Fate/ Free will

Macro and micro level laws may be different. To apply one to the other may be inappropriate.

Fate refers in the main to macro level or long duration things, like say evolution or planetary movements. They are not amenable to manipulation or our will, at least not yet. It is perhaps wrong to apply it to action by individuals in a limited sphere and under known environment. Things that are not knowable are like macro level things. Our action at any time concerns the known things.

April 4, 2014 ·

Fate

At any given moment, we proceed from there. The past has finished its part. It has left behind its imprint subliminally and in a way that is beyond our control. That is fate, but it is not the whim of anyone, as the fallout of our own acts. To rue the past is to compound its impact. We have to simply proceed regardless of it. We have to make a choice and act. This choice is not fate.

In Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra and Dharmaputra attribute the dice play to fate. That looks to be erroneous. Dhritarashtra was forced by his son and yielded to it by affection for him, which was misplaced. He could have turned it down firmly. Dharmaputra had a choice to refuse. He was predisposed to it and took it up in the belief that it was his duty to accept when invited.

Bhima is encircled by a serpent from which he is unable to extricate himself. He calls it fate. That seems appropriate. He was in a situation where his efforts bore no fruit and he could not free himself by his own efforts.

One vulnerability of Hinduism is the faith in preordained scheme of things. The words used for fate are karma, vidhi and daivatham. They are significant and if understood properly can serve to allay the pejorative connotation of the expression. It is not as though we are not responsible for our actions. The principle of karma and rebirth in fact drive the nail on the head that we reap as we sow. It is a sinister caricature to represent that fate hangs in the air and will carry out its will regardless of our effort, that our effort does not influence the outcome. That in course of time people have got inured to such a belief may be a fact, but that is not what fate implied in the first instance. Vidhi is a synonym for the creator as well, and his creation is only the logical culmination of our past deeds. Daivatham refers to divine will, which again is regulatory, not a cause for the outcome.

Let us look at what literature and mythology have to say. In two places, Valmiki uses the expression ‘yadrucchaya’, which means by chance. One is when Manthara sees from the terrace the festooning in Ayodhya to celebrate the imminent coronation of Rama and plays spoilsport. The second is when Surpanakha comes across Rama in the Dandaka forest and tries to seduce him.

In Ramayana no reason is given for the two dramatic turnings that caused Rama great misery. Rama attributes it to daivatham when Lakshmana is incensed and wants to fight it out. The parents are normally supposed to do good to children. But when they themselves turn against children, it is daivataham. Rama fights against several demons fiercely and wins. He does not attribute it to daivatham.

Fate is not a mindless working of an impersonal force. It is an apparently inexplicable outcome against which it is futile to fight. It is a fait accompli. It could have been avoided, but was not. It cannot be undone now. Death is a case in point. Once it has happened, what can we do?

Fate is not a call for inaction, but a resigned stance to accept what has resulted willy-nilly. To quote Stephen Hawking: “One cannot base one’s conduct on the idea that everything is determined, because one does not know what is determined. Instead, one has to adopt the effective theory that one has free will and that one is responsible for one’s actions. .. Is everything determined? The answer is yes, it is. But it might as well not be, because we can never know what is determined.”

Individual action is in one’s right and competence, but collective destiny is not.

There are far too many variables intertwined intricately for anyone or group to find an algorithm to crack its code. Not that it is a divine design, but that it is beyond our ken. It does not matter whether anyone controls it. The collective destiny that remains undecipherable has given rise to words like vidhi, daivatam, yadrcchaa, adrshtam, etc. and the concept of fate.

But, the world of uncertainty, chance and human effort is a wonderful proposition. Life is beautiful because it is tantalising, and in a fair measure there is compensation, though one-to-one correspondence between expectation and effort on the one hand and the outcome on the other is missing.

Free wheeling ideas

What is free will?

In religion, free will is used to define one’s destiny. We have free will to accept or reject god, and in one sweeping assumption, to reject god is to join Satan. Those who accept god go to heaven and those who reject go to burning hell.

Even in Hindu thought, free will is required to shape one’s destiny which is not summarily decided, but in repeated births. Krishna tells Arjuna at the end of a long advice to decide as he pleases.

Adi Sankara establishes free will on these terms:

“Any perspective which dismisses free will is untenable:

(i) If there is no free will, god becomes karta (doer) and also bhokta (enjoyer or sufferer). God becomes samsari.

(ii) If we are only insruments (nimitta), we should not get any karma palam (fruits of action).

(iii) God is subject to charge of cruelty if we have to suffer for action out of our control.

(iv) God is also subject to partiality because enjoyment is not even across beings.

(v) Dharma sastra will not be applicable to human beings if there is no free will.

 (vi) We should have no choice and no conflicts in the absence of free will.”

(Source: Swami Paramarthananda’s discourse)

For a more logical discussion, we have to brush aside the religious doctrine.

There is another angle that is also irrelevant. What I will eat, whether I will go to a movie or which movie, and the like are not material and free will in these matters means nothing. Funnily, there are people who believe that even these things are decided by karma. Even a decision to marry or not, largely in the domain of free will, is not that important.

Momentary things are decided by instinct and reflex. They cater to our safety and security.

Free will is ability to choose among alternatives that have a long term implication.

Certain things in our life are beyond the operation of free will. Our birth does not seem to be the result of our free will. All the vital functions of our life are involuntary. We do not decide whether to breathe or not, whether the heart must pump the blood and at what rate (true BP drugs play a role, but the basic function is still involuntary). All macro events defy free will of individuals.

Is there a collective social will? That is theoretical. The force of a large number of people acting under mob psychology cannot be ascribed to the collective free will of the people.

We have to assume that we have free will to give meaning to life.

Free will is not unlimited will. We live in a conditioned world with a conditioned mind. Real use of free will is when we unshackle it from the conditioning we have regimented it in. But, there is no power for anyone to free the world itself from its conditioning. Many reformers do not understand that. The world will cease to exist without the attendant conditions and tendencies.

Free will is as much mithya as the world, but within mithya it is valid so long as the world remains valid.