Acharya Prashant addresses the question of whether unexpected events are karma or coincidence by making a clear distinction between external happenings and one's internal experience. He states that the happening itself is just a random coincidence, while how one experiences that happening is a result of one's own decision and doing, which is karma. The material world is not predetermined or deterministic; it is random in the truest sense of the word. There are too many cause-and-effect nodes and the unpredictable element of free will involved with many actors, making the external world fundamentally unpredictable. He explains that even if the material world were a colossal machine, it would be too gigantic and complex to fully map and predict. The presence of free will in its various parts ensures that what happens next in the external world will always be a coincidence. Therefore, he dismisses fatalism—the idea that events are predestined—as a sham. The external world is truly unpredictable, and you cannot know what will happen next. However, how you respond to these random external events is very much your own decision, over which you have authority, ownership, and freedom. Whether an event is perceived as 'good' or 'bad' depends entirely on your response, which stems from your inner constitution. This inner constitution is not random; it is the accumulated result of all your past choices. This, he clarifies, is what is popularly known as karma. The person who responds to an external stimulus is the result of their entire life's journey. Ultimately, while you have no control over external events, you have the potential for complete control over the 'one within' who responds to them. This is where your authority and freedom lie. The entire purpose of life is to build this inner self. If you wish to be uninfluenced by external situations, you must work hard to develop a strong inner core. That effort and the resulting inner state is karma.