Directly or indirectly I am often asked the following question in the context of astrology:
Do we still have any free will at all when the astrological influences of the planets "predetermine everything in our lives"?
Swami Vivekananda, whose view of the Vedanta philosophy I would like to share here, once said the following on the subject of free will: "From freedom we come, in bondage it becomes will, and from bondage we go back to freedom.
What Swami Vivekananda is trying to tell us here is that the combination of the term "free will" is an amalgamation of different levels which, as it is, cannot be thought of together. There is freedom and there is will. Will is a chain of mental events and takes place at the level of cause and effect, of causality. As long as the will is conditioned by the circumstances of causality, however, the so-called "free will" is not free but bound. This is what Swami Vivekananda calls bondage.
On the other hand, if we attain enlightenment, freedom, then we are in the state of the ever free Atman, which is our soul in God so to speak. But in this state the question of will does not arise at all. How might the question of will arise in the essence of the ultimate reality, in Brahman, in Satchidananda, which is synonymous to God? How could the Absolute want anything at all?
To will is a function of the mind. In our own deep sleep, when the mind is dissolved, where is the will? Where is your will when you are in deep sleep? You can feel the existence of your free will in the waking state, maybe sometimes in the dream state. But not when you are in deep sleep and your mind is turned off. Beyond the mind the question of (free) will does not exist.
The will is part of the mind. As the will is part of the mind, it is subject to the laws of cause and effect. Due to this causality it is bound and not free. This is the position of Swami Vivekananada.
But we do feel this free will in us, we would like to recall to him.
When we ask about freedom of will, it is useful to distinguish three levels. If we look at our own life, the first answer is: yes, we have free will. If we look at the question from the perspective of philosophy, religion and neuroscience, the second answer must be: no, we do not have free will. Finally, if we look at the question of free will from the Vedantic perspective of an enlightened human being, a jivan mukta, the third answer is: freedom yes, but no free will.
So on an everyday level: yes, we have free will (level 1), on closer examination: no, we do not have free will (level 2) and on the level of Brahman/God: freedom yes, but no free will (level 3).
How can we integrate these different levels for ourselves personally?
For it is like this: in the waking state and even in the dream state, we have, quite practically speaking, this feeling of free will, we feel no doubt about this, irrespective of our discussion; also our whole society is built on the idea that we have free will, and we feel that we have free will.
And yet after all, we know that in the end there is no free will, but only the freedom of God (beyond the mind).
Let's combine the two together. Let us use the appearance of free will and the fact that we feel free so that we can transform all our actions into prayer and surrender to God/the Absolute/the highest Self. We perform our daily actions, whatever they may be... and mentally hand them and the fruits of these actions over to God/the Absolute/the highest Self.
The truth is: in the end we are free, even if we have no free will.
The wisest way of using the appearance of free will can therefore be seen in freely giving it to God/the Absolute/the highest Self and freely acknowledging that it is actually God's will.
You see, here both things come into play: I use the appearance of a free will and at the same time I acknowledge that it is God's will. This is a beautiful resolution of this paradox, which we also call devotion.
We can say: this resolution is not deterministic, but indeterministic.
Transferred to astrology, we realize that we have all the freedom in the way we relate to the circumstances in our lives. We cannot expect life to actually behave the way we want it to. But we can always relate to the circumstances in our lives in such a way that we use the appearance of our free will to bring it into harmony with God's will.
Then we enter into this indeterminate space of devotion and we can bring God's will into our lives. And what happens then is beyond the influence of astrology and indeterminate.
Or to put it in the words of Ernst Wilhelm:
"Free will exists, but it has nothing to do with the ego. It has nothing to do with the desires of the individual. It has nothing to do with the needs of the individual either. Free will is God's will flowing through us. This is not shown in the horoscope; it is not in your horoscope. And many people do not like to hear this: We have 100% free-will ... of how we relate to the things in our life, but most people don't use it. If they don't use that, then God's will is certainly not gonna be flowing through the person. So the only free-will we have to bother with is the free-will of how we relate to what's around us. Are we gonna do it more healthily or more sickly. If we do it more healthily, then God's will can start flowing through us... AND THEN ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE."