Is everything predestined?

Reader Madhukar ji and I were discussing the law of karma. Our discussion focused on the following verse from Hitopadeśa (Babaji’s translation) —

pūrva-janma-kṛtaṁ karma tad daivam iti kathyate tasmāt puruṣa-kāreṇa yatnaṁ kuryād atandritaḥ

Activities performed in past lives are called fate. Throw off laziness, therefore, and endeavor with enthusiasm even now.

The definition of daiva, translated as fate or destiny, is the actions we have performed in past lives. Truly speaking, what carries forward to the next life is the awaited ‘result’ of those actions.

The question arises — is everything predestined in our current lives?

The next verse of Hitopadeśa is as follows —

na daivam api sañcintya tyajed udyogam ātmanaḥ anudyogena tailāni tilebhyo nāptum arhati

As one cannot get oil from sesame seeds without pressing them, even if fate is favorable, one should not give up hard work.

Here, the author of Hitopadeśa offers an analogy. The sesame seeds signify what is available to us by fate; i.e. a result of our actions in a previous life. But still, one must perform effort to extract oil from the seed. That effort, performed in the present, is necessary.

Here, the author is trying to pre-empt arguments for shirking one’s work in the name of destiny, which is the tendency of lazy people.

However, moving beyond this, another question arises. Could it be argued that even one’s tendency to do work, the knowledge of how to extract oil from the sesame seed, and the ultimate effort, are themselves pre-destined?

To answer this, I offer the following logic.

Let

Current action: X_current

Result of current action: X_r

Let

Past-life action: X_past

Result of X_past that comes in the current life: Y_r or symbolically,

X_past → Y_r

The question can be phrased as follows:

What part of X_r is due to Y_r?

Suppose X_r is the result of getting oil from the sesame seed. To get this result, we have to perform action X_current, which is the action of pressing the sesame seed. Suppose Y_r is the sesame seed, which we attained in this life owing to past-life action X_past . We could reasonably write:

X_r = X_current|Y_r

That is,

current result = current action performed given favorable conditions created by fate,

or in the example,

oil = pressing the seed|seed is available

But, this raises a deeper question.

What determines action X_current itself?

Any action requires the sequence of knowledge, desire, volition and activity. These arise through cause and effect.

As an example, consider the Hitopadeśa verse itself. When we hear that oil is obtained by pressing sesame seeds, knowledge arises in us. From that knowledge, a desire may arise, and from that desire, effort may follow. In this sense, the instruction shapes our behavior.

This too occurs through prior causes. One happens to encounter a speaker, hear the verse, understand it, and then act. The teaching is, in fact, a part of the causal chain that produces action. For this reason, even the action X_current cannot be independent. It must arise from earlier causes. Symbolically, this chain may be written as:

X_past1​→Y_r1​→X_current

here, Y_r1​ represents intermediate results in the current life such as knowledge, desire, volition etc. that lead to X_current.

If we map every moment in our lives from birth onward, everything occurs through causal processes, including the circumstances around us and the actions of others who were also born at different times.

At a moment in time, the causal chains intersect; i.e. action produced by one causal chain (pressing the sesame seed) and conditions produced by the other causal chain (the sesame seed), intersect, to produce the result.

As an aside, the action we perform today, X_current, will itself create a result that may appear in a future life. In this way, the causal chain continues forward. Because every cause arises from earlier causes, the chain extends into the past.

Where precisely is fate operating?

Another way to visualize the same causal structure is to think of each life as a time interval.

Suppose a person’s life spans the interval

$$[t_{birth},\, t_{death}]$$

Within this interval events unfold through causal processes. Knowledge gives rise to desire, desire to volition, volition to action, and actions produce results.

At the beginning of this interval the individual already finds themselves under a particular set of conditions. These include the body they inhabit, the family into which they are born, the environment in which they will grow up, and various tendencies and opportunities.

We may represent these collectively as a set of initial conditions

$$\{C_{birth}\}$$

According to the law of karma, these initial conditions arise from actions performed in previous lives. In this sense daiva (fate) can be understood as the set of conditions present at the beginning of the life interval.

From that point onward, causal processes operate within the interval itself.

During the course of life many further events occur. For example, at some time $t_1$ within the interval a person may encounter the sesame seed. It is a particular element that has appeared within the interval as a result of earlier causes.

At a later time $t_2$​, the action of pressing the seed may occur. When the action and the relevant condition coincide, the result is produced:$$X_r = X_{current} \mid Y_r$$

The actions performed during the interval generate results that shape later events in the same life and also determine the conditions present at future birth. In this way the results of actions in one life contribute to the set of initial conditions at the beginning of another.

When we extend this framework to all living beings, the picture becomes more complex. Each individual has their own life interval$$[t_{birth}^{(i)},\, t_{death}^{(i)}]$$

with its own set of conditions$$\{C_{birth}^{(i)}\}$$

These intervals overlap in time, and the actions of one individual influence the conditions experienced by others. The world thus consists of a vast network of interacting causal chains among many agents

$$\{A_1, A_2, A_3, \dots\}$$

Because living beings are born and die at different times, their life intervals overlap but do not coincide exactly. The actions of one being create conditions that influence the lives of others, who in turn generate further actions and results. As new beings continually enter the system while others leave it, the causal network extends indefinitely into the past. This is why the world is beginningless (anādi).

The law of karma can be seen as a recursion

As we have seen above, actions performed during one’s life generate results that shape later events in the same life and also determine the conditions present at future birth. In this way the results of actions in one life contribute to the set of initial conditions at the beginning of another.

This structure has a recursive form. If the initial conditions of the present life are represented as

$$\{C_{birth}^{(n)}\}$$

then these conditions arise from the results of actions performed in the previous life:

$$\{C_{birth}^{(n)}\} = f(\text{results of life } n-1)$$

But the results of life $n-1$ themselves arose from the conditions present at the beginning of that life:

$$\{C_{birth}^{(n-1)}\}$$

Thus the same rule repeats:

$$\{C_{birth}^{(n)}\} = f(\{C_{birth}^{(n-1)}\})$$

Each life therefore arises from the results of the previous one according to cause-effect relationships. The system continually generates the conditions for its own continuation, and this is the law of karma.