Is everything predestined?
The eternal question of fate and freewill
All suffering is due to resistance to happenings — past, present and future. Resistance causes regret, anger, anxiety etc. which result in suffering. All endeavors whether it be religious, political, philosophical, artistic are all only attempts to alleviate suffering in some form or the other. But mostly it ends up being ways to either escape or mitigate suffering only for it come back again and again.
The underlying assumption behind all resistance is that things can be different from what they are — a deep rooted belief that I had a choice to act differently and if I had done so, things would be so much better. Is this true? Are there multiple possibilities of how time unfolds?
Or is it that everything is predestined? Which means time always unfolds perfectly, no matter how unpleasant or pleasant it may seem. In which case there is no room for grievance of what could have been.
An interesting insight into whether things are predestined is shown by astrology, that when practiced sincerely without commercial intent, is seen to be capable of predicting one’s future accurately. The very fact that the future can thus be predicted seems to indicate that it is not in our hands but already “written in the stars”. Similarly there are cases of people having dreams of future events which end up transpiring the exact same way. Again this shows that if it is possible for the brain even fleetingly in a dream to tune into a future event precisely, then the script seems to be already written!
These aside, we see that one’s conditioning due to nature (genetics) and nurture (living environment from childhood till now) determines every single decision, big and small. If I face any decision where I feel I have the freedom to choose one over the other, then if we look closely, the very inputs I use to choose one over the other is all based on the conditioning that is already there. Therefore there is no such thing as choice that is free of conditioning. The higher truth is that the way we applied our faculties to arrive at a particular decision is already predestined. We still have to make the decision sincerely. But whatever decision is made is then perfect in the cosmic scheme of things and hence there’s absolutely no point in second guessing. So we can live the consequences by taking full responsibility rather than blaming oneself or another for any action.
A devotional approach to this question will also bring us to the same point. Because devotion to God as the Supreme Being implies he is the omnipotent, omniscient being. And the omniscient Supreme Being by definition has to know the past, the present, the future. Because if He doesn’t know what future holds, He cannot be called omniscient. So He knows the future as well as the past and the present which only implies that the future is already determined.
All of this is captured simply and succinctly by the first ever teaching that Sri Ramana Maharshi gave to his mother when she traced him to Tiruvannamalai for the first time:
“In accordance with the destiny of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. Therefore true wisdom is to be still.”
To be still is to not resist what is happening and realize that it is as perfectly ordained each moment. And to make things even more explicit, he once said the following:
“Everything is predetermined. What for then does the body come into existence? It is designed for doing the various things marked out for execution in this life. The whole program is chalked out. ‘Not an atom moves except by His Will’ expresses the same truth.”
There is also a verse written by Ramana Maharshi on the related question of fate and free will in “Ulladu Naarpadu”, the crown jewel among all his teachings:
“The debate between free will and fate is only for those who do not know the root of both. Those who have seen that the ego is the common source of free-will and of fate, have passed beyond them both and will not return to them.”
He explains that the root of both free will and fate is the ego or the sense of doership. It causes us to act with an intent or desire. Then we look at results and if it matches our intent, we call it free will and if not, we call it fate. But if there is no sense of doership, there can be no intent or desire. Then there is no question of either free will or fate. So to even think there is such a thing as free will or fate is only due to a sense of doership which is the ego. Then we wonder whether destiny or free will will prevail. So to ponder upon the source of both free will and fate is to arrive at the ego sense of I. If we then inquire into whether there is such a thing as the ego I, it vanishes and so does the duality of fate and free will. To have no intent or desire whatsoever is freedom. Then things happen as they are predestined to happen while there is no individual ‘I’ to hold onto either an idea of fate or free will as there is total freedom from the outcome. This realization is surrender. That is peace.
Here is a YouTube talk exploring these points in greater detail and questions on choice versus clarity, what’s the motivation to act if everything is predestined and why pray if everything is predestined.