Who is the Doer - Why God's will is the only truth

We often wonder why elders say that they are not the doer of anything but God makes them to do all the things. They are in-fact trying to convey the meaning that we are just an agent for God’s will and some go to the extent of saying that everything is God’s will and there is no individual will, meaning everything is happening because of his will and there is nothing other than God’s will. This sort of behavior always seems strange to people like us, for us the point that keeps running in the mind is that how can one say that God is making us to do these things when we are actually aware of what we are doing at a particular point of time, in-fact we become aware of the choices that we make and proceed with life.

It’s like this I’m aware that I’m now writing this article, so how can one say that it is the God’s will that is making me to write this? In-short this leads to a subtler meaning that it is God who is doing this activity and there is no existence other than God, the individual body that this mind is identifying with does not exist really/impermanent (Maya) and all is one and the same i.e. Brahman/God.

The above statement when uttered in front of a layman will appear to him as if the person who is talking like this is mad. Moreover an important question will come up that if everything is God’s will then what is happening here, what are we seeing here in this world? , what is this experience etc.

Let us try understanding one point at a time. The substratum of this existence is God/Brahman/It, we can call it God or anything, and the name does not matter. So anyone when starts finding the source of their creation/existence or of the world it will lead to a common denominator (this is what the modern science is trying find now, to find a common substratum of all – though it is not advisable to compare science with spirituality), which is the source of all and there is no source to it. In Vedanta we denote this as Brahman. That’s why when describing Brahman it is said to be biggest of the biggest and smallest of the small, it cannot be touched, felt or seen, and it is neither existent nor nonexistent and so on. The point that is being conveyed here is that the source of all is something which is indiscernible and from this the apparent world has come into being, this world which may exist for a very long time, and is not permanent as it has to go back to the source and dissolve itself in it. When everything comes out of this source and exists with the support of this and finally mergers back into this, how can we actually say that we are independent of this source/God. Meaning the most direct way of knowing that God exists is just looking at our-self as we cannot exist if there was no God/source of all. Given the above understanding how can one say now that he is the doer of everything, where we actually know that all that exists is only God and nothing other than the God.

Now second question that comes up is that of the awareness of doing the activity and taking decision. Meaning I know that I’m writing this article now, so what is making me to think that God is not doing the activity but it is me (Ego) who is doing this work then?

So let us try to understand what is happening here, when we start to enquire who we are first we will feel that we are the body, but body is useless as it is active only when the mind works (some instructions are given to it) and it is the mind which makes the body do everything and it does not exist in dream/deep sleep. So with this we understand that we are the mind now. But when we are in deep sleep the mind is inactive and yet we exist, so it will lead to a question, who are we? As we can now understand that there is an existence without body and mind which can exist in spite of the mind and body but the former cannot exist without it (God/Source). So now when the enquiry becomes complete we understand who we are, meaning we are God who is encased in this body and mind complex (which is created by God). Then what makes us to identify ourselves different to God? The answer is the mind, the mind which is outgoing in nature looks out side and forgets (ignorance) its source and starts identifying itself with the external creation, thereby creating a false identification in the form of Ego. But when this ignorance of false identification is removed by self-enquiry of who we are, Ego dissolves and mind realizes (in no-mind state) that it is just a creation of the source and it will finally merge back to it eventually. So now based on the above we can understand that we are not the doer of the activity but it is the Self/God within which is the source of all actions and it is due to our ignorance and mind/Ego we forget this truth. Forgetting the truth does not negate the fact that God’s will is supreme and there is no individual will.

But in practical life due to the presence of mind and its mis-identification we have some amount of freewill to lead our life (due to divine grace), the actions performed by wrongly identifying our-self with Ego and not God, leads to action and reaction (law of causation/karma). So it becomes very important that one should not identify our-self with mind/ego and identify with the lord within as this will not give rise to the law of causation. This can happen only when a person loves and surrenders to the God within. The only thing that is needed is that all our freewill and thought should be focused internally to first understand who we are (we are God at the subtlest level/consciousness level which uses this body and mind) and once we have acquired this knowledge then stop falsely identifying with mind/Ego (The source of these is the Self). For a realized person freewill does not exist and it is only the God’s will that exists

Based on this we can understand clearly that we are not the doer and it is due to Ego that this differentiation arises and hence this is the reason we say God’s will is the only truth.