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If freedom of will is utter illusion we have to ask ourselves why the Buddha, greatest of all advocates of the truth of inexorable karma, and whose enlightenment is incontestable, gave as his dying legacy to disciples the words, "Work out your own salvation." If this is not a call to the use of will, of a free will, what is? It is hard for Westerners to accept a doctrine of complete fatalism, and the difficulty is not wholly due to their ignorance of spiritual facts which are elementary to Indians. It is also due to their instinctive refusal to be robbed of their initiative, and to their insistence on moral responsibility for ethical decisions and actions.

-- Notebooks Category 9: From Birth to Rebirth > Chapter 4 : Free Will, Responsibility, and The World-Idea > # 64