Between Fate & Choice: What Western psychology can learn from Vedic and indigenous wisdom
In Western culture, we are taught to believe we are the architects of our own lives. “You create your reality.” “Everything is a choice.” “If you’re stuck, you’re not trying hard enough.” At first, this feels empowering. But if we pause and look closely, it often comes with a hidden cost. Life doesn’t always bend to our intentions. Illness, grief, trauma, or the complexities of family and circumstance remind us that control is often an illusion. And yet, Western individualism asks us to act as if it isn’t. Free will can feel less like liberation and more like a burden of moral pressure.
As a therapist, I see this daily. People carry invisible weights: ancestral trauma, nervous system patterns, cultural expectations, and life events they never chose. We are not blank slates. We are born into conditions, relationships, and circumstances beyond our choosing. And yet, we are asked to believe we are fully responsible for everything that happens to us.
Ancient systems offer a different perspective. In Vedic philosophy, fate and free will are not opposites, they are partners. Karma is not punishment; it is the law of action and consequence, flowing through time. Prarabdha karma describes the life circumstances we are born into: our body, our family, our context. But within these circumstances exists purushartha, the conscious effort we make, the dharma we live, the choices we exercise within the conditions of our lives. Free will is real, but it exists within a framework. We are neither helpless nor omnipotent. We are participants in a dance far greater than ourselves.
Indigenous worldviews offer another layer of wisdom. Many see life as relational and cyclical. Identity is woven into the fabric of community, ancestors, and the land. Time is not strictly linear, and events are understood in context, meaningful threads in a larger story rather than measures of personal success or failure. Decisions consider not just the self, but the web of relationships that connect past, present, and future. Fate, in this view, is not a limitation but a dialogue, a river in which we learn to navigate without losing our place in the flow.
What happens when we bridge these perspectives? Fate becomes the river, free will the way we steer. Fate can be the hand of cards we are dealt, free will how we choose to play them. Western culture overemphasizes agency; Vedic and Indigenous perspectives remind us of context, connection, and timing. Healing and growth require both: responsibility and compassion, choice and surrender.
I have felt this tension in my own life. There have been moments when surrendering to circumstances, to the limitations of the moment, to the unseen currents of life, was not giving up but a radical form of engagement. And there have been moments when conscious, deliberate choice created profound shifts. The wisdom lies not in asking, “Am I in control?” but in asking, “How do I respond faithfully to the life that has been given to me?”
Perhaps the truest form of agency is not insisting on controlling the world, but participating in it with awareness, courage, and humility. In the interplay between fate and free will, we discover not only who we are, but how we belong.
