Nisargadatta Maharaj treats what is commonly called “free will” as inseparable from the illusion of being a separate individual. The ordinary sense of “I choose” or “I decide” rests on identifying with the body–mind as a personal doer. For him, this person is only a transient bundle of tendencies and conditioning, not an independently existing agent. Actions arise through the functioning of this body–mind mechanism, shaped by nature and circumstances, and the ego subsequently claims ownership. From this standpoint, individual free will, in the ultimate sense, does not truly belong to the person.

Events, in his view, unfold according to the natural order, the total functioning of consciousness, rather than through an autonomous chooser. Life flows through cause and effect, through what might be called the predetermined or destined movement of the body–mind, and not through a separate will standing outside that flow. The feeling of freedom that people ordinarily experience is acknowledged only as a relative, provisional appearance within ignorance. It operates within the dream of individuality, karma, and conditioning, and is itself conditioned.

At the same time, his teaching does not deny that, on the practical level, decisions appear to be made and responsibilities assumed. Conventional life proceeds as though there were choice, and this has its place within the relative domain. Yet from the absolute standpoint of the Self, the entire debate between free will and determinism loses its footing, because there is no separate entity to possess or lack will. All actions simply occur in and as consciousness, and the personal self is merely a conceptual overlay on this spontaneous functioning.

For Nisargadatta, therefore, true freedom is not a matter of enhancing personal volition but of seeing through the very notion of a personal doer. Real liberation lies in recognizing one’s identity as the impersonal awareness in which all thoughts of “I act” or “I decide” arise and subside. In that recognition, the question of free will becomes irrelevant, because awareness itself neither chooses nor refrains from choosing; it simply is. This understanding, rather than any philosophical resolution of the free-will problem, is what he points to as genuine freedom.