Determinism, Karma and the Choices we make  

drunken_angel 4/17/2005 4:22 pm Last Read: 3/5/2006 9:28 pm

In my opinion : Determinism, karma, and the choices we make Determinism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that all events are inevitable consequences of antecedent sufficient causes. It is often understood as denying the possibility of free will, though this part I beg to disagree. Free will still exists. It comes in the form of the choices that we make. What happens to us later on results from the choices that we've previously made. I never believed in no-choice situations. There are always choices, if we only make ourselves be aware of these choices. Karma is the Hindu and Buddhist concept that holds that a person's destiny [in the next incarnation] is determined by the effects of his actions. Whatever we do today, whatever the choices that we make today, affect what happens to us in the future or in the next life [if you happen to believe in life after death]. Determinism and karma complement each other. The latter merely says that the past affect the future. The former affirms the inevitability of the future because of the past. And within both ideas lies the entity that drives the past to affect the future: our choices. Everyday we are presented with a lot of choices. We make small choices, big choices. Oftentimes, we're not aware that we are making choices. That's why at those times, we fail to comprehend why things are happening to us...because we lack awareness of the things we do. Awareness of our choices empowers us to make the right decisions. We are always responsible for our actions; actions that stem from the decisions we make; decisions that are products of our choices; and, choices that eventually determine the direction that our destiny will take. Life, they say, is full of mysteries. But they are mysteries only because we don't know what our choices will result into. What is definite is that these choices will either haunt or bless our future. In the end, it is we who really define our own destinies. Or to be precise, it's our actions, our choices.