Author Archives: Chaitanya Charan

How to reconcile Krishna’s omniscience with our having free will?
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Question: How to reconcile Krishna’s omniscience with our having free will?

If Krishna knows past, present and future, how do we reconcile that with the fact that we have free will? Or if we have free will, how do we reconcile that with Krishna’s knowing past present and future?

Answer: Firstly, Jiva Goswami explains in the Sandarbhas that when we approach Krishna, there is the concept of Achintya tattva, inconceivability that needs to be understood. What does inconceivability mean? He says that sometimes scripture talks about two attributes of God or two spiritual principles. Now, they seem contradictory to us, but they are not necessarily contradictory. Why? Because God can have powers that we don’t have. He says if scripture is saying two statements, say for example, scripture says that the Absolute Truth is personal and scripture also talks that the Absolute Truth is impersonal. How that is so? That we don’t know, but we accept both as true.

Similarly, scripture is quite clear that we have free will. The end of the Bhagavad Gita is what? Krishna is asking Arjuna, yathecchasi tathā kuru (18.63). Scripture is also clear that vedāhaṁ samatītāni vartamānāni cārjuna bhaviṣyāṇi ca bhūtāni. In 18.63, Krishna is emphasizing our free will. In 7.25-26, he says that Him no one knows, but He knows everything. How is this to be reconciled? I will talk about three main points in this.

First is that God’s knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past. What does that mean? (Laughter). Our knowledge of the past is knowledge without control. I did something in the past, I know it, but I can’t correct it right now. God’s knowledge of the future is also knowledge without intervention. It is not that Krishna cannot intervene, but He chooses not to intervene because He respects our free will. So, it is not necessary that knowledge has to mean that our freedom is taken away. This is a philosophical analysis. From a little more practical point of view, what it means is that if there are three roads on our path, there is a road over here, this road goes to a rocky area, this road is a smooth road, and this road goes into a dead end. Now, if someone takes a particular road, we know eventually what is going to happen. Choices are connected with consequences. So, which choice will lead to which consequence is known to a person who knows the whole area/terrain. But that does not still mean that that person forces the person to make a particular choice.

Similarly, Krishna knows the future in the sense that He knows there are certain choices that will lead to certain consequences, but still He gives us free will by which we can choose.

Secondly, and more importantly, in the spiritual realm, more important than knowledge is love. That means if you see when Krishna performs Krishna leela, He knows what is going to happen. It is He […]

​When the modes control us, how do we have free will?
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Question: When the modes control us, how do we have free will?

So, when we act, our actions happen under the three modes, and even when we act, we say ultimately everything is happening by Krishna’s will, so sometimes when we act, that is also a reaction to our past actions. So, in all this, where does our free will come in?

Answer: Yes. We can consider the modes as a triplet, which multiplies. There are three primary colors. From those three primary colors, we can have a large number of colors. Like that, there are three primary modes, from which there are wide varieties of combinations of modes that can come out.

The modes present us choices, but those choices are not compulsions. When we say we act under the modes, that does not mean that we have to act under a particular mode all the time. Krishna, in the 14th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, when he tells about the three modes, it’s like we could consider three modes as, I have come till this point, and now I have three courses of action. Now, I have to go on one of those three courses. If we are practicing bhakti, we can say there is a fourth course of transcendence, but I have to go according to one of those, but which of those, that is up to me. So that means the modes determine the gamut of our choices. The modes don’t determine our specific choice.

For example, sometimes, you know, if there is a multiple-choice exam, and sometimes within the multiple-choice exam, there is a typing mistake so that the right answer is not there only in the multiple choice. (Laughter). So then, I look at it, which is the capital of India, and there is no Delhi only. What do I do there? What has happened over here, the gamut of choices, that is determined by the examiner, but then, which choice the student makes, that is not determined by that five, among the five, there is choice. The student may just say all five are wrong, the student may just add a choice, none of the above.

The point is that the modes don’t determine our specific choice. The modes provide us a gamut of choices, and within that gamut of choices, if we have repeatedly acted according to a particular mode, then a particular kind of action, we may be more inclined to choose that, but we are not compelled to choose that. The capacity to choose always remains with us; the extent of the choice, that may vary. For example, even if somebody is a compulsive alcoholic, he says, I can’t live without alcohol. But you know, even within alcohol, they may decide. Even if somebody says I can’t live without tea. Okay, but even within tea, you can take tea which is, you know, which is heavy tea or which is light tea. Somebody says I cannot live without sugar, I want […]

​Does the precision of astrological predictions imply that we don’t have free will?
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Question: Does the precision of astrological predictions imply that we don’t have free will?

Answer: They are very factual and very accurately determine certain things about our lives.

Our past karma does determine certain major landmarks in our lives.

Suppose I am going from here to Melbourne, and I board a flight to Melbourne. Once I board a flight to Melbourne, the trajectory is more or less fixed. I can see that I am here now; I came to Calcutta; now I am coming to Bangkok; now I am coming to Singapore. So, the trajectory is more or less fixed, and once I have boarded that flight, I can’t change the trajectory. 

At the same time, when the flight is going along its trajectory, I have some choices. It also may be determined, once I take a particular seat, who is going to sit beside me; that also may be fixed. Who is going to sit to my left, and who is going to sit to my right? That may also be fixed. 

But within what I do, I still have free will, and I can be in a very argumentative mood. I fight and quarrel next to me. Then, I may become abusive and attack somebody. As soon as I come out of the plane, I am under arrest. Or I find that the person sitting next to me is a very influential businessman. I come up with a business deal. I had a lot of prospects in front of me after I came out of the flight.

Once I am in the flight, a large pattern of my life is fixed, once I boarded the flight. Still, within that, I have substantial freedom.

When we start our life journey, we consider our body to be a plane; we have ascended the plane. The body is a plane journey from birth through youth, middle age, old age, and ultimately death. That trajectory is fixed.

That trajectory can be told, to some extent, through astrology. Things like, when you go on a plane, they can tell where you are going to go, where the plane is at this time, who is going to sit next to you here, who is ahead of you, and who is going to be behind. Those things are fixed, but what we are going to do is not fixed.

Sometimes we may say, I want to change my seat; I want to go from here. I sit somewhere else. Some amount of freedom is there. Astrology determines certain things in our lives.Those who are accredited astrologers may be able to tell us about these things. Still, it doesn’t mean everything is determined.

For example, if I am born in India, a large percentage of the people with whom I am going to associate are Indians. That is fixed by my birth in India. I may migrate to some other country, and then the people around me change. Even there, I may want to associate with Indians because that’s what I am familiar with. Then […]