Free Will in the Hindu belief system

[TruthFreedom]

I have watched Leo's video on free will, and have to say I disagree with him. My belief is that we do have free will, and my belief is reinforced by what I have read about the Hindu belief in karma. I have always thought that we have choices in life, and I think that it is most beneficial to believe that we do in fact have free will. It's very easy and convenient for some people to believe in determinism, because it lets them off the hook for evil actions. I believe we can set the wheel of karma in motion by the choices we make, and that good actions will bring good consequences in the future. Here is the Wikipedia description of free will related to karma in the Hindu belief system. I think it would be beneficial for some people to read this. I have highlighted the part which describes why this is important.

"The doctrine of karma explains that while prarabdha karma shapes current life, we still have the free will to make choices in the present. These choices create agami karma (karma that affects our future). The present situation is influenced by the personal choices made through past actions, and the free will to make choices in the present shapes our future.[50]

According to Swami Mukundananda's interpretation of Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, verse 63:

"[t]his free will to choose between available alternatives has been given to the soul by God. The freedom of choice is not infinite. One cannot decide, “I choose to be the most intelligent person in the world.” Our choices are limited by our past and present karmas. However, we do possess a certain amount of free will, for we are not machines in the hands of God. Sometimes people question that if God had not given us free will then we would not have done any evil. But then we would not have done anything good either. The opportunity to do good always comes with the danger of doing evil. More importantly, God wants us to love him, and love is only possible when there is a choice. A machine cannot love for it does not have any freedom of choice. God created us with free will and provided us with choices so that we may choose him and thereby exercise our love for him. Even the all-powerful God cannot force the soul to love and surrender to him; this decision has to be made by the soul itself. Here, Shree Krishna is calling Arjun’s attention to his free will and asking him to choose."[51]

Karma is not the only factor for fate, and therefore, the Hindu concept of fate is not deterministic or fatalistic. Along with an individual's actions, gods, personalized time, death, or nature can influence fate"

[Ishanga]

My research into Hinduism via the Yogic Path tells me something similar, that we have Free Will at certain High Levels of Awareness in most Areas of  our lives.. If Your Unaware then Free Will, the Ability to Respond, is not available to You, its that simple.. 

Life for a Human is mostly Subjective in nature, we have never Experienced anything outside of Ourselves, our 5 senses are outward bound but are experienced within the Body, so everything is Subjective and what happens within Your Body can be controlled by you up to an extremely high level.. The most important IMO is How You are Experiencing Life right NOW, Joyfully or Miserably, this set ups a great foundation for Potentials to be exposed to You that normally would not be available to You, in other words being Joyful of Your Own Nature leads directly to Enlightenment..

Karma is here to allow existence as it is on this planet with Dualism, Materialism and Cause/Affect/Consequence to be possible, without Karma there is not existence/creation..but as Humans we can go beyond Karma, via the realization of the NOW moment as You shared above, Life is only found in the NOW moment, we cannot do anything about what is happening or the situation in the NOW moment other than how we Respond to it, if it enslaves us as it does for most ppl, then we are never available to the future Moment that may or may not come but when it comes it is experienced only in the NOW..being available to it is primary as it can be anything we want it too be, unless we are enslaved to the past moments then we are trapped there and suffering it for the most part, which is why suffering is not a good tool to use if You want Enlightenment Possibility in this lifetime..