This is a curated selection of Swami Sarvapriyananda quotes on free will (primarily sourced from publicly available videos, and personally curated by me on my own lifelong learning journey). This page is intended as a learning resource for educational purposes and meant to offer an overview/introduction. Short quotes aren’t a substitute for source material, so if this page sparks your interest, explore more deeply by checking out Swami Sarvapriyananda’s books (Amazon).
Page Contents:
25 Swami Sarvapriyananda Quotes on Free Will & Freedom
Swami Sarvapriyananda Quotes on Free Will
“Free will is assumed in religion, in politics, in economics, in our society, and in common sense. Is it really there? No. That’s the amazing thing when we investigate. What do I mean investigate? Investigate scientifically, investigate philosophically, investigate in religion and theology. Everywhere the answer seems to come up that in a deep sense, no, free will is not as we understood it.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“‘Free will’ is a contradiction in terms the moment you speak about ‘will’—will is always caused, and anything that is caused is determined.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“Beyond the mind is no question of will. Will is within the mind, and being within the mind, it is a chain of cause and effect.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“In the ultimate reality, there is no question of will. What would the absolute will about? How would the absolute will anything? Willing is in the mind.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“The great spiritual masters all seem to say that it’s God’s will alone—Thy will be done. It is God’s will which is working through everything, not ours.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“Everything that happens to you is a manifestation of the light of the divine—your own light, you yourself appear. Whom to blame? Whom to praise? Praiser praised, blamer blamed are but one—and that one is you. This is the ultimate truth … You are the truth.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“Vivekananda said ‘free will’ is a misnomer in terms. There is only freedom. Atman is free. Brahman is free. Pure consciousness is free in itself. But, when it becomes ‘will’—I will do this, I will think this, I will say this—it’s already determined. It’s far down the chain of causality when it becomes expressed as will.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
Swami Sarvapriyananda Quotes on the Stages of Seeing Free Will
Swami Sarvapriyananda also refers to and references the work of Arindam Chakrabarti here:
- Stage 1 (appearance of free will): “The first answer is when we look at our lives, yes … Straightaway what it looks like on prima facie, there is free will … We seem to have free will. We feel that we have free will.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Stage 2 (understanding no free will): “When we look through philosophy, religion, science, neuroscience, the answer is no … Upon examination/investigation—scientific, philosophical, neuroscientific, religious teachings—it seems that we have no free will … They all seem to be saying that your feeling of free will is an illusion.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Stage 3 (freedom beyond will): “Finally, the truth is that ultimately we are free, though not free will … When we look beyond to the enlightened person, the jīvanmukta (liberating while living), yes, freedom—no free will, but freedom … When we come to freedom itself, enlightenment, we have freedom.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Wisest Way of Living: “If you put these three (stages) together, what you get is the wisest way of living. The wisest way of using this appearance of free will is to surrender to the Lord—that I freely choose to surrender to the Lord. Both things are there: I’m using my appearance of free will, and at the same time acknowledging that it is God’s will. That is called ‘surrender’. It’s a very beautiful resolution of this paradox … This acknowledgement that it is God’s will which is operating through everything—even appearing as my so-called ‘free will’—is the wisest way of living.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
Swami Sarvapriyananda Quotes on Freedom
“From an Advaitic point of view, there is freedom, not free will.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“Advaita says there is freedom—you as Atman are free, but as a limited, individual being you do not have free will.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“Why would absolute reality want freedom? Freedom from what? There is only one reality. You are that one reality right now. What freedom are you seeking and from what?” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“The ultimate reality is free. Our real nature is freedom.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“There is freedom, but nobody who is free.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“You are not somebody who has become free; you are freedom itself.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“The person is never free. You become free of the person, the person does not become free.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“The director of the movie is free. In the movie, no character has freedom, but you are the director luckily. You are free, and this whole thing is your expression.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“To get stuck in a particular body, mind, and personality is ignorance. To step back from a particular body, mind, and personality into the background consciousness is enlightenment.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“There is nobody who is an enlightened person or free.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“When you are enlightened, you realize everything is that one consciousness.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“When an enlightened person realizes that he or she is one with God, they realize that everybody is one with God.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
“The secret of enlightenment: When you are enlightened—when you know the absolute, Turiya—it’s not as an object. No, no. You are that. That’s what you realize. You are not a person who realizes the absolute. If you’re a person who says, ‘I know the absolute’ then you do not know. One who knows that it cannot be known as an object, truly knows. You are not a person who lives eternally; you are that eternal existence itself. You are not a person who knows that ultimate reality; you are that knowledge itself. You are not a person who enjoys various kinds of blissful experiences; you are that bliss itself.” — Swami Sarvapriyananda
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