Free will and how to think about it

Understanding the boundaries beyond which free will lies is one of the most practical mental exercises we can do. It is about being able to spot exactly where free will does not exist for an individual in a particular situation and figuring out how to leverage the free will we do have. A beautiful side effect of mastering this is developing equanimity. When we understand these boundaries, we can finally get rid of the hurt we feel when we observe someone doing wrong to us or to themselves.

Pick any free will debate (for reference check this out). You will usually find two sides.

• Those who oppose its presence, like thinkers who argue for hard biological determinism, claim that everything we do is simply a chain of events, genetics, and mental biases building up throughout our lives. They argue that all those chained events lead to a particular decision and what we think of as free will is just us fooling ourselves.

• Those who say we have free will often talk about gross levels and boundaries. They acknowledge social conditioning but argue there is a line beyond which a person has control. The tragedy happens when that line is pushed too far back. For example, a man once went on a terrible killing spree but left a note explaining he was completely out of control and wished his brain to be analyzed after his death. For that person, his free will could only allow him to write the note and acknowledge the problem. His free will was not strong enough to stop him from doing the act or to seek help.

Jainism makes this boundary line much more granular with far less vagueness.

As per Jain philosophy, we are born with certain effecting karmas that set our baseline parameters.

• Think of Naam karm which dictates your physical body and genetics.
• Or think of Gotra karm which sets your environment and societal status. We also have Ashata vedniye karm which brings situational pain or discomfort. If you are born with a genetic predisposition to a certain illness, that is a boundary where your free will is restricted.
• Then we have got Mohniye Karm, that triggers certain instincts, all it does is trigger things, and acting on them can very well be controlled using free will (sometimes very obvious, and sometimes it takes a lot of mental strength). One needs to amp up their mind to be vigilant and not give in to the wrong instincts.

We also have the concept of Nikachit karma. This is where free will takes a back seat. Nikachit karma refers to the karm particles that are almost impossible to change and would most probably give its fruits to full effect. Notice the word almost. This means there is a degree of nikachitness to things. If an unavoidable accident or a sudden market crash wipes out an opportunity, that event might be heavily bound by Nikachit karma. Your free will cannot stop the event itself from unfolding in that exact moment.

But Jainism is not fatalistic. It gives us the precise tools to transform karma where free will actually lives:

• Remember the mohniye karm? It can very well trigger us, but if we are mindful and have mentally strengthened ourselves (naturally or through building and following certain practices) we very well can excercise free will!
• You can use Apvartana to decrease the intensity of an upcoming karma. For example
  • Imagine your past actions have compounded into a karma destined to cause a massive career or financial crash.
  • But through your current free will, you rigorously build a disciplined routine, diversify your skills, and cultivate deep emotional resilience.
  • When the karma finally executes, it does not wipe you out. The impact is downgraded from a life altering crash to a temporary and manageable drawdown.
  • You absorbed the shock because you used your free will to change the parameters before the event triggered.
• You can also use Sankraman to transmute karma into another, less harmful form. Basically it allows you to refactor the karmic code so it outputs a different result within the same category.(At least that is what i understand I definitely want to read more about it and leverage it in my life). For example
  • Suppose you have accumulated karma that is set to manifest as intense physical suffering or illness.
  • Through deep and focused spiritual exertion you can transmute that karma.
  • The karmic energy still has to be spent, but you convert it from a passive and debilitating disease into the controlled and purposeful exhaustion of building something difficult.
  • You completely changed the nature of the output.
• You can even use Udirna to trigger premature fruition.
  • Think of it like voluntarily paying off a debt early.
  • By taking on minor hardships or austerities, you shed the karma on your own terms before it matures and blindsides you.
  • It is like triggering a stress test on your own terms.
  • You know a heavy karmic toll is waiting in the pipeline so instead of letting it hit you at a random point in the future when you might be completely vulnerable, you use your free will to pull it forward.
  • You voluntarily take on severe austerities, intense fasting, or deep introspective isolation.
  • You force the karma to execute early in a controlled environment where your mind is prepped and fortified, shedding the weight before it can blindside you.
  • Fun fact, I often see it as psychologically strengthening also, coz if you have trained yourself on intentional hardships, then even when they are forced on you, it does not affect you that intensely !
• Another massive area of free will is eliminating the nimitt. If you know a certain environment or conversation acts as a catalyst to trigger your anger, your free will is simply choosing to walk away. You observe the trigger with shudh bhaav instead of reacting to it.

Now let's talk about the POV. You can either be the subject or the observer of this phenomenon.

• As a subject
  • If you are lethargic, ill informed, and non vigilant, it is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there is no free will.
  • But if you really do self introspection and probe into things while eliminating laziness, you will figure out the exact line beyond which your free will exists.
  • You can train yourself to act in ways so that the events in the "absence of free will" area do not affect you.
  • Infact you can train yourself to drag that boundary short and expand your areas of free will! Coz let's face it, this whole thing is very individual and personal, and hence tweakable!
  • It might be a slow process to build and strengthen this mental model. It requires effort and discipline. But it is possible!
  • So the solution to the Subject POV is self improvement, there are many ways, if you are curious, you will find ways, whether out of jainism, psychology, self help books, or your nutritionist or gym trainer or life mentor or just some guy on youtube! You can find ways for sure, my intent was to show you that its possible from Jainism pov and show you examples irl to feel the free will !
• As an Observer
  • When you see someone giving in to their fate or letting the absence of free will area expand in their life, you cannot always do much.
  • Often times they are so engrossed in lethargy that you cannot shake and wake them up.
  • It becomes especially tricky and hurtful when they are your closed ones. You see them doing things which hurt them, and when you try to help, they become stubborn.

Now let's talk about the solution to the observer POV. Coz once you fix yourself in any particular thing, the moment you see someone doing it wrong, just acts an itch that you want to fix. Some might smirk at others, but the wholesome ones, they genuinely feel empathy and feel bad for others not being able to fix things. They see their past reflection in them and take it as their duty to help them, thinking if someone had helped them in their past, it would have been so nice!
Here is what can help in fixing your mental state when you observe this lack of free will in others.

• First, overcome the attachment with others.
  • Understand that giving importance to the feeling of attachment is in a way giving in to the lack of free will yourself.
  • Meditating on Ekatva Bhavana helps you realize that everyone is on a solo karmic journey.
  • This does not mean that you do not help others, you should be open to help but tone down that empathy to the level that if you are not able to help them or if they are not listening to you or are being stubborn and even self sabotaging, it does not affect you!
  • Even while observing, do not forget that you are also a subject.
  • Whenever you see yourself putting on the hat of the observer, swap it with the hat of the subject and analyze your own stance.
  • Fixing yourself is always the first step.
• Second, accept their boundaries.
  • Even if you overcome attachment, or even if you lack empathy for someone, you still might be left with the lingering feeling that if someone near you undergoes problems, it might affect you.
  • The line of thought might go something like "Their bad phases might affect me, so shouldn’t I intervene and help them avoid catastrophes in their lives which could potentially affect me as well in future?"
  • Even if it is not because of Excessive empathy or fear of being affected by their ill fate one might think "Even if they are being stubborn about it, I should force the right thing so that it is better for them!"
  • Notice how you might be imposing your will on them, ruining their free will at this point. Also risking your relationship with them, and most importantly you might not know their baselines, nikachitness of their karm or even bluntly saying, you might not be wise enough to know what's right for them!
  • Equanimity in accepting what falls upon you or someone by understanding it is your own karma is the ultimate key here.

I write blogs, but I do not post them.
I am constantly learning more and more concepts across jainism, psychology, neurology and all sorts of lenses that I can find.
And I feel I can enrich everything much more down the line and present a more multifaceted view, which allows us all to take a dig at understanding if not all atleast some aspects of the core complex multifaceted truth.

Take a look at this post to understand about my journey and ping me if you wanna chat about anything !