Is everything predestined? Part II

In a previous article, I discussed how everything is predetermined based on a cause-effect model. To recap:

1. actions produce results
2. actions themselves arise through prior cause-effect chains involving knowledge, desire, and volition.
3. When traced backward, such cause-effect chains extend indefinitely into the past.
4. The cause-effect process is beginningless (anādi).

Here, I examine some interesting features of the cause-effect model.

Bodies are not produced “to order”

Is a body ‘made’ for a particular ātman at a given time? As the world evolves continuously through cause-effect chains, bodies are produced as part of those chains. For example, causes of the birth of a specific body include biological reproduction which transmits genes from parent to offspring, environmental factors such as availability of food and resources which constrain the chains, and also interactions among the huge number of living beings, ranging from bacteria to the top of the food chain. The system operates regardless of any particular ātman’s karma. Each birth produces a body–mind system with a particular set of conditions:

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

An ātma becomes associated with one of these bodies when its karmic state is compatible with these birth conditions. Thus, we can conclude that bodies are not manufactured for a particular ātma. Rather, the evolving world continuously generates bodies, and individual ātmans become identified with them; given that there are infinite ātmans with anādi karma, it is not difficult to find the ‘right fit’.

If each life of a given ātman is treated as a time interval,

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

embodiment occurs at the beginning of the interval. That is, an ātman’s identification with a body occurs at these discrete birth events, and dissociation occurs at death events. The above discussion implies that an ātman does not necessarily take a body immediately after death; that will only happen when a suitable body develops in some cause-effect chain.

Individuals that share timelines will share patterns of karma

The above model also predicts that certain patterns should naturally appear. Bodies arising within shared environments, such as families, communities, societies, and historical periods, will tend to correspond to ātmans of karma that has similarities. Here, the word karma refers to the effects that arise from causes from past lives.

As an example, people living in the same historical period experience many of the same environmental influences. Today, large populations are impacted by global communication networks and social media. These produce both enjoyment and psychological stress. Even two centuries ago, the dominant pressures were different. Infectious diseases such as plague, smallpox, malaria, and tuberculosis affected practically everyone and life expectancy was uniformly low across the world. Thus the sources of pleasure and suffering change with the environment, but individuals living in the same era often encounter similar categories of experience. This is not to say that there are no differences between individual experiences, such as healthy or sick, or rich and poor. But the similarities of experiences for a given region or time period are higher than for different regions and time periods.

The lokas of different types described in the scriptures could be interpreted as environments where particular kinds of conditions predominate, and therefore people with similar karma become present there. In this sense the universe may be viewed as containing a huge number of environments with specific types of cause-effect chains that produce specific types of bodies, with which specific ātmans become identified.

Bhakti as exit from the system

The cause-effect model is predicated on the (observable) fact that the world operates through mechanisms. Even mental states such as memory, tendencies (saṁskāras), desires, and intentions arise in the body–mind system under laws of cause-effect. External events such as wars, social changes or climatic conditions emerge from the interaction of many causal chains. In this closed cause-effect system, no single individual stands outside the chain as an independent originator of events. There is no scope for ‘free will’; everything obeys cause-and-effect laws.

The process of bhakti is an independent causal chain that arises through contact with a bhakta. From the standpoint of the jīva’s history, the intersection is not predictable from prior causes. This is why bhakti is called ‘causeless’. When the jīva practices bhakti, the recursive rule of birth and death no longer applies to it.

One might compare the system to a simulation. Agents appear inside the simulation and interact according to its rules. Their actions generate consequences that keep them inside the system.

Bhakti functions like an exit mechanism. The simulation continues running, but the individual who accepts the bhakti path does not take birth again after death. Further, during the time the individual is alive, he or she remains an observer of cause-effect chains and does not identify with them.