With reference to your second point, fate and free will, what I meant was that ordinarily man is subject to fate simultaneously with the fact that he is also operating his will. The two factors are ever present. But as the same fate was made by him in former lives, and he had the freedom to make it as he wished, ultimately there is freedom. You ask why "the dilemma is self-created and does not exist in Nature?" I plead guilty to having been deliberately obscure. I could not explain the problem without going at length into the esoteric philosophy, the study of which proves that where everything is ONE the individual will and fate fall out of consideration from the standpoint of the ONE, or Nature. The Sage is the man who has realized this oneness and hence for him such questions do not arise.
-- Notebooks Category 9: From Birth to Rebirth > Chapter 4 : Free Will, Responsibility, and The World-Idea > # 157
