On Free Will, Karma & Letting Go of ‘Saving’ Others

We are not put on this Earth to save anyone, simply because there is no one else to save. Though it’s not obvious on the surface, everyone is fundamentally an extension of our larger selves — sparks of a unified whole that retain some individuality and free will. Therefore, any time we seek to help another, we are actually helping ourselves. And by extension, when we help ourselves we also help the whole. Replace “help” with love, heal, forgive, understand, and now we’re getting the idea.

My personal perception is that the Divine is not an overlord who is sitting on a sky throne making any kind of demands on us, even noble ones. Neither is God in dire need of our help for anything. In fact, we are granted Free Will as a Divine gift that doesn’t get revoked. We may use it as we please, in accordance with our karma, and with the understanding that most actions generate some kind of new karma, each setting in motion an incredibly complex web of reactions.

As an aside, karma is one of those concepts that is often quoted and discussed at length but scarcely understood — probably due to the level of nuance involved. Karma isn’t a standardised currency; there are numerous factors involved to determine the precise nature and magnitude of a particular karma. Two people can perform the same action and generate very different karmic results, depending on their own karmic past, context, intention and many more subtleties.

Intellectual analysis, or even intuition, may not be enough to fully grasp the law of karma. Perhaps we don’t need to. There are certain yogic techniques that are understood to burn one’s karma at an exceptional rate, without needing any understanding or rationalising. Humility in what we don’t know, and trust in the process serve us far better in some cases — at least that’s been my experience.

As we grow spiritually, through whatever practices we are drawn to, such as prayer, meditation, charity or service, we lighten this karma. And the lighter the karma, the freer the will. This free will isn’t a licence to go wild though — that’s a misconception of the ego. It’s the result of expanding our consciousness to increasingly align our personal will with the Cosmic Will, or Divine Will. Freedom and attunement are two sides of the same coin.

Now narrowing from consciousness to individual mind, an action rooted in freedom is one where we have zero expectation or desire for an outcome, good or bad. There is no need to resolve things cleanly, or even at all sometimes. We can try and trust that everyone will eventually find their own way, and that no one gets lost forever. But in the meantime, we may have to watch people we care about make their own choices and learn whatever life wishes to teach them, even if we don’t wish to see them get hurt. After all, we can’t necessarily influence someone else’s karma and we certainly can’t infringe on a liberty bestowed by the Divine.

The truth is that not everyone is going to appreciate our loving concern or efforts to help, and someone in an emotionally or mentally turbulent place may not be able to perceive any input as help. It may instead land as interference or judgement, because they’re already overwhelmed with how much they have to process just to stay afloat.

In these moments, some of the kindest things we can do are to protect our own energy, hold sensible boundaries regarding what we should and shouldn’t take responsibility for, and offer them as much understanding as we can muster.

There has to be a lightness and spaciousness in the love we give people whose choices we feel uncomfortable with. No pressure, no strings attached, no judgement — all easier said than done! And since everyone is a part of us, perhaps there’s a story playing out in the discomfort that we might be called to learn from.

Is there a part of us that turns love into a compulsion to save others, sometimes taking on burdens that needn’t belong to us? What could be driving this subtle dis-ease with things as they are? Are we holding the identity of the helper a little too closely? Our free will is in how we engage with these feelings.

Now, all this talk of free will sounds empowering, but is there a catch? Well, there isn’t really one, except for realising that the cycle of creating and dissolving karma is rather tiresome, and often very painful. We weren’t meant to remain bound by the consequences of our actions for all eternity. There is no compassion in that design.

Instead, the Divine issues a gentle, open invitation to use our free will to recognise what is already present within us, and become free in the highest sense — not driven by karmic patterns or rusty mental programming, and not overly influenced by worldly smoke and mirrors.

By opening our hearts to all and patiently polishing the mirror of our mind day by day, we begin to glimpse our own inner Divinity — and we rise in love, naturally uplifting the part of us that also lives in every other human being. When we spiritually save ourselves from the karmic trap, we genuinely help save the world without even meaning to.

Kiruthika Rajeswaran