Between free will and karma

A friend of mine who is a Hindu monk and Vedantin recently asked in an online lecture whether humans have free will in light of the law of karma. The ensuing discussion among the audience (who were all Indian) prompted me to write him a letter, which I would like to share here.

We must regain self-responsibility and humility

You asked for our opinion, and the question was not a small one: Do humans have free will, or is everything predetermined by our past karma? Here is my answer.

We often confuse two things. Prarabdha karma, as well as our actions and thoughts in this body, determine our life, what happens to us, but not how we react to it. Everyone has the freedom to decide what they think at any given moment and, often enough, what they do. Without free will, the world would be an automatic machine. God's creation is not that.

Our samskaras exert a powerful force on us, and it is not easy to resist this force. Because it is not easy, we often fail to apply the counterforce that would be necessary to think and act differently. However, this does not mean that we cannot do it. It is our weakness. On the path that leads humans to perfection, progress can only be made by overcoming this weakness. And there is no other path if we want to grow in our humanity.

Without free will, there is not only no sadhana, but also no dharma. Without sadhana, there would be no yoga and no Vedanta. And without dharma, there would be no Hinduism. My Indian friends, don't let Western thinking confuse you. Human beings have the free will to turn to what is right, good, and true at any moment—at least in their hearts. I consider Sigmund Freud's relativization of this human responsibility to be one of the crimes against humanity committed by Western culture. We urgently need alternatives to this hypothesis, and Vedanta is an important alternative—for me, the most powerful one there is.

So, there is no contradiction between the law of karma and free will. We will reap the fruits of our actions, thoughts, and desires. I am not aware of any way in which this law can be suspended within the Hindu worldview. Not even in the main Puranas, which are narratives, works of literature, and therefore predestined for such exceptions. On the other hand, the Bhagavad Gita is a weighing up, an argument intended to prepare for a free decision. “Having reflected on this completely, do as you like,” Krishna says to Arjuna at the end. That is why I take the liberty of saying that Vedanta and the best of Hinduism collapse without human self-responsibility, i.e. without free will.

Now I have spoken of one of the crimes against humanity committed by modern Western culture. Are there others? Let me answer this question too, my dear friend: Yes, unfortunately.

One is the arrogance, our hubris toward other cultures and peoples, which has led to contempt, systematic exploitation, and oppression, as colonialism and economic exploitation since Christopher Columbus have painfully illustrated. We have shown the same arrogance toward nature, God's creation on this planet, which is now leading to its ultimate destruction.

The third major crime against humanity committed by modern Western culture is that we have elevated selfishness and greed to something good and made them the core of our economy and thus the nucleus of our civilization. In doing so, we have created a world whose dynamics continue to reinforce these worst of human characteristics. Today, this is even leading to the disintegration of our Western culture and society and threatens to plunge the entire world into uncontrolled violence and destruction.

Individual responsibility, humility and contentment, dharma are the cornerstones of your culture. Please do not relativize them. Instead, give them to us Westerners, who thirst for hope, as a gift. There is no greater gift that one culture can give to another.

The fundamental flaws of Western culture are:

• arrogance and hubris

• putting selfishness and greed at the core of civilization

• relativization of personal responsibility through psychology

Andreas Sternowski is a publisher at Continentia Verlag, where he publishes books on the change towards sustainability and responsibility. His vision is a society based on fair and enriching community and harmony with nature.