From: Sri Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge, by Arthur Osborne

    Sri Bhagavan was uncompromising in his teaching that whatever is to happen will happen, while at the same time he taught that whatever happens is due to prarabdha, a man’s balance sheet of destiny acting according to so rigorous a law of cause and effect that even the word ‘justice’ seems too sentimental toexpress it. He refused ever to be entangled in a discussion on free will and predestination, for such theories, although contradictory on the mental plane, may both reflect aspects of truth. He would say “Find out who it is who is predestined or has free will.”

    He said explicitly: “All the actions that the body is to perform are already decided upon at the time it comes into existence: the only freedom you have is whether or not to identify yourself with the body.” If one acts a part in a play, the whole part is written out beforehand and one acts as faithfully whether one is Caesar who is stabbed or Brutus who stabs, being unaffected by it because one knows one is not that person. In the same way, he who realizes his identity with the deathless Self acts his part on the human stage without fear or anxiety, hope or regret, not being touched by the part played. If one were to ask what reality one has when all one’s actions are determined, it would lead only to the question: Who, then, am I? If the ego that thinks it makes decisions is not real and yet I know that I exist, what is the reality of me? This is only a preparatory, mental version of the quest that Sri Bhagavan prescribed, but it is an excellent preparation for the real quest.

    And yet, the apparently conflicting view that a man makes his own destiny is no less true, since everything happens by the law of cause and effect and every thought, word and action brings about its repercussion. Sri Bhagavan was as definite about this as other Masters. He said to a devotee, Sivaprakasam Pillai, in a reply quoted in Chapter Ten, “As beings reap the fruit of their actions in accordance with God’s laws, the responsibility is theirs, not His.” He constantly stressed the need for effort.