'Free will' is an Entertaining Myth
Questioner: Namaste, Sir. My name is Palash. Just to begin with, the contribution you have made to both of our journeys of self-knowledge is invaluable, and I can't speak in words—so, just thank you.
My question is : Sir, I have been a follower of neuroscience and evolutionary biology for years now and as you know, that the neuroscientists have now come to a point where we understand that, technically there is no free will in the way we and our choices are ultimately the outcomes of our biological history and environmental history. So, my dissonance is this: does this neuroscientific understanding coexist with the Vedantic philosophy, which, to some extent, puts me and my choices at the center? So these two understandings, do they actually coexist?
Acharya Prashant: There is no dissonance here. It's a beautiful question. Neuroscience will say there is no free will, right? You, in fact, realize what you're doing or experiencing long after the processes that lead to that deed or experience have been initiated. So, if at t = 0, a particular physical process originates in the body everything originates in the body, the body is everything and the brain is a part of the body, so the brain is body. So at t =0 if a particular process originates. You come to experience that process only at t = 5 or 6 or 10. And when you come to experience it, you probably feel like owning it.
Let's take the example of a thought. You say, “I am thinking that dot dot dot ”and this statement is made at t = 6 whatever will be the unit t = 6 seconds. This statement is made at t = 6 second I am thinking For example, I’m thinking of having a cup of coffee. As simple as that. But the urge originated at t = 0. So is it really your thought, then? You think that at t = 6, you decided to have a cup of coffee.
But the fact is that the processes that lead to that urge had already initiated way before you experienced the urge. So that way, there is no free will.That way, there is no free will. Vedanta does not say there is a free will or that there is a free chooser—no. What it says, comes to the absence of free will, but through a very different route. The route is that of choiceless understanding. You're not the chooser, but you can be the observer. You can be the observer. Now, there is no doing happening there. Let all doing be conditioned.
If observation were a doing, then observation too would be a conditioned activity—and that, too, would fall outside the purview of will. Because everything that is conditioned is outside the purview of will. But you can observe—you can observe this entire flow of conditioned phenomena. In fact, when you talk of neuroscience and I said phenomena so, you should also mention the field of phenomenology. That's one of the most striking fields that have emerged in the last century: how we relate to our observations and experiences.
So you cannot be the doer or the chooser but you can be the observer. Not only can you be the observer, it is your nature to observe. Because if you are not the observer, and rather you are a participant—if you are engaged then you find that the result is suffering. Since suffering cannot be swabhav nature. By nature, here we do not mean prakriti here, we mean swabhav. Suffering cannot be swabhav , by the very fact that one cannot dislike his swabhav. And everybody dislikes suffering. So suffering cannot be swabhav. Swabhav is freedom from suffering. Observation is something that is at your very nature, because observation does not involve engagement, participation, doership, etc.
Therefore, it cannot lead to suffering. Even if there is suffering, observation is just about observing the suffering—just witnessing it without getting engaged with it, without having a stake in it, without having a stake in it . And that is possible. That can be done. That is something that we have seen ourselves doing or at least approaching the point where it happens. No? Aren’t there moments when you are very-very attached to what you are in the middle of, and aren’t there moments when you can watch the happening with relative dispassion and detachment? Has that not happened to you? Has it not happened?
So, if that scale exists—where one end you can be very-very attached to what is happening, very very very attached to a particular television screen, a particular cricket match here and you can be very attached, where every single ball you might find your heartbeat racing away, right? and another cricket match have you not seen yourself being more or less indifferent to it. Let me have a look at the score and then I move on. So, there does exist a scale. it is possible to go a long distance on that scale. No? And if you can go very-very far on that scale, you are approaching what is called absolute detachment. Well, “absolute” is not a word we should touch, but what is certain is that it is possible to observe. It is possible to be fair in your vision.
Whenever you have a stake in something, the very observation becomes unfair, biased. You do not see what is happening, you see what you want to be happening. Does that not happen? So, when that observation happens something, something…I’ve been caught. I've come to a word I never want to use. Something magical happens very fresh, very original. Right Dharmik, samyak action flows effortlessly and choicelessly from there. So, you do not need free will to come up with the right action. You simply need to be observant for the right action to happen by itself.
Right action will never be a product of your choice. And choice, as you say, has already been invalidated by modern science. There’s nothing called choice. That's not such bad news, because right action and right life are products of choicelessness. So even if you say there is no choice, that doesn’t disappoint me. Right action happens when you just don’t see options—not because you're an idiot, but because you are in love with the right one.
Let there be fourteen roads forking out from here fourteen different possible ways to go from here itself this point here, I know who I am. And since I know who I am, I’m in touch with myself. I don’t deceive myself. Therefore, I do not see thirteen of them. I see only. Now, this is choiceless living. This is choiceless living. Now, do not confuse it with someone who is so deeply enslaved that he’s not allowed to proceed on thirteen of those roads. Even he will have just one option, but that’s an enforced option. That’s very different from not seeing—in love. By love, I mean clarity here.
Let’s not get... No, I didn’t say love. I just simply said clarity. Clarity, okay? Otherwise, we get into the emotional field again, and we’ll have to then take another hour to understand that what you call as love is just a thing of emotion, and in reality, love is not at all an emotion. But we’ll get into that some other time. So, getting it?
You do not require choice. You require observation. You require to know. And then, you don’t have to choose. It’s obvious. It’s effortless. It’s a flow.
You won’t even know that a decision has been made. Have you seen people torturing themselves over a decision that they have to make—for hours, weeks, months, years—what to do, which way to go? That’s absence of self-knowledge. Because you do not know who you are, so many things then speak to you. Everything appears to have a share of its attraction that’s lucrative and that tempts me. Next moment, something else starts calling you, beckoning you—and you are stuck. Does that happen?
Spirituality is about knowing yourself so well that nonsense doesn't appeal to you anymore. And when nonsense doesn't appeal to you anymore, what remains? is the right way to go — and that's Dharma . Nothing else is Dharma . This is Dharma not to go the way of nonsense. And the identification of nonsense will not come from common sense. It will come from a very determined, a very loving, a very aimless, a very purposeless observation of who you are.
If you have decided to take pleasure in sleepwalking through life, then you'll always be riddled with so many choices, so many choices. What to do? The easy way out then is to follow the crowd: "Because I cannot decide for myself, I’ll do what everybody else is doing." Or, let yourself be carried away. Let me simply fall asleep. Let the current carry me whichever way. That’s not the way of Adhyatma. The way of Adhyatma is to live as if — as if we don't exist to make a choice, as if all that had to be decided has already been decided. It appears mechanical, right? It’s like acting in a script. And that terrifies people: “Well, I’ll be left with no choice! What about freedom of choice? What about my fundamental rights? I need to choose.”
The most fundamental right is to be conscious. It’s the most fundamental right and responsibility.
Out of your consciousness emerge effortless decisions. But there are stakes in not being conscious. There are pleasures in being unconscious. Think of the usual kinds of pleasures that we have. Think of all the pleasures that life offers. Don’t those pleasures involve being unconscious? In fact, if you are highly conscious, those pleasures will become unavailable to you. In the middle of the opportunity, you will find yourself aloof. You'll say, "Well as the opportunity to have pleasure is there, but I can't get into it." Not that there is a moral restriction or something. There’s just no motivation to get into it. But yes, if you allow yourself a bit of inebriation, if you switch off the lights, then you can get into it. Because now you're unconscious.
You want to make a man dance to something utterly ugly and obscene? Give him a thousand watts of blaring music. That will have an influence on his physiology, causing his brain to stop functioning. And then, he can dance. Seen wedding processions? You cannot do what you do there if you are not unconscious. For certain things to happen in life, you need to be unconscious. Things like…If you are fully conscious, think what will happen.Getting it?
Questioner: Thank you, sir.
