Freedom of choice comes only with the freedom of the chooser || Delhi University (2020)
Questioner: Sir, youngsters often rebel against rules and regulations in the name of freedom of choice, or freedom of expression. The list of complaints is long, and all have one bottomline: ‘My life, my rules’. What do ancient wisdom and Vedanta say on this issue?
Acharya Prashant: You see, when you say choice, you are referring to the options that you have in the external world, right? Whether you want to have pizza or paratha (Indian flatbread), whether you want to follow this religion or that faith, whether you want to go with that person or this person, whether you want to keep your hair long or short—that is the kind of freedom of choice we usually refer to. We say, “I am a free person, so I must have the right to do as I please. So, I will decide what I want to say, I will decide where I want to stay, I will decide what I want to read, I will decide what I want to eat.” That is the philosophy, the premise on which the entire argument is built. But let’s look at it a little deeply for a moment.
Who is making the choice? Is the chooser really free? Who is the choice-making agency? Can we look at that agency? Can we look at that point from where the choice comes? Is the decision-maker really free to make the choice? What does it mean to be really free? It means to be free of, unencumbered of prejudices, past, ideologies, ignorance, all kinds of things that call themselves knowledge. When you are free of these, when you have a clear eyesight that is not burdened by anything, that is not blocked by anything, only then can you have free choice.
Unfortunately, we tend to focus a lot on the aspect of choice and too little on the central issue of the chooser. Is the chooser free? If the chooser is not free, then freedom of choice is just a feel-good kind of self-delusion, no? The chooser is enslaved—and how is he enslaved? He is enslaved in a very, very anonymous way. You don’t even know who your internal masters are; you don’t even know how deeply you are conditioned. And that probably, and unfortunately, is the situation of most of mankind. We don’t even know how many unknown and faceless and anonymous masters we are carrying within.
