Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Srila Prabhupada - “The jiva-soul's position in the spiritual world is voluntary". (SB class Melbourne May 20, 1975)

Srila Prabhupada - "ln Vrindavana some devotees want to voluntarily serve Krsna as a flower; so they become flower. If I want to be a flower, I shall lie down at the lotus feet of Krsna and become flower, voluntarily." (SB 6.1.1-4 - Melbourne, May 20, 1975)

In the spiritual world, all relationships with Krsna are equally blissful, just like I may choose roses, while others choose carnations, however both flowers are equally beautiful.

The reason why Krsna gave the jiva-souls their independence and free will is so they can choose for themselves how to voluntarily contribute to the relationship with Krsna and serve Him in their own unique personal way if they choose to do so.

This means the jiva-souls can always contribute their own unique offerings without any pressure or force from Krsna, suprising Krsna with their own unique creativity.

Real love or service can only exist when free will allows the jiva-souls to voluntarily participate in loving devotional exchanges by contributing to the relationship with their own unique devotional offerings.

Srila Prabhupada - ''Love means you take, and you give also. Suppose if you love somebody and you simply take from him, but you don't give. Oh, do you think it is very good? No. It is not good. That is not love. That is exploitation. If I go on simply taking from you, and if I don't offer you anything, that is simply exploitation." (Lecture on Bhagavad Gita As It Is Chapter 9 text 2-5, New York, November 23, 1966)

Srila Prabhupada - ''We have got the propensity to love. Love means somebody else. Love can not be one or love cannot be executed by only one; there must be another one. I love somebody; somebody loves me, there must be lover, there must be beloved, and the transaction, then love." (Lecture on SB Canto 1 Chapter 2 text 6, Delhi, November 12, 1973)

Srila Prabhupada - ''The impersonalist philosophy is oneness. So how can there be love with just one? Is it possible? Have you got any such experience? Love means one? No. Love means two. There must be two, the lover and the beloved. Kṛṣṇa is already lover. He's so lover of you that He's trying to get you back. That is Kṛṣṇa's attempt. "Please, my dear boy or my dear friend, my dear servant." (Lecture on SB Canto 2 Chapter 1, text 3, Paris, June 12, 1974)

Surrender to Krsna in the spiritual world does not mean giving up your free will and allowing Krsna to control your every actions, deeds, words, and thoughts.

No, the jiva-souls in the spiritual world are not programmed mindless drones who only obey and do what they are told. 

Impersonalism also means never be able to voluntary contribute to your relationship with Krsna in your own unique way by thinking for yourselfselves of how to serve Krsna.

The jiva-souls never lose their free will in Vaikuntha or Goloka Vrindavana, which is their individual quality of self-expression. 

Offering their own personal contributions makes them a complete unique individual jiva-soul.

Only by having this freedom can genuine loving exchanges and reciprocation take place, and without free will, the jiva-soul is no better than dead stone Prabhupada has warned us.

Furthermore, Krsna never interferes with the free will of the jiva-souls because if He did, and never allowed them to have their free will to make their own choices in the spiritual world, then that also would mean loving exchanges of voluntary reciprocation with Krsna would never exist.

If one is forced to worship Krsna or Visnu, then that is not love; it is slavery.

The impersonal version of God's Kingdom is where the jiva-souls are forced to surrender their free will and then allow their version of God to control their every thought and actions, like a puppet master controls his puppets with strings.

Such a one-sided dominating relationship is not surrender at all; it is dangerous impersonalism. 

If one is denied being able to choose for themselves to voluntarily offer their own personal unique contributions in their relationship with God, or even reject God if they want, then they have no free will and are no better than dead useless stone!

Therefore, having free will allows the jiva-souls to be themselves, which is an independent, unique, contributing person who can always voluntarily choose to serve Krsna or even reject Him if they want.

For free will to be complete, there must always be that choice.

Voluntary service is the basis of real surrender in Goloka Vrindavana and the Vaikuntha planets, which are the permanent eternal home and origin of the marginal living entities (jiva-souls).

The jiva-souls in Vaikuntha and Goloka Vrindavana are forever voluntarily expanding the expression of their unique individuality with an increasing variety of personal devotional offerings based on free will, it is never a nonsense one-sided master/slave mindless relationship with God as Prabhupada explains.

Krsna does not control the surrendered jiva-souls by force, like a puppet master controls every movement of his puppets with the manipulations of strings, denying self expression, individual contributions, and voluntary service.

However, Krsna does control His pure devotees with His selfless love, the majority of jiva-souls (more than 90%) allows this out of their unconditional love for Krsna.  

Srila Prabhupada - "Krsna does not want to become a lover by force, from the point of revolver. ‘You love me; otherwise, I shall kill you!’ That is not love; that is threatening. Love is a reciprocal, voluntary, good exchange of feeling. Then there is love. Not by force; no, that is rape. Why is one called lover another called rape?” (July 8, 1976 in Washington, D.C.)

If the jiva-souls had no free will in the Spiritual World, then they are no better than dead stone Prabhupada tells us.

Srila Prabhupada - "If you have no free will, then you are a stone. The stone has no free will. Do you want to be stone? Then, you must have free will! But don't misuse your free will. But don't try to become stone either. That is not life." (August 5, 1976, New Mayapur France)

Devotee – "When we are in the spiritual sky and serving Krsna, we have a perfect relationship with Krsna, what causes us to fall down in the material world, because we’re already serving Krsna?"

Srila Prabhupada – "Because you desire to fall down. Here, it is explained that “don’t fall down."

Devotee – "Srila Prabhupada, I can’t understand why we should have an impure desire when we are already serving."

Srila Prabhupada – "Because you have got little freedom, it is his desire, unless there is a chance of doing wrong or right, there is no question of 'free will. Where is free will if I can act only one-sided? That means I have no free will. Because we can act wrongly, that means we have free will." (Discussions with Srila Prabhupada, Rene Descartes and Melbourne, Australia June 25, 1974)

Devotee – "In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, it says that Krsna did not want us to come to this material world. If Krsna did not want us to come, why are we here?"

Srila Prabhupada – "Yes, you forced Krsna to allow you to come. Just like sometimes a child forces his father. Father says, "My dear son, do not do this. Do not go there." But he insists, "Oh, I must go. I must go." "All right, you go at your risk and suffer. What can be done?" So because you are the son of God, you have acquired the quality of your father so God does not interfere with your independence (free will)." (Lecture Melbourne, Australia June 25, 1974)

The marginal living entities (jiva-souls) never lose their free will in the Spiritual Worlds because they are eternal, as Bhagavad Gita As It Is says- 

"For the soul, there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain." (BG Chapter 2, Text 20 explains)

Free will has nothing to do with the material body; free will is a symptom of the eternal jiva-soul.

Free will is the constitutional makeup of the pure jiva-souls in Vaikuntha and Goloka-Vrindavana, where nothing material exists, including material bodily vessels.

Srila Prabhupada - "As living spiritual jiva-souls, we are all originally Kṛṣṇa conscious entities, but due to our association with matter since time immemorial, our consciousness is now polluted by material atmosphere. When the superior energy is in contact with inferior energy, it becomes an incompatible situation. But, when the supreme marginal potency is in contact with the spiritual potency, Harā, it becomes the happy, normal condition of the living entity." (The Happening Record Album recorded December 1966 New York City, USA).**.











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