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Law of Karma
acts accordingly. This very choice provides freedom or liberty to him. Man is not predetermined. He is free to do what he likes. There is no luck or fate. Man is the architect of his own destiny. If not, the Law of Karma would be useless. While Determinism stresses on man's fate, Libertarianism stresses on his freedom of will. Hence these two are opposed to each other. There are so many instances of man's determining factors. In Gitā also Shri Krishna tells Arjuna to fight :
“má karmapbalahetur bhur mā te sango' sty akarmaņi.'59
Success or failure does not depend on individual but on other factors as well. Man should not regard himself as the maker of his success or failure. He is only an agent or a mediator. Giordana Bruno says: “I have fought that is much, victory is in the hands of fate.”
But Sri Aurobindo has his own way of thinking. According to him, man is the architect of his own fate. To quote him, "All this is perfectly rational and unexceptionable so far as it goes and the Law of Karma may be accepted as a fact."53 For him, man's nature and circumstances are the result of his own inner and outer activities. He is what he has made himself. The past man was the father of the present man and the present man will be the father of the future. Each (being) profits what he does and suifers what he does. This is the chain of action which is interlinked with our destiny also.
It is thus evident that man's past and present Karma must determine his future birth. All that he was and did in the past must be the creator of all that he is now. And all that he is doing now in the present must be the creator of what he will be in the future. We may say on the basis that the nature of energy must be the nature of results i.e., the good must bring good results, the evil must bring evil results. Secondly, the master word of Karma is justice and therefore good deeds must bear the fruit of haspiness and good fortune, whereas evil deeds must bear the fruits of sorrow, misery and ill-fortune.
