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Such is the power of suggestion, tradition, and environment that the average European and American does have a feeling of being free to make his own decisions and of being able to act in the world as he wishes, whereas the average Indian has no such feeling; the latter believes that he acts according to some unknown preordained pattern. Although these two feelings are so contradictory, there is a solid basis of fact beneath each of them. The contradiction arises because they are not sufficiently understood. In the Westerner's case, it is from the Overself's freedom that his feeling is originally derived. In the Indian's, it is from the Overself's allotment of karma that his own is derived.

-- Notebooks Category 9: From Birth to Rebirth > Chapter 4 : Free Will, Responsibility, and The World-Idea > # 27