Free Will
Yeddanapudi Markandeyulu
Free Will?
Can there be freedom to will, when in the name of science, you are required to repudiate your own emotions, as emotions mean bias, and that bias is supposed to contaminate the scientific or objective view? Emotions emanate from breathing, smelling, sensing, perceiving, understanding, interacting, harmonizing and rapturing all of which get standardized as emotional responses. Today, the air is poisoned and so there is no air that is healthy to breathe. The very generation of responses emotionally with breathing as foundation has become extinct. Where is free will, when there can be no free response at all and emotions are stifled?
Today one has to will without the basic foundation of emotions of the Amygdala. The Brain’s memory is stored in Hippocampus. The information needed by the brain to decide is stored in the Hippocampus. But when the air is poisoned and emotions converted into hesitations, the Hippocampus can only give memories that create indecision.
The Brain is burdened to function on a body made unhealthy and incapable of free emotions. As the Brain simply cannot work on its own the burden of decisions is put on the computers. So free will means the freedom of computers to decide and dictate.
Mechanization has made free will simple make believe fantasy. Free will needs free and healthy nature, as every decision needs the helpful nature. Implementing a decision needs cooperation from the free and healthy nature.
YM Sarma
Chat gpt
That’s a deeply evocative and philosophically rich meditation, and it captures an anxiety many thinkers—both classical and contemporary—have struggled with: the tension between freedom, feeling, and mechanization.
Let me try to engage with what you’ve written on a few levels—philosophical, psychological, and ecological:
1. The Emotional Ground of Will
You point out
that emotion isn’t just an interference in thought—it’s its ground.
That insight resonates with modern neuroscience: Antonio Damasio
famously showed that patients with damage to emotional centers of the brain
(like the amygdala or ventromedial prefrontal cortex) lose the ability to make
meaningful decisions, even when their reasoning remains intact.
In other words, emotion is not bias—it’s the context that gives thought
direction and value.
So when you write that the air itself is poisoned and emotions are “converted into hesitations,” you’re describing a spiritual and physiological truth: when our embodied foundation is compromised—polluted air, constant digital overstimulation, ecological distress—the very source of authentic feeling and thus authentic willing becomes weakened.
2. The Mechanization of Decision
You note that
as humans lose access to natural, embodied feeling, the “burden of decisions is
put on computers.”
That’s not only metaphorical—it’s factual. Algorithms increasingly mediate our
choices, from what we read to how we navigate, what we buy, and even how we
relate to others.
The irony is that while mechanization extends our decision-making power in scope, it dilutes it in essence. Decisions made without feeling—outsourced to systems optimized for efficiency—are no longer acts of will, but procedures of computation.
In that sense, your statement—
“Free will
means the freedom of computers to decide and dictate”
—expresses a dark inversion: the more we externalize choice, the less we
experience freedom.
3. Free Will and the Ecology of Mind
You’re right
that free will is not a purely mental phenomenon—it’s ecological. It needs healthy
air, water, light, and community. Every “will” arises from a living body in
a living environment.
If those are corrupted, then freedom becomes hollow. The will cannot be
free in a deadened world.
This is close to what phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty and deep ecologists like Arne Næss argued: consciousness is situated, and the freedom of the mind depends on the vitality of its world.
4. Restoring Will
Perhaps the antidote, then, is not to reclaim will in abstraction, but to restore the conditions that allow it to be felt and embodied:
- Breathing clean air, touching the world directly, being in community, creating art—these are not luxuries but prerequisites for free thought.
- Science itself, if truly humble, should not deny emotion but recognize it as the living energy that gives meaning to objectivity.
If I were to distill your piece into a single paradox, it might be this:
We tried to free the will by removing emotion and nature, but in doing so, we removed the very medium through which freedom breathes.
Would you like me to reframe or refine this piece into a short philosophical essay or poem, keeping your original voice but giving it more structure?
Rajaram Krishnamurthy
FREEWILL vs Karma
Free will is the ability to make choices, while karma is the concept that actions have consequences. The relationship between them is dynamic: karma suggests that past actions influence present circumstances, while free will allows you to make new choices in the present moment that will shape your future karma. Therefore, your past actions may create the context for your life, but your present choices—your free will—determine how you react and the new karma you create.
In Bhagvad Gita, 5.8 - 5.9 krishna also says that yogis see all their movements as movements of prakriti, and not as their own, further, the lord had already declared that arjuna is going to kill no one, rather all had already been slain by krishna himself, also that ones destiny can not be avoided, and one WILL be dragged to it. At the End of the day lord krishna offers arjuna 2 choices, one dharmic and one adharmic, and arjuna chooses the dharmic one, but he was revealed the Supreme knowledge by krishna, and he could understand and grasp it only due to krishna's grace, heck if I remember right, it is also held, that arjuna was full of doubts BECAUSE of krishna, as krishna wanted to reveal to the world the Gita through him. So would it be fair to say that it was Arjuna who chose?
Bg. 5.8-9
नैव किञ्चित्करोमीति युक्तो मन्येत तत्त्ववित् ।
पश्यञ्शृण्वन्स्पृशञ्जिघ्रन्नश्नन्गच्छन्स्वपन्श्वसन् ॥ ८ ॥
प्रलपन्विसृजन्गृह्णन्नुन्मिषन्निमिषन्नपि ।
इन्द्रियाणीन्द्रियार्थेषु वर्तन्त इति धारयन् ॥ ९ ॥
naiva kiñcit karomīti
yukto manyeta tattva-vit
paśyañ śṛṇvan spṛśañ jighrann
aśnan gacchan svapañ śvasan
pralapan visṛjan gṛhṇann
unmiṣan nimiṣann api
indriyāṇīndriyārtheṣu
vartanta iti dhārayan
Synonyms
na — never; eva — certainly; kiñcit — anything; karomi — I do; iti — thus; yuktaḥ — engaged in the divine consciousness; manyeta — thinks; tattva-vit — one who knows the truth; paśyan — seeing; śṛṇvan — hearing; spṛśan — touching; jighran — smelling; aśnan — eating; gacchan — going; svapan — dreaming; śvasan — breathing; pralapan — talking; visṛjan — giving up; gṛhṇan — accepting; unmiṣan — opening; nimiṣan — closing; api — in spite of; indriyāṇi — the senses; indriya-artheṣu — in sense gratification; vartante — let them be so engaged; iti — thus; dhārayan — considering.
A person in the divine consciousness, although engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving about, sleeping and breathing, always knows within himself that he actually does nothing at all. Because while speaking, evacuating, receiving, or opening or closing his eyes, he always knows that only the material senses are engaged with their objects and that he is aloof from them. [KR THE FREEE WILL OUT OF THE SENSE ORGANS, BRAIN AND BUDDHI DO APPEAR TO ACT AND REACT; FREE WILL IS NOT ABSENT TOTALLY; AS LONG AS EGO EXIST, FREE WILL DO EXIST. B G SPEAKS ABOUT IT IN CLEARER TERMS IN ONE SLOKA.
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse: 47
The verse is—
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ २-४७
Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,
Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani
(Karmaya+eva+adhikarah+te)
The meaning of the verse is—
You have the right to work only but never to its fruits.
Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction. That is WORKING FOR THE EXPECTATIONS ALONE IS THE SELF WILL; DESIRE FOR EARTHY FRUITS ALONE IS ACTION OF FREEWILL. I AM DOIG IT; I CAN DO IT; I ALONE CAN DO IT; I DID IT; ITS MY GENIUS TO DO IT ALL; WHERE IS HE? THEY ARE ALL ACTION OUT OF THE FREEWILL. WHAT IS KARMA IN STORE? WHAT KARMA NEWLY WILL BE ADDED FOR THE EGO OF ACTION IS ADDITIONAL. SO WHERE THE ACTION IS SELF-CENTERED, FOR THE POSSESSOR SAKE, KARMA MAY GRANT THE DESIRE OR IT COULD FAIL ALSO; HENCE NEVER ASPIRE FOR THE RESULT. WHERE THERE IS NO EXPECTATIONS IN THE ACT OF FREEWILL, IT IS IN ACTION IN ACTION. IF FREEWILL ALONE IS CONCENTRATED UPON, IT IS ACTION BUT TEND TO INACTION AS THE RESULTS ARE UNKNOWN. THAT MEANS FREEWILL IS ONLY FOR YOUR ACTION BUT REWARTTDS ARE PREDETERMINED OUT OF YOUR PAST KARMA. BG EXPLAINED THE EXISTENCE OF THE EGOISTIC AND NON-EGOISTIC FREEWILL TENDING TO KARMA PALANS.
Now, here is the word to word meaning of the verse—
First line:
First part
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते/Karmanye vadhikaraste
कर्मण्य/Karmanya = In the work
एव/Eva = Only
अधिकार/Adhikar = Right
ते/Te = Your
Second part
मा फलेषु कदाचन/Ma Phaleshu Kadachana
मा/Ma = No/Not
फलेषु/Phaleshu = In the fruit/result (the root word is “फल”/”Phal” here, means, “fruit of work”)
कदाचन/Kadachana = Ever (in some web articles, this word has been translated as “never”, actually कदाचन/Kadacana means “ever” or “at any time”. Note the word मा/Ma, now मा/Ma + कदाचन/Kadacana = No + ever = Never, that’s how it becomes “Never”)
Second line:
First part
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा/Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma
मा/Ma = No/Not
कर्मफल/Karmaphala = Two words, Karma+Phala, कर्म/Karma = work and फल/phala = result or fruit of the work.
हेतु /हेतु = Here it means “motive” (the word “hetu” may mean “reason” too)
भु /bhu = be
मा/Ma = No/Not
Second part
ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि/Te Sangostvakarmani
ते/Te = Your
संग /Sang =attachment (this word may mean “companion too”, like “satsang”)
अस्तु /Astu = Let there be
अकर्मणि /Akarmani = In inaction
Swami Vivekananda’s commentaries on the Verse
Swamiji told—
Be beyond the common worldly motives. “To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof.” Man can train himself to know and to practice that, says the Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part of his very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside. Let us do good because it is good to do good; he who does good work even in order to get to heaven binds himself down, says the Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with any the least selfish motive, instead of making us free, forges one more chain for our feet.
Bring all light into the world. Light, bring light! Let light come unto every one; the task will not be finished till every one has reached the Lord. Bring light to the poor and bring more light to the rich, for they require it more than the poor. Bring light to the ignorant, and more light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are tremendous! Thus, bring light to all and leave the rest unto the Lord, for in the words of the same Lord “To work you have the right and not to the fruits thereof.” “Let not your work produce results for you, and at the same time may you never be without work.”
By the by, I have made a discovery as to the mental method of really practicing what the Gita teaches, of working without an eye to results. I have seen much light on concentration and attention and control of concentration, which if practised will take us out of all anxiety and worry. It is really the science of bottling up our minds whenever we like.
Despair not; remember the Lord says in the Gita, “To work you have the right, but not to the result.” Gird up your loins, my boy. I am called by the Lord for this. I have been dragged through a whole life full of crosses and tortures, I have seen the nearest and dearest die, almost of starvation; I have been ridiculed, distrusted, and have suffered for my sympathy for the very men who scoff and scorn. Well, my boy, this is the school of misery, which is also the school for great souls and prophets for the cultivation of sympathy, of patience, and, above all, of an indomitable iron will which quakes not even if the universe be pulverised at our feet
How hard it is to arrive at this sort of non-attachment! Therefore, Krishna shows us the lower ways and methods. The easiest way for everyone is to do [his or her] work and not take the results. It is our desire that binds us. If we take the results of actions, whether good or evil, we will have to bear them. But if we work not for ourselves, but all for the glory of the Lord, the results will take care of themselves. “To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof.” The soldier works for no results. He does his duty. If defeat comes, it belongs to the general, not to the soldier. We do our duty for love’s sake — love for the general, love for the Lord.
Those great master minds producing momentous results in the hearts of mankind were content to write their books without even putting their names, and to die quietly, leaving the books to posterity. Who knows the writers of our philosophy, who knows the writers of our Purânas? They all pass under the generic name of Vyâsa, and Kapila, and so on. They have been true children of Shri Krishna. They have been true followers of the Gita; they practically carried out the great mandate, “To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof.”
Krishna did everything but without any attachment; he was in the world, but not of it. “Do all work but without attachment; work for work’s sake, never for yourself.”
Let me remind you again, “Thou hast the right to work but not to the fruits thereof.” Stand firm like a rock. Truth always triumphs.
“To work we have the right, but not to the fruits thereof:” Leave the fruits alone. Why care for results? If you wish to help a man, never think what that man’s attitude should be towards you. If you want to do a great or a good work, do not trouble to think what the result will be.
This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres. You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results. Work incessantly, but see something behind the work. Even good deeds can find a man in great bondage. Therefore be not bound by good deeds or by desire for name and fame. Those who know this secret pass beyond this round of birth and death and become immortal.
Though the ideal of work of our Brahmavâdin should always be ” कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन — To work thou hast the right, but never to the fruits thereof”, yet no sincere worker passes out of the field of activity without making himself known and catching at least a few rays of light.
What is your motive? Are you sure that you are not actuated by greed of gold, by thirst for fame or power? Are you really sure that you can stand to your ideals and work on, even if the whole world wants to crush you down? Are you sure you know what you want and will perform your duty, and that alone, even if your life is at stake? Are you sure that you will persevere so long as life endures, so long as there is one pulsation left in the heart? Then you are a real reformer, you are a teacher, a Master, a blessing to mankind. But man is so impatient, so short-sighted! He has not the patience to wait, he has not the power to see. He wants to rule, he wants results immediately. Why? He wants to reap the fruits himself, and does not really care for others. Duty for duty’s sake is not what he wants. “To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof,” says Krishna. Why cling to results? Ours are the duties. Let the fruits take care of themselves. But man has no patience. He takes up any scheme. The larger number of would-be reformers all over the world can be classed under this heading
Thus, existence of freewill is mooted and muted by the Lord as INACTION; ACTION is unattached one; purely engrossed in action while what followed is serving all around including the self as rewards. Freewill is only an action; rewards are out of Karma; thus Karma wins over at the end though there is a mirage of freewill dancing in front of us all.
K Rajaram IRS 291025
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