The two questions
Do we have free will? Spiritual seekers inevitably ask this question, and I have had to struggle to get past it. As my realisations built on top of one another, this question kept re-appearing, and I had to work my way through it each time.
Together with this question is the idea of karma. I understand karma to be the law of cause and effect. Actions have impact. However, this word is also understood by many to imply that the experiences we have today are the result of actions we performed in the past. In other words, if we win the lottery today, it is because we were saintly, unselfish and poor in the past, perhaps in past lives. When vyavahaarik life appears unfair,1 the theory of karma is proposed as an explanation. Then the theory is taken one step further and it is proposed that our lives are pre-ordained, because everything which happens to us at any point is a result of what we did in the past.
Our masters tell us to practise saadhana, but if we do not have free will, then we cannot practise anything, including saadhana. So is there any point in a spiritual seeker trying to do anything? If all our present and future are based on our past, then even enlightenment is pre-ordained, therefore is there any need for doing anything in that direction today?
It’s amusing that no one asks the question of free will when they are hungry and are selecting items from a menu at an expensive restaurant. No one then says “No point in choosing — what I’ll finally eat is pre-ordained anyway.” No one asks whether karma governs our lives when, after a lot of effort, they win a contract or do very well in an exam — they then never say that their win was pre-ordained. In other words, they win contracts “by the sweat of the brow”, but when it comes to spiritual practices — what’s the point, it’s all pre-ordained, see?
The question of free will
I have understood that we do not have free will. Only Ma acts. All actions which we as humans perceive, whether it be a change of weather in the sky or a man walking his dog, are actions in Ma. I will explain my point of view further.
When we say “I have free will”, what is this “I”? Inevitably, we refer to this body-mind apparatus by “I”, at least in the context of actions and free will.2 My understanding is that this apparatus is a purely deterministic machine, governed by the laws of causality. In other words, it reflects the physicist’s view of the universe. Recent experiments conducted by neurologists on our decision making processes and the operations in our brains.3 clearly prove that the decision which we are aware of at a point in time are actually “already taken” in the form of chemical changes and electronic impulses well before that point in time. Our conscious thoughts become aware at a later point that we have decided; the body-mind apparatus has decided before. See the Wikipedia page on the neuroscience of free will.
Therefore, the body-mind apparatus is operating totally as per internal triggers which operate in advance of our conscious mind recognizing that the decision is being taken. This is solid evidence that the body-mind apparatus is driven by causality — there is no separate factor called free will. So, this view tallies with what physics (well, all hard sciences are specialisations in physics) says.
Approaching it from the other end, a devotee will say only one line to explain the working of the entire universe: “Thy will be done.” Every event and action in the universe is a manifestation of God’s will. If there is only God’s will, then there can be no free will at a human level other than as a reflection of God’s will. Therefore, the devotee and the physicist will concur, though arriving at that conclusion via very different paths.
Approaching the question from the perspective of the jnana margi, the one who uses the Upanishads, meditation, contemplation, and study to unravel the nature of the universe, a similar conclusion is reached. Students of advaita vedanta for instance will always say that the purusha or Brahman does not act, and the Prakriti which does all action is governed by a universal law of causality. Therefore, our body-mind apparatii, which are in and of Prakriti, are totally deterministic, totally bound by causality.
So, this is my view of free will: we have none. Any other response contradicts everything else I have understood till now.
A couple of months after I first wrote this chapter, I encountered an hour-long talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda, an erudite teacher of advaita vedanta, a monk of RKM4:
For one hour, he addresses this question head-on, exhibiting spectacular depth and breadth. One of the thinkers this speaker respects is Sam Harris, who has some excellent talks on this subject, e.g.
The Oxford University Press has a lovely series of small, slim paperbacks called The Very Short Introduction books, on an eclectic set of 200+ topics. For a beginner in any subject, these books are delightful introductions. There is one book on free will, titled, as expected, “Free Will: A Very Short Introduction” by Thomas Pink.
The question of karma
The next question is about karma: are our lives totally pre-destined? Here, I find a common and fundamental misunderstanding about Prakriti, stemming from the basic illusion of we being our body-mind machines in charge of our destinies. When one comes from that starting point, one believes that humans act, and those acts have reactions. In reality, only Ma acts. Therefore, I feel karma is the law of cause and effect, and it applies only to Ma as a whole. One man’s action does not necessarily have any impact on his own future; every man’s action has an impact on the entire universe. The lives of our body-mind machines may be pre-destined, but we do not know what that destiny is, and what my body-mind is doing right now is exactly what the universal forces of causality are making the body-mind do. If this body-mind apparatus says “Life is pre-destined, there is no point in trying, I’ll just sit in a corner,” then this thought and this action are exactly what the universal forces of causality are triggering.
So, this question of karma needs to be answered based on who is asking and where he is coming from. Usually, when a person is asking this question, he is steeped in the belief that he is the body-mind apparatus, and he has been born and he will die, and he needs to make the best of every hour he has. Such a questioner must be told that his future is what he makes of it. He must take responsibility for his actions, follow his dharma, pray to the gods and hope for the best. One must not destroy the psychological ground on which he stands by telling him that he is not the lead actor in his life.
But if the question comes from one who has understood na tvam deho, na te deho, then he must accept that in our birth is the seed of our death, as the Buddha had apparently said. Every action follows the universal laws of causality, and the body-mind apparatus is impacted by every atom of the universe. In that perspective, causality, karma, applies to Ma as a whole, and subsets of it impact each atom. There is no such thing as your karma and my karma.
Of good and bad karma
There is one other commonly held dimension to karma. Apparently, good deeds accumulate good karma, which will result in good fortune and luxury in future, and bad deeds accumulate bad karma, which will lead to suffering, penury, and other horrible things either in this life or later ones.
Once I understood that there is no good or evil (see “On good and evil”), I realised that there is no good karma or bad karma. We can do good deeds all we want, but what we get in future is what Ma gives us, and we cannot predict or control that. And the deeds which appear good to us may actually cause pain and suffering to some others.
The myth of good and bad karma is a fabrication by the leaders of society to encourage us to restrict our actions within bounds which are good for society. The belief that we will get “the just rewards” of our actions stems from a failure to understand the cosmic scale of the laws of causality which operate in Ma.
Effort in spiritual practices
The sincere seeker who has reached this point will ask — with a great deal of concern — what is the point of striving every morning and evening to practise kriya or other yogic practices for the spiritual path. Even the most well-meaning of actions appears to lose all meaning once you reach here.
I have struggled with this question, and have only one answer to this question: if your body-mind won’t do this, what else will your body-mind do? If you have been told that some yogic practices will help you see divinity in the entire universe more clearly, then if you don’t practise those exercises, what else will you do?
There is nothing much else to do, other than just live5, and do the few things which make sense. Our yogic practices are in that short list.
I sit for meditation because I like my master, who feels bad if I don’t practise my kriya, and because I simply like practising them. I’m not a good student, but I try.
- “On fairness and justice” has my thoughts on “fairness” โฉ๏ธ
- “Who am I?” addresses the question of who I am a bit more. โฉ๏ธ
- Neurologists have been having a field day with such experiments ever since the invention of the MRI. โฉ๏ธ
- RKM = Ramakrishna Mission โฉ๏ธ
- The next chapter elaborates on this idea just a little bit. โฉ๏ธ