Question: What is the relationship between free will and the life’s trajectory pre-determined by horoscope at birth? How much effect would free will have? How to apply free will so as to advance ourselves instead of remaining degraded?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
The principle of bhakti does not require anything: not prior karma, nor prior astrology, prior wealth, prior education.
The essence of your question is how much free will is operating in our life, and how much of our life is pre-determined.
Prabhupāda was asked, “Should we go seeing an astrologer? Would you recommend that?”
His answer was, “if you know it is going to rain, you may carry an umbrella.”
You understand? We have a free will choice to make in all circumstances of life.
By my astrology chart, different influences will be acting upon me. Due to my past activity, my astrological chart is determined. Charts indicate specific influences acting upon me. Nonetheless, I still have free will choice, regarding how I will respond to these influences.
By bhakti, one can transcend altogether those influences.
It does not mean it will not rain. It means you will not be influenced by the rain.
To say it in another way: Whether good fortune or ill fortune, Bhakti has the power to carry you above good fortune and ill-fortune.
Through Bhakti, you are in the care of the internal potency. Astrology only looks at external potency.
Yes, there are influences in our life. You are born in China. I am born in America. There are influences in culture, in language. These influences are because of our past activities.
And here we are. We have free will choice.
Let me ask you, is it in your horoscope that you can become a Hare Kṛṣṇa devotee?
How did it happen? By the influence of the internal potency, and through the agency of a carrier of bhakti, you are now a Kṛṣṇa bhakta.
You made some choices. You said yes instead of no. And going forward in time, you can make more choices.
Your horoscope is not going to determine your future choices. You have free will choice.
Maybe you will, or maybe you will not carry an umbrella.
But to stay true to Kṛṣṇa, that is a free will choice.
What is back there in my previous karma, that influence is going to come to me. Yes. My past activity is determining the current events that are coming before me.
It is within my free will to choose how I am going to respond to those circumstances.
Bhaktisiddhānta, when he was a young man, got the title Sarasvatī because when he was only a teenager, he was the famous astrologer in all of India.
He just put astrology to the side, knowing that bhakti is the higher principle, carrying us beyond all those influences.
