Life and Spirituality

Dr. Ashok Malhotra at Raj Bhavan, Nainital A s a result of scientific understanding, some humans have come to believe that life began on the planet by a chance combination of elements, at first as the simplest of life forms that later evolved over millions of years into complex organic machines with humans being a prime example. Some scientists who hold this type of view also conclude through only a little further reasoning that humans cannot have any free will, just as robotic machines cannot; that all their actions and choices are based on their pre-programming and inputs this machine receives. A little more reasoning also reveals that such machines cannot have feelings such as love, hate, fear etc. since a robot cannot possibly possess such things. On the other hand there are also scientists (such as me) that believe in God and also believe that our scientific understanding is not yet complete. They accept that their feelings of love and hate are real and not just chem

T he source of our Karma is Free Will linked to our desires through various emotions that humans possess. All life forms possess it. It is the distinguishing feature of life much more so than ability to reproduce etc. as defined by scientists because after all a sterile person is a life form too. Whenever we exercise our free wills and make a choice or carry out an action based on that choice, it will influence some other life form or some other part of the Universe and most importantly our own soul and it may therefore generate Karma. The word “may” is used in the last paragraph because karma may not be generated at all. The Universe as a whole has a Will also, but the Universe does not accumulate karma in the exercise of that free will, because it does not influence anyone but itself. We are all parts of the Universe. We may not realize that fully but the universe is never in doubt of that. It is possible to align one’s free will with that of the Universe in a sp