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A human is free, they may eat or not eat, but after consuming poison, it is not in their hands to escape death. This is a gross example, because even after consuming poison, one can be cured and saved from death. Similarly, in the soul, both freedom and dependence are manifested in the two occasions of the agency and experience of karma. We explain this below.
The soul is free in the act of doing karma. It can create its own destiny as it wishes. By achieving complete victory over karma, it can become pure and liberated. But sometimes, due to past karma and external circumstances, it becomes so dependent that it can never do what it wants. For example, a soul may want to progress on the path of righteousness, but due to the force of karma, it does not gain strength on that path and slips. This is the freedom and dependence of the soul in the time of its agency.
It is not that the soul becomes dependent on karma after doing karma. Even in that situation, the soul's freedom is preserved. It can, if it wishes, transform the inauspicious into the auspicious, change the situation and taste, bring about the ripening of the fruits (vipak), and transform the ripening of the fruits into another form. In this, the soul's freedom is evident. Dependence is from this perspective, that the karma that has been taken on cannot be escaped without experiencing it. Even if the karma that is to be experienced for a long time is experienced in a short time, it must be experienced by all.
Types of Karma Experience
The experience of the fruits of karma by the living being is called the state of ripening of karma. In the state of ripening, the living being experiences the auspicious or inauspicious fruits of karma.