17 May 2012 - QA 1

Do we create our reality or is everything predetermined?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Do you have a dog at home?
(Answer: Yes)
See, when you go to the park, you go with a leash on the dog. That is legal. Now, the dog has freedom only for the length of the leash. Correct? It can sit very close to where the leash is, or go as long as the leash is. That much is its freedom. If you have trained a dog to be in one area, that is his freedom. He doesn’t go twenty kilometers away.
Similarly, in life, everybody has some freedom, and some things are fixed. Human beings have this freedom because humans have intelligence. The lives of animals are programmed. They never overeat. Their life is aligned with nature, but we have the freedom to align with nature or violate the law. Are you getting what I am saying?
When you align with nature, there is harmony, and when you go against the laws of nature, there is disharmony. So, in life, many things are fixed and a few things are free will.

I will give you another example. When it is raining to get wet or not is your freewill. You can take an umbrella or a rain coat and not get wet.
So, life is a combination of freewill and destiny. The more you go deep into meditation, the happier you are, the more you align yourself with nature, the more you will have free-will.