Understanding from Srila Prabhupada the meaning of - surrender, loving exchanges and free will.

In the spiritual world's of Goloka-Vrindavana and the Vaikuntha planets, surrender to Krsna, (loving devotional service) is never a "one-way or one-sided" affair which is no different than slavery.

Real love or service to Krsna (surrender) is ALWAYS voluntary, based on wonderful loving caring reciprocal exchanges between Kṛṣṇa and His devotees.

Voluntary service in the Kingdom of God (Krsna) is only genuinely expressed in a "two-way" exchange of loving emotions.

Krsna will ALWAYS sanction "free will," which means voluntarily using one's abilities to choose how they want to serve Kṛṣṇa.

Without free will, the jiva-souls can never participate in voluntarily expressing their unique love for Kṛṣṇa that enrich and expand the relationship by adding varigatedness.

The individual jiva-soul's (marginal living entities) relationship with Krsna, is naturally a "two-way" partnership that allows shared loving exchanges with Krsna based on reciprocation and voluntary cooperation.

Krsna gives the individual jiva-souls "free will" for the purpose to allow love to exist which means of allowing a "two-way" to participation by having loving exchanges. 

Such loving exchanges can NEVER exist with just "one" making all the decisions, not even if it is Krsna, there MUST be two.  

Srila Prabhupāda – "Love means a relationship between "two-persons," then there is exchange, then there is love. I must deal with you open-hearted, you must deal with me open-hearted, then there is love. So if you want to love Kṛṣṇa, God, then these things must be there." (Aug 9, 1976, Tehran)

Love can only exist in a "two-way" exchange of intimate expressions. Only a "two-sided" cooperation expands one's unique individual voluntary contributions presented to Krsna as personal offerings.

In Vaikuntha and Goloka Vrindavana, personal expressions of loving exchanges expressed by only having free will, are ALWAYS encouraged by Krsna in His relationship with the jiva-souls, that add flavour, variety and mystery to the association.

This means the Kingdom of God (Krsna's abode)) is NOT a "one-sided" dominating impersonal stagnant domain devoid of personal offerings (free will) that denies personal contributions (offerings) to God (Krsna), meant to expand, enrich and forever flavour the relationship with Kṛṣṇa with unlimited variety.

As said above, LOVE or service is NOT a "one-sided" affiliate of total supremacy or pre-eminence. 

The fact is, genuine loving relations and service are based on voluntary reciprocal exchanges and contributions between TWO, not just one!

The individual jiva-souĺs have their choices too, even if that choice means rejecting Krsna. Free will only has meaning when the jiva-souls have a choice to express themselves in a "two-sided" voluntary way.

In other words, loving reciprocation is only possible in a "two-way" exchange between two individuals with each contributing to the relationship's expansion of nectarine mellows of service.

The word "reciprocation" only has meaning when there are TWO involved, not one! 

This means the individual jiva-souls can reject Krsna if they choose, which in a sense proves that "free will" does truly exist.

Srila Prabhupada - "Free will means that you can act wrongly. That is free will. Unless there is chance of doing wrong or right, there is no question of free will. Where is free will then? If I act only one sided, that means I have no free will. Because we act sometimes wrongly, that means free will." (Philosophy Discussions, Rene Descartes)

Srila Prabhupada – "So everyone can know that independence means one can use it properly, one can misuse it. That is independence. If you make it one way only, that you cannot become fall down, that is not independence. That is force." (Mayapur, June 20, 1973)

Having "free will" is the eternal constitutional make up of EVERY "marginal living entity (individual jiva-soul)," and is the foundation that begins ALL the jiva-soul's interactions with Krsna.

Srila Prabhupada - "If you have no free will, then you are a stone. The stone has no free will. You want to be stone? Then you must have free will!" (Aug 5, 1976, New Mayapur France)

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 don't offer you anything in return, that is simply exploitation." (Lecture BG, Ch 9 text 2-5, New York City, Nov 23, 1966)

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

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

Srila Prabhupāda - "There is also form, just like this material body is compared with the dress. Now, just like in your present material form you have got hand; therefore your coat has got hand. You have got legs; therefore your pant has got legs. Therefore it is to be assumed that the spirit soul always has got form, and is expressed as hands, legs, heads, everything. The spirit soul is not formless; it has got form. But with our material eyes at the present, gross eyes, we cannot find it; therefore we say and foolishly believe it has no form." (Lecture BG, Ch 2 text 14, Mexico, Feb 14, 1975)

Devotee – "Is the original body of the spirit soul a human form?"

Srila Prabhupada – "Yes, human form, God is also human form. "Man is made after the shape of God." I think there is in the Bible. Is it not? So God is also like human form. Here you see Krsna, two hands, two legs."

Hari-sauri dasa – "How do we understand, then, that there are peacocks and flowers and trees in the spiritual world? Are these not eternal forms?"

Srila Prabhupada – [describing material form first]: "Yes, they are more covered, just like if you cover your body with blanket, the hands and legs are invisible. But you are not the blanket. So the trees and plants, they are more covered. They are not in full manifestation. The human form is the full manifestation of the soul."

Hari-sauri dasa - "They are covered in the spiritual world?"

Srila Prabhupada - "Not in the spiritual world. There that is voluntary. Some devotees want to serve Krsna as flower; so they become flower there. If I want that, to be a flower I shall lie down at the lotus feet of Krsna, then he become flower, voluntarily, and he can change his, from flower to human body. That is spiritual life. There is no restriction. If some devotee wants to serve Krsna as cow, he serves Krsna as cow, as calf, as flower, as plant, as water, as ground, field, or as father, as mother, as friend, as beloved, anything. It is inconceivable, yet a fact." (SB, Canto 6 Ch 1 text 1-4, Melb, Australia May 20, 1975)

The full potential of the individual jiva-souls is a spiritual bodily form always active in Krsna's pastimes and NOT some impersonal formless spark dormant or inactive in Krsna's Bodily effulgence (the impersonal aspect of the brahmajyoti)

Srila Prabhupada – “The human form is the full manifestation of the jiva-soul.” (Melb, Australia May 20, 1975)

Srila Prabhupada - "The spirit soul is NOT formless; it has got form, the spirit soul always has form and is expressed as hands, legs, heads, everything. But with our material eyes at the present, our gross eyes, we cannot see these facts; therefore we foolishly believe the jiva-souls have no form." (Lecture BG, Ch 2 text 14, Mexico, Feb 14, 1975)

Devotee - "What is the form of the spiritual body. If the spirit soul is non-material, what is the form?"

Srila Prabhupāda - "There is form, just like this material body is compared with the dress. Now, just like in your present material form you have got hand; therefore your coat has got hand. You have got legs; therefore your pant has got legs. Therefore it is to be assumed that the spirit soul always has got form, and is expressed as hands, legs, heads, everything. The spirit soul is not formless; it has got form. But with our material eyes at the present, gross eyes, we cannot find it; therefore we say and foolishly believe it has no form." (Lecture BG, Ch 2 text 14, Mexico, Feb 14, 1975)

Devotee - "Śrīla Prabhupāda, you state that spirit soul has form."

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes."

Devotee - "Otherwise, how is the material body grown to accommodate the spirit soul? Just like a shirt has no form, but when it's put on the body, it takes the shapes of the body. Does that mean that the spirit soul has the shape of the body that is accommodating it?"

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes, you have got body, a shape, very minute shape that we cannot see, we cannot measure. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, "anumeyam," what is that word used? Aprameyam, you cannot measure but it has a form. What is the length and breadth of that form? That is not in your power, but it is not material. If you have spiritual power then you can measure it. And that measurement is also given in the śāstra. What is that? One ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. Hair is a very small point. And divide it into ten thousand parts. That one part is the measure, magnitude of the soul.

keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya

śatadhā kalpitasya ca

jīva-bhāgaḥ sa vijñeyaḥ

sa cānantyāya kalpate

(CC Madhya 19.140)

Everything is there. But you have no eyes to see, how to see one ten-thousandth portion of the top of the hair? You cannot see even the original top of the hair. Everything is there. We must have the proper eyes." (Lecture SB, Canto 1 Ch 16 text 24, Hawaii, Jan 20, 1974)

Hayagrīva dasa - "Aquinas believed that God is the only single essence that consists of pure form. He felt that matter is only a potential and, in order to be real, must assume a certain shape or form. 

"Being in the material universe the fallen individual jiva-souls have to acquire a material bodily vessel in order to actualize themselves. 

When matter unites with spiritual form, the form gives an object its individuality and personality. A bodily form gives an object its individuality and personality."

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes, matter has no form, where as the individual jiva-soul is an eternal form that can change accos. In the temporary material world material energy covers the actual spiritual form of the jiva-soul, matter therefore appears to have form, just like the cloth has no form, but when the tailor cuts the cloth according to the body of the person, then the shirt and coat takes a form. The material energy itself has no form. When you take clay, it has no form, but if you make it like a doll, like a man or woman, then it has a form. So form and formlessness is of matter however, in the spiritual world everything is individual spiritual forms, the individual jiva-soul has got form, God (Krsna) has got form. This is the truth."

Hayagrīva dasa - "Aquinas believed that only God and the angels have form that is not material. There is no difference between God's form and His spiritual self."

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes, as in the material world any form-man or beast or anyone—in the outward, external covering is matter, but within the matter there is the soul. The soul has form and God has form. That is real form. And the material form is simply shirting and coating over the spiritual body." (Philosophy Discussion on Thomas Aquinas)

Hayagrīva dasa - "He considered that matter was necessary to give the soul form."

Srila Prabhupāda - "No, he has got his original spiritual form."

Hayagrīva dasa - "Original form?"

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes."

Hayagrīva dasa - "Which is the form of the body."

Srila Prabhupāda - "Original form (like Krsna's Bodily, that is the form of the spirit."

Hayagrīva dasa - "Of the spirit."

Srila Prabhupāda - "Yes, and the form of the body takes place on account of the form of the spirit. This is very nice example. The cloth has no form, but when it is cut according to the form of the gentleman, it takes a form. Similarly, matter has no form. When it is coated on the spiritual form of the soul, it takes the form. This is very easy to understand." (Discussion on Thomas Aquinas philosophy)

All the individual personal contributions offered by the surrendered jiva-souls, are forever coming from their expanding unique ability of self expression and constantly re-inventing themselves in Vaikuntha and Goloka Vrindavana.

This allows the individual jiva-souls to always make voluntary offerings to Krsna that forever increase and expand loving emotions in healthy "two-way" exchange between Kṛṣṇa and the individual jīva-souls.

It is very important to understand that the individual jiva-souls are "PERSONS" with their own unique individual actions of self expression expanding always in both Vaikuntha and Goloka-Vrindavana.

It must be clearly understood, for love to truly exist, each jiva-soul must have the free will to make their own choices, even if it means leaving Krsna if they choose, otherwise there can be no question of genuine loving service.

Srila Prabhupada - "So, unless there is a possibility of misusing our free will, there is no question of freedom." (Dialectical Spiritualism, Critique of Descartes)

This quality or attribute of free will is part and parcel of the individual jiva-soul's marginal constitutional nature, as part of their independent free thinking character and personality in the spiritual world. 

This means the individual jiva-souls can even choose to leave the Vaikuntha planets or Goloka-Vrindavana if they want, otherwise "free will" has no meaning.

In this way, free will always allows a choice, and if it didn't, then there is no question of loving exchanges existing in Vaikuntha and Goloka-Vrindavana.

Srila Prabhupada - "So, unless there is a possibility of misusing our free will, there is no question of freedom." (Dialectical Spiritualism - Critique of Descartes)

Srila Prabhupada – "You have got little independence therefore you can violate. Because you are part and parcel of God you have got independence, proportionately, that independence has to be accepted, little. We can misuse that." (Mayapur, Feb 19, 1976)

Having "free will" is the constitutional make up of all marginal living entities (individual jiva-souls) that is part and parcel of their eternal character and personality and responsible for self-expression. 

This also means the individual  jiva-souls can even choose to leave the Vaikuntha planets or Goloka-Vrindavana if they want.

Srila Prabhupada  - "Free will means that you can act wrongly. That is free will. Unless there is chance of doing wrong or right, there is no question of free will. Where is free will then? If I act only one sided, that means I have no free will. Because we act sometimes wrongly, that means free will."

Hayagriva dasa - "A man may know better but still act wrongly."

Srĺila Prabhupada - "Yes, but that is free will, the individual can misuse his free will. Just like a thief, he knows that his stealing, it is bad, but still he does it. That is free will. He cannot check his greediness, so in spite of his knowing that he is doing wrong thing—he will be punished, he knows; he has seen another thief, he was punished, he was put into prison— everything he knows, but still he steals. Why? Misuse of free will. Unless there is misuse of free will, there is no question of free will." (Talk with Prabhupada on Rene Descartes philosophy)*××*