Chapter 13: The Illusion of Free Will
Adi remained locked in the storm of memories, witnessing the immense unfolding of existence before self-awareness. Each moment of his past rushed through him, yet he was not just reliving it—he was observing, detached yet burdened. These were not the memories of his conscious self, but of the infinite lifetimes before he even knew he existed.
With every scene that passed before him, another revelation struck—Karma was just the beginning. Now, something even more profound surfaced—the third revelation of his enlightenment: Free Will.
Adi saw it clearly now—before awareness, he had acted, but never truly chosen. His past actions, stretching across galaxies and lifetimes, were instinctive, driven by the flow of nature, necessity, and causality. Was that free will? No. Instinct did not bear the weight of knowing. True free will required awareness, yet paradoxically, most people who claimed to have free will still lived bound by unseen forces.
A disturbing thought arose—if his entire journey, his struggles, and even his desire for enlightenment were not born out of true free will, then what had pushed him here? The doubt gnawed at him: How can one attain true free will? Does it even exist?
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The Science of Free Will and the Burden of Choice
From the depths of knowledge, Adi saw glimpses of science, philosophy, and religion wrestling with the same question.
Modern physics hinted at a deterministic universe—where every action was a result of prior causes. Quantum mechanics introduced uncertainty, randomness, but was randomness the same as free will? No, because randomness had no intent. Psychology revealed that human choices were often driven by unconscious biases, past experiences, and societal conditioning. Even before a person "decided," their brain had already made the choice.
Ancient Hindu and Buddhist teachings spoke of Maya—the illusion that bound beings to karma. The Bhagavad Gita declared that even Arjuna, standing on the battlefield, was bound by duty, by Dharma, by forces beyond his choosing. Could free will exist beyond all conditioning, beyond all impulses, beyond even the ego?
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The False Freedom of the Ego
Adi now understood why people believed in their free will, yet remained trapped. They mistook self-righteousness for true freedom. He saw this in how people claimed to be tolerant, yet their very thoughts betrayed them.
A person who believed themselves progressive, sitting beside a Dalit and thinking, "Look at me, I am so great for eating with those who were once untouchable," was still bound. Their mind narrated their actions, feeding their ego with a false sense of virtue. They weren't free—they were just obeying a different master.
Adi saw this pattern in countless forms. A person who loudly declared themselves free of religious dogma but secretly held contempt for those who still believed. A wealthy individual who donated large sums to charity but needed the world to witness their generosity. A person who championed equality yet subtly believed their open-mindedness made them superior to those who still held biases. These were not acts of pure will—they were transactions between the ego and the self, designed to reinforce a self-image rather than transcend it.
He thought deeper, realizing how people often mistake tolerance for freedom. People might say, "I am very tolerant," but tolerance itself was just another mask. A truly free person would not have to tolerate anything—they simply would not see differences as barriers in the first place.
It was the same with those who thought they had overcome prejudice. A person might say, "I have black friends, I sit with Dalits, I read scriptures from all religions," and believe this was their free will. But the real will does not let you think of your actions—it simply acts. If someone's inner monologue constantly reminds them, "I am being progressive, I am breaking barriers, I am superior to those who do not," then that is not free will—it is the ego subtly reinforcing itself.
The real, weightless will—the one that does not accumulate karma—is action done in complete detachment or through pure nature. If someone is truly free, they do not think about sitting with a Dalit or breaking barriers; they just do it without a second thought.
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The Dilemma Deepens
Now Adi faced a terrible question—if his choices were shaped by forces beyond him, could he ever escape? Was he merely another being playing out a grand design, falsely believing in his agency?
And yet, he refused to surrender. Even if the road to free will was invisible, he would walk it. If karma was a cycle to be broken, then free will was a truth to be uncovered.