Within the Ajivika tradition, free will is regarded as essentially non-existent. All events in the cosmos, including human thoughts, choices, and actions, are said to unfold under the inexorable rule of *niyati*, an impersonal principle of fate or cosmic determinism. Nothing genuinely new is introduced by individual intention; what appears as decision or effort is simply the manifestation of a preordained pattern. Human agency, in this view, is more appearance than reality, a surface phenomenon riding on deeper currents that are already fixed.

This deterministic vision extends to every aspect of existence, both worldly and spiritual. Moral choices, ethical conduct, and even rigorous spiritual disciplines are held to be powerless to alter the ultimate trajectory of a being’s life or series of lives. Liberation itself is not the fruit of personal striving but a destined event that occurs when the predetermined sequence of experiences has run its course. Spiritual practice, therefore, does not function as a means to change fate, but rather as one more expression of fate already in motion.

Ajivika thought thus represents an uncompromising form of determinism, leaving no room for genuine freedom in the usual sense of self-directed choice. Karma, too, is absorbed into this framework: past actions shape present conditions, yet those very actions were themselves determined by *niyati*. From this perspective, the entire moral and spiritual drama of life is a vast unfolding of what has always been fixed, down to the smallest detail. What is commonly called “free will” becomes, in Ajivika eyes, a deeply rooted illusion that veils the absolute rule of destiny.