higher nature and perishable in his lower, or, individuality and personality.
Now by "psychic" individuality we mean that self-determining power which enables man to override circumstances. Place half a dozen animals of the same species under the same circumstances, and their action while not identical, will be closely similar; place half a dozen men under the same circumstances and their actions will be as different as their characters, i.e., their psychic individuality. (Raja-Yoga or Occultism)
H.P.B. points out that everything in nature is sentient, conscious, and intelligent. There is nothing inorganic.
Occultism regards every atom as an "independent entity" and every cell as a "conscious unit." It explains that no sooner do such atoms group to form cells, than the latter become endowed with consciousness, each of its own kind, and with free will to act within the limits of law. (Raja-Yoga or Occultism)
Now some informed scientists are able to recognize and implicate order in the universe and intelligence behind everything in nature. H.P.B. writes:
There would be no life possible (in the Mayavic sense) without Death, nor regeneration and reconstruction without destruction. Plants would perish in eternal sunlight, and so would man, who would become an automaton without the exercise of his free will and aspirations after that sunlight which would lose its being and value for him had he nothing but light. (S.D., I, 413-14)
The philosophy of that law in Nature, which implants in man as well as in every beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and self-guidance, pertains to psychology. (S.D., II, 484)
Our past arising from the choices already made, is fate. Our present is in our hands, i.e., in the realm of free will. As we exercise our free will, so will our future be determined.
We debase our intellectual principle by selfishness that is the cause of sin and sorrow. Intellect is the instrument, the power, the function or faculty which man uses to determine the relation between cause and effect. We use it to investigate, to analyze, to compare and to determine whether our action is good or bad. On the basis of our decision we can find out the cause that led to the good or bad effect. If the effect is good, then we can repeat the effort; if bad, we can eliminate it.
What is instinct? It is the acquired knowledge and experience of a whole hierarchy of beings acting in the individual being, of which that being is unconscious. Does a woodpecker know why it does what it does? No. Each woodpecker has the whole knowledge of its tribe; likewise all animals have the knowledge of their families, and so on through all the kingdoms of Nature below man. Instinct in the animal is the unconscious expression by the individual of the accumulated knowledge of the race to which it belongs.
What is intuition? It is the cautious use by the individual man of the stored experience of the whole human family in all places, all worlds, at all times, in every direction. Each man being an embodiment of the whole race, Nature seeks for expression in the individual man in precisely the same way a tank full of water will seek expression through every outlet small or large.
Why then with the tremendous power of mind and with immense accumulated knowledge and experience through preceding generations, does man now lack knowledge or understanding of happiness? Why do we not have peace, brotherhood, prosperity, contentment, etc.? It is not that we lack power, but we are lazy and obtuse, and above all selfish.
Many are the discoveries made by science with the power of the mind that cen be used for the general progress, for the betterment of the race. Unfortunately, they have not been put to moral use. Discoveries such as dynamite, atom/hydrogen bombs which could be used for the benefit of mankind, have been put to destructive purposes.
Each one of us can also achieve perfection through our own efforts as the Great Ones did. Everyone is guided in his actions by intellect or by impulse, but the governing power should be intellect coupled with intuition. We must free the mind from lower desires and control the three avenues of action, viz., body, speech and mind, by conscious acts using our free will. As the process of refinement of our sheaths goes on in us by constant practice and vairagya (detachment), by study, by work, by philosophy and above all by ethical living, we can release our mind from Kama (desire), and make it a guide of the highest mental faculties and an organ of free will. Then we will be able to use that accumulated knowledge and experience of the human race that is dormant in us.
Mind is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes the guide of the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free will in physical man. (Raja-Yoga or Occultism)
We must attune our will to the great Will of Nature. Will is the force of spirit in action. When a person is able to purify his mind, the Higher Self, the Spirit, is able to act through Buddhi-Manas. Then, as the biblical saying goes, His "Will" would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The 18th chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita describes what happens when a person functions from the plane of unity, instead of duality: "Wherever Krishna, the supreme Master of devotion, and wherever the son of Pritha, the mighty archer, may be, there with certainty are fortune, victory, wealth, and wise action; this is my belief." In other words, one has "an intuitional perception of one's being the vehicle of the manifested Avalokiteshwara or Divine Atman (Spirit)" (Raja-Yoga or Occultism). To achieve this man has to master his
(1) Sarira—body; (2) Indriya—senses; (3) Dosha—faults; (4)Dukkha—pain; and is ready to become one with his Manas—mind; Buddhi—intellection, or spiritual intelligence; and Atma—highest soul, i.e., spirit. When he is ready for this, and, further, to recognize in Atma the highest ruler in the world of perceptions, and in the will, the highest executive energy (power), then may he, under the time-honoured rules, be taken in hand by one of the Initiates. (Ibid.)
As a person lives a clean life with a pure heart and an eager intellect, he will have unveiled spiritual perception. Then, as his inner nature changes, he passes from reflex action, habitual action, impulsive action, reasoning action, to the action of intuition and divine will.
Give me the supreme confidence of love, this is my prayer—the confidence that belongs to life in death, to victory in defeat, to the power hidden in frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain which accepts hurt but disdains to return it.
—Rabindranath Tagore