The Limitations in the Concept of Free Will

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We believe we have free will.
We are confronted with choices

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and make a decision and carry it
out and believe that the

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decision was made freely by the
individual we identify as our

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self.
At the same time, we can

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recognize the stepwise
development, which is called

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cause and effect, or the law of
karma.

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If we pursue the retrogression
from the current decision to

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each antecedent act or event,
however, we can see that there

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is clearly a line of causality
that stretches back step by step

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to a past we cannot even see,
and that we could conclude, if

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we chose to do so, that indeed
there is no such thing as free

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will in our actions.
We can see that each successive

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level of the manifestation of
consciousness appears to provide

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more flexibility, more freedom
of choice, such that on the

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material plane we can speak of
fixed laws of material nature.

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We identify the laws of
thermodynamics, the laws of

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motion, the law of conservation
of energy, the relation between

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matter and energy, etcetera.
As life emerges, we find that

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the determinations appear to be
much less rigid.

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Yet there are clearly certainly
principles or laws that govern

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the development of life and life
forms.

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The mental nature appears even
more fluid, and as we exercise

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self reflection we seem to have
a strong measure of free will.

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Yet a careful analysis will show
that even the decisions we make

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that appear to be free and
random, not bound by a fixed

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law, are indeed conditioned by
circumstances, education,

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environment, relationships,
etcetera.

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Can we really say that any
decision we make is actually

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free will in operation?
Or is it purely the illusion of

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free will?
We are a Nexus or point of

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awareness of universal nature?
Does the drop of water in the

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ocean have free will?
Or is it the ocean itself that

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may have free will of which the
drop partakes without exercising

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its own independent freedom?
If we shift our awareness to

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further levels of conscious
awareness beyond the mind, into

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the realms where the pure
manifesting consciousness of the

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universal creation resides, we
can identify the true mover of

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all things, the place where free
will actually resides.

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It is through identification
with that larger and higher

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consciousness that we can begin
to identify the true nature of

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free will.
In the meantime, it is clear

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that even our exercise of free
will at the human level of

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existence is part of a larger
pattern that plays out

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inexorably and consistently.
Variations that occur through

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any flexibility we have are
actually part of that larger

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pattern, Sri Aurobindo notes.
Quote At least 9/10 of our

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freedom of will is a palpable
fiction that will is created and

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determined not by its own self
existent action at a given

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moment, but by our past, our
heredity, our training, our

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environment, the whole
tremendous complex thing we call

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karma which is behind us, the
whole past action of nature on

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us and the world, converging in
the individual, determining what

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he is, determining what his will
shall be at a given moment, and

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determining as far as analysis
can see, even its action at that

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moment.
The ego associates itself always

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with its karma and it says I did
and I will and I suffer.

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But if it looks at itself and
sees how it was made, it is

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obliged to say of man as of the
animal.

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Nature did this in me.
Nature wills in me, and if it

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qualifies by saying my nature,
that only means nature is self

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determined in this individual
creature.

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It was the strong perception of
this aspect of existence which

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compelled the Buddhist to
declare that all is karma and

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that there is no self in
existence.

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That the idea of self is only a
delusion of the ego mind.

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End Quote.
Reference Sri Aurobindo and the

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Mother, The Hidden Forces of
Life, Chapter One, Life Through

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the Eyes of the Yogin, page 20.