Karma and freewill

“You have a right to action alone, but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.”— Bhagavad Gita 2:47

If karma follows the soul from one birth to another, then perhaps even inside the mother’s womb the journey has already begun. The child enters the world surrounded by love, receives a name, blessings, traditions, and yet unknowingly carries invisible baggage from another lifetime.

For many years I believed life was unfair. I blamed people, circumstances, and even myself.

Yet there was always a strange longing within me—as though I was searching for something I had never lost but simply forgotten.
That longing made me write.

Every page uncovered another layer of fear.

Every sentence peeled away another wound.

I questioned every thought until I realised my mind had become a storehouse of old memories, opinions, fears, and imagined disasters. It was overflowing with garbage I had unknowingly collected throughout my life.

Whenever a painful thought appeared, I no longer fought it. I simply wrote it down. In my mind I imagined it as a mirror shattering into countless pieces. With every crack, the image became less clear. Eventually there was nothing left to see.

The voices inside my head softened.
The music that endlessly played in my mind slowly faded into silence.
Sometimes I wonder if following Sadhguru’s practices, watching his videos, doing my sadhana, and continuing this journey of self-inquiry will eventually lead me to moments of grace and bliss.

Will this longing finally find its home?

Or am I simply creating another destination for the mind?”

The Sage smiled.

“My friend, the modern battlefield is no longer Kurukshetra.
It is the human mind.
The modern Krishna does not always stand before us holding a conch and a discus. Sometimes Krishna speaks through a teacher, a book, a moment of silence, or an experience that refuses to leave us unchanged.

And the modern Arjuna is every human being who finally becomes tired of fighting the world and turns inward.
You ask whether everything happens for a reason.

Perhaps a better question is this:
‘What will I do with what has happened?’
Your past may have been shaped by karma. Your present is shaped by awareness. Your future will be shaped by the actions you choose today.

The writing did not remove your karma.

It removed your unconsciousness.
The shattered mirror was never your enemy. It was showing you every identity you had mistaken for yourself.

As each reflection disappeared, what remained was not emptiness born of despair, but spaciousness free from unnecessary noise.
Do not chase bliss.
Do not chase grace.
Do not even chase silence.

Continue your practices because they prepare the soil. Grace is like the rain. No one can command it to fall, but when the soil is ready, every drop is received.
One day you may climb the 276 steps faster than before.

The true achievement will not be reaching the top in less than five minutes.

The true achievement will be climbing every step without carrying the burden of yesterday or the anxiety of tomorrow.

Then every step becomes meditation.
Every breath becomes prayer.
Every ordinary day becomes extraordinary.”

The Seeker lowered his head.

“So perhaps destiny brought me to the path, karma gave me the lessons, but every conscious step I take is still my own?”

The Sage nodded.

“And that is why the Gita speaks not of escaping life, but of living it consciously.”

“Abandon all forms of limited dependence and take refuge in Me alone. I shall free you from all bondage; do not grieve.”
— Bhagavad Gita 18:66