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the crowd (gneyas, subjects to be known), the greater is the blossoming powers of the Knower (gnata). When one is in a huge crowd, the Knower within will flourish tremendously; the Knower will express fully. The greater the scope, the more the power increases. Some people abandon everything and run away to the forest for solitude, but the real pleasure is amongst a crowd. It is when there is a crowd on the outside, a crowd on the inside, a crowd everywhere that the Shuddhatma becomes alone. There it does not identify itself with anything. However this is possible only after acquiring the knowledge of the Self.
Mandatory Versus Voluntary It is not easy to understand how the world functions. Everything in this world is mandatory but people believe that they act of their own volition and that is why they become trapped. Being born is mandatory, education is mandatory, getting married is mandatory and dying too is mandatory. It is extremely rare to find a person who has even an inkling of where lies the power of one's free will. It is only when you become a Gnani Purush (Self-realized) that your independent free will arises in this mandatory world. Purusharth (Real effort) only begins after you become a Purush. From the time you are born until the time you die, your every action is mandatory. You have wandered through endless cycles of births under compulsion and you will keep on wandering in the same way unless you meet a Gnani Purush who can liberate you from this cycle.
It is mandatory for a father to raise his children, educate them, get them married and help them settle in life. Mandatory means duty-bound and voluntary means will-bound. People mistakenly believe all that is duty-bound to be will-bound. You perpetuate your worldly life in the direction of your will; you believe you are acting according to your free will whereas in
fact you are duty bound. That which you are able to change is where your free will lies. When a child become disrespectful towards his father, the father will get angry and remind him of the sacrifices he has made for him. The foolish man! Tell me what have you done that is new! Everything you did was mandatory. Tell me where your free will lies!
A birth as a celestial being in the devagati too is mandatory. One has to be born there to reap the fruits of one's merit karma. In the same token it is mandatory for one to endure the consequences of one's demerit karma. Do you think that your occupation is of your own free will? No, it is mandatory. Do you think you have done anything in this life of your own free will? When things go according to your wishes, you believe it was your own doing and when everything works out to the contrary, you feel it was inevitable and mandatory. In both the instances, everything was mandatory. Desire too is mandatory.
No activities can be stopped. They are all mandatory and always bind new karma. It is an illusion to believe that you do something willingly or unwillingly. You have no idea as to where lies your free will. There is no doer-ship in that which is mandatory; whereas when you act according to your free will, you become the doer. It is sheer egoism to believe that an action is will-bound. When a person earns a lot of money, he brags that he earned it and when he loses it, he blames God. This in itself is a contradiction. It is egoism. People believe they act according to their free will in this world and that is why they bind merit and demerit karma. There is no bondage if they believe that everything in this world is mandatory (dutybound).
When you got married, was it mandatory or voluntary?
Questioner : Previously I felt that it was voluntary but now I feel it was mandatory.
