Recently, I got an interesting question from Sreedhar in Peoria, Illinois.
He asks, "Do I have free will - to do what I want to do?"
Shreedhar's question was debated in Greece and India thousands of years ago, and it's
still a hot topic today.
He continues, "Since what's happening around us is all "God's" will, anything "I" do could
be interpreted as God's will."
Here, Shreedhar suggests that we're all like puppets, and God is the master puppeteer,
pulling the strings that control our behavior.
But this leads to another perplexing issue.
If everything I do is controlled by God, then if I commit a terrible crime, it's God's fault.
Don't blame me.
Obviously, there's something drastically wrong with that reasoning.
Let's address this issue later, and start by asking, "Does free will really exist?"
Whether or not free will truly exists, you can't deny the fact that we all have the ability
to make decisions and choose our actions.
For example, I can choose to hold my hand like this or like this.
My experience of having free will undeniable.
But the problem here is, mere experience doesn't necessarily prove anything.
Why not?
Because experiences can be misleading, like when you watch the sunset.
As you know, the sun doesn't really travel downwards through the sky; it's the horizon
that moves upwards as the earth turns on its axis.
The sun's motion is an illusion.
So, your experience of watching the sun go down doesn't prove that it moves.
So too, your experience of free will doesn't prove its existence.
Free will might be as illusory as the motion of the sun.
That's exactly what many philosophers teach in a theory they call determinism.
Determinism simply says that every event is determined by a cause that precedes it.
It's basically the law of cause and effect.
Physical events are determined by physical causes, like rain that's caused by moisture
in the air.
Similarly, mental events are determined by mental causes.
Mentally adding two plus two causes a particular event in your mind, the number four.
Now, consider this.
Decisions are also mental events; they arise in your mind like the number four.
And as mental events, they must be preceded by a cause.
So, your decision to watch this video was not due to free will; it was determined by
some kind of mental predisposition to watch it, according to those philosophers.
You might disagree with them, saying, "I wasn't aware of any mental predispositions before
I chose to watch this video."
In response, those philosophers would point out that preexisting causes can't always be
observed.
For instance, you can't see the moisture in the air that causes rain.
So too, you need not be aware of mental predispositions that determine your choices in life.
Based on this, your choice of career, spouse, and the kind of car you drive could indeed
be determined by unobserved mental predispositions, and not by free will.
Modern neuroscience supports this philosophical theory.
Scientists have identified specific neural activities in the brain associated with making
a choice.
And, they've detected the presence of those neural activities as much as half a second
before a person consciously chooses something.
So according to neuroscience, your brain makes a choice, and then a moment later, you become
aware of that choice.
To illustrate this, it's my brain that decides to move my hand like this, and when I become
aware of that a moment later, I misinterpret my experience as being free will.
If that's true, then how free are the choices I make?
The problem with neuroscience and its experiments is that we humans are much more than the neurons
and synapses that make up our enormously complex brains.
After all, we're not biological robots; we are conscious beings.
The consciousness we possess makes us unique, different from all other objects of scientific
research.
Scientists have no instruments that can detect or measure our consciousness.
And in spite of their tremendous efforts, scientists can't even explain how consciousness
arises in the brain.
Scientists admit that the nature of consciousness has not been fully understood; it remains
a mystery.
But without understanding consciousness, it's impossible to properly explain human experience,
including the experience of free will.
So current scientific findings about free will cannot be considered conclusive.
What's more, the field of science observes and studies worldly objects, like our brains,
neurons, and synapses.
But science can't directly observe your personal experience, your thoughts and emotions.
These can be observed only you.
And here lies a major difference between science and spirituality.
Science studies the outer world whereas spirituality studies your inner world, the world of experience.
Scientific instruments can measure the activities of your brain, but they have no access whatsoever
to your thoughts and emotions, and to your consciousness.
The sages of ancient India offered a very different explanation of free will in the
scriptures on which the teachings of Vedanta are based.
Very briefly, Vedanta says that pure consciousness is your essential nature, your true, inner
self called atma.
That consciousness has no free will of its own; it simply reveals all the thoughts and
emotions in your mind, like the sun reveals all the activities on Earth.
The sun doesn't do anything; it just shines.
So too, the conscious self, atma, doesn't really do anything; it just illumines the
activities of your mind.
When your mind is illumined by that consciousness, it produces all the thoughts, emotions and
sensations that you experience each day, including the experience of free will.
So according to the sages, free will is a mental faculty, like your ability to think
logically or be empathetic towards others.
Also, free will happens to be central to the doctrine of karma, a teaching that Hindus,
Buddhists, and many others accept.
Karma literally means deed or action, but according to the doctrine of karma, that deed
or action must be deliberate.
It must be produced by free will.
Some actions don't require free will, involuntary actions like hiccups or the reflex movement
of your limbs.
But these actions are not considered karma.
Only deliberate, willful actions are capable of producing karmic results.
So, without free will, there's no such thing as karma.
Now that we've discussed the existence of free will, we can turn to the second part
of Sreedhar's question - about God's will.
It says in the Bible, "Not a leaf stirs without the will of God."
Hindus have a similar view.
But, the very nature of what we call, "God's will" is rarely understood properly.
Look at this.
You possess a specifically human type of free will.
You wake up in the morning and decide what you'll do.
But God is not a human being, and doesn't have a human type of free will.
The idea that God is a supremely powerful being in heaven who can intercede on your
behalf is the basis for many prayers, but unfortunately, that notion makes God seem
like an influential relative of yours who works for the government and can intercede
on your behalf.
We need a more mature way of understanding God's will.
According to Vedanta, God's will is the cosmic intelligence that pervades the universe and
governs it, making order out of chaos.
In this way, the laws of nature are a manifestation of God's will.
It's God's will that objects fall down when dropped.
It's God's will that the Earth orbits the sun.
And it's God's will that the wind blows and stirs the leaves of every tree.
Your will and God's will couldn't be more different.
Human will is fickle; you can change your mind at any moment.
But what would happen if God's will was fickle?
A dropped object might fall upwards or sideways, depending on God's mood at that moment.
Clearly, God's will is utterly unlike human will.
Now we can respond to Sreedhar's suggestion that we're like puppets, since everything
happens according to God's will.
According to God's intelligence, manifest as the laws of nature, your mind is endowed
with the faculty of free will.
And since God's will isn't fickle, God won't prevent you from using your free will to commit
harmful or immoral deeds.
If God interfered with your choices, your will wouldn't truly be free.
So, if I were to commit a terrible crime, it's my fault, because I chose to use my God-given
free will to do something horribly wrong.
It's important to recognize that your free will is not absolutely free; it has limits.
Humans are not almighty like God, so your free will is not invincible.
It gets subjugated or overridden whenever intense emotions or desires seize control
of your behavior.
For instance, if you shout at someone in anger, you don't consciously choose to shout.
At that moment, your free will gets temporarily overpowered by anger.
But, when emotions overpower your free will, who's really in control, you or your emotions?
This problem was poignantly expressed in the great epic, Mahabharata, when the evil-minded
Prince Duryodhana said, janami dharmam na ca me pravrttih, I know what is dharma, righteousness,
but I'm not inclined to follow it.
janamy adharmam na ca me nivrttih, I know what is adharma, wickedness, but I can't restrain
myself from doing it.
Your free will is completely free only when it's no longer subject to being overpowered
by intense emotions and desires.
Many spiritual practices, including meditation, can help you learn how to manage your emotions
and break free from the grip of desires.
By using your free will to live a life of dharma, you can become more self-controlled,
more emotionally and spiritually mature, and eventually, you can approach life's highest
goal, enlightenment.
This is the third in a series of videos that answers questions submitted by viewers.
If you have a question that would serve as a good topic for a video like this one, please
email me at this address, and be sure to indicate "video question" as the subject of the email.
I'll try to address your question in a future video.