The unique relationship between Krsna and His devotees is always a "two-way" exchange of loving reciprocation and voluntary service that can never be achieved in a "one-sided" authoritarianism.
This allows diversity and an unlimited range of variegatedness in the devotee's personal service to Krsna that is forever expanding their progressive independent contributions in the Kingdom of God (Vaikuntha planets and Goloka-Vrindavana) infinitely expanding their voluntary participation, personal contributions and inspiration in an unlimited variety of unique ways serving and associating with Krsna in His never ending expanding blissful pastimes (lilas)
Krsna allows the individual jiva-souls (His devotees) to have their "free will" because He wants to see unique voluntary independent expressions of love towards Him from His devotee's personal choices with their own unique thoughtful contributions on their own.
Krsna wants His devotees to voluntarily be personally creative in their independent offerings, friendship and service to Him.
In other words, Kṛṣṇa wants a "two-sided" open reciprocal cooperative contributing relationship of loving exchanges with His intimate devotees, where they can voluntarily express themselves as they choose, in their own unique way, as separate independent individuals from Krsna, yet simultaneously fully dependent on Him due to being His parts and parcels.
This means the devotees of Krsna should never surrender to a mindless puppetry “one-sided" dominating relationship, where the devotee is ordered what to think, and how to serve without being encouraged to think for themselves with their own unique personal voluntary contributions.
Srila Prabhupada – “Love is reciprocal, voluntary, good exchange of feeling, then there is love. It never achieved by force, no, Krsna does not want to become a lover like that - ‘You love me, otherwise I shall kill you!” (Lecture, Washington DC July 8, 1976)
As said above, real love (service) is voluntary and can never exist on a “one-way" path because love can only exists when "two" are involved in voluntary reciprocal contributing loving exchanges.
Krsna allows free will (voluntary self-expression) so His devotees can experience their own unique individuality by making their own offerings or contributions to Him in a way that forever expands loving exchanges and reciprocation in a "two-way" transition and never in a "one-sided" non-contributing loveless dictatorship.
In this way, free will in its full potential, eternally exists in the spiritual world, for Krsna's devotees because Krsna wants a "two-way" creative contributing open relationship with His devotees, therefore Krsna always encourages self-expression and unique personal contributions from His dear devotees that make the relationship always a "two-sided" exchange of loving reciprocations.
The relationship with Krsna must be on this two-way street because loving exchanges can never be experienced with just one, there must two, an open "two-sided" reciprocal relationship of mutual returns, cooperation and respect.
Srila Prabhupada - "In the spiritual world service is always voluntary, some devotees desire to serve Krsna as flower; they become flower voluntary, and can change from flower to unlimited forms in the spiritual world including human form if the devotee desires, that is spiritual life, it is always voluntary with no restrictions. 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, Melb, Australia May 20, 1975)
Krsna gave His devotees their freedom (free-will) so they can voluntarily choose to serve Kṛṣṇa in unlimited creative ways, or even reject Him if they choose, this will only prove Krsna has allowed free will.
Freedom of self-expression (free-will) must exist in the spiritual world for the eternal individual jiva-souls and allowed by Kṛṣṇa to permit and encourage the individual jiva-souls to voluntarily express themselves in a particular service they choose to do, and not chosen for them by Krsna.
Each individual jiva-soul eternally has their own independent unique personality that allows them to forever voluntary expand their variety of devotional contributions to Krsna.
Therefore, the individual jiva-souls always choose for themselves how they want to serve Krsna, or even reject Krsna if they want. Without such freedom, then genuine voluntary loving exchanges and reciprocation with Krsna can never exist.
If Krsna denied the individual jiva-souls their freedom of expression (free-will), which is personal voluntary contributions, then their existence as a unique meaningful PERSON has no meaning at all, making them no better than dead useless stone or lifeless matter or mindless puppets always controlled by the dictates of an impersonal puppeteer.
Srila Prabhupada - "So, unless there is a possibility of misusing our free will, there is no question of freedom." (Dialectical Spiritualism, Critique of Descartes).
Those foolish naive "so called devotees" who only want to be Krsna's mindless non-contributing puppets, and only being told how to think, and what to do, are practising impersonalism (personality spiritual suicide) as far as a genuine Vaisnava devotee of Kṛṣṇa is concerned.
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)
The paradox here is the eternal individual jiva-souls always have their unique independence and free will too, even though Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and cause of all causes, and not a blade of grass can move without His sanction.
In other words, each individual jiva-soul has their own unique personality and character who are eternally separate and independent from Krsna's Personality, yet not from His creation where Kṛṣṇa permits them to freely exist according to their own individual desires that may, or may not include Krsna.
Therefore, even though Krsna is the Supreme Lord of all that there is, the paradox here is the individual jiva-souls eternally have their unique separate identity and freedom too.
Free will only has meaning when the individual jiva-souls can express themselves in a "two-sided" cooperative voluntary affair of loving exchanges with Krsna, and not a one-sided domination by Krsna that denies the individual jiva-souls their voluntary freedom of expression, which in impersonalism.
This means loving reciprocation and mutual equivalent exchanges are only possible in a "two-way" interrelation with both the individual jiva-souls and Kṛṣṇa contributing to the relationship's continuous expansions of nectarine mellows in devotional service with Krsna in the centre for the individual jiva-souls, and the jiva-souls in the centre in Krsna’s loving eyes.
Yes, loving exchanges are only eternally possible on a "two-way street" which also means the individual jiva-souls can accept or reject Krsna too.
The word "reciprocation" only has meaning when there are two involved, not one! Free will only has meaning when the individual jiva-souls can express themselves in an open "two-sided" loving affair without being manipulated, used or bullied in anyway.
Also being able to reject Krsna 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 with 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 (freedom of self expression and actions) is the eternal constitutional make up of every marginal living entity (jiva-soul) in the spiritual world, and is the foundation for the individual jiva-soul's voluntary relationship with Krsna.
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)
Even though Krsna allows the "freedom of expression" the individual jiva-souls have, it is really for Him to also see what they do with their eternal freedom of expression as separate living entities as seen in the material world.
Krsna at all times always has genuin eternal loving affection for His individual jiva-soul expansions (devotees) far more than they can ever have for Him.
As said above, Krsna allows "free will" just to see what happens when the individual jiva-souls are given the freedom to voluntary make their own choices and decisions with or without Kṛṣṇa.
Krsna always remains the Supreme Personality of Godhead and cause of all causes, and to Him, all that is happening is always part of His divine plan.
Just like the Sun-disc and the sun-rays cannot exist separately from each other, similarly Krsna cannot exist separately from His variety of living entities known as-
1 - Visnu-tattvas [Viṣṇu/Narayana] (unlimited direct expansions of Krsna who are also the Supreme Lord).
2 - Visnu-sakti-tattva, Krsna's internal energy made up of Radharani and Her unlimited expansions.
3 - Siva-tattva, (The mysterious Lord Siva and his many expansions who are more inclined to be in the material world than the spiritual world).
4 - Jiva-tattva (individual jiva-souls) who are Krsna’s "separate" energy of individuals known as Krsna's eternal marginal living entities.
All the above are parts and parcels of Kṛṣṇa's perpetual creation of both the permanent spiritual and the impermanent material worlds that paradoxically, were both never created because both have always existed.
Each individual eternal jiva-soul (marginal living entity) is a one of a kind independent individual with their own unique personality different from Krsna's Personality, and from all other individual jiva-souls too.
Loving devotional service to Krsna is always is based on a "two-way" voluntary exchange of personal cooperative feelings manifesting as loving acts of devotion between Kṛṣṇa and His devotees, who go on too voluntarily contribute their own unique expressions (offerings) to Him as the real act of surrendering to Krsna's will that does not deny the free will and voluntary offerings of each individual jiva-soul.
On the other hand, when actions expressed in a "one-way" domineering forceful mood from a "so called God or His representative" in His Kingdom that denies personal voluntary contributions expressed in a "two-way" exchange of feelings and cooperation, only leaves the individual jiva-souls no better than dead useless stone explained above by Srila Prabhupada.
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 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 by only one, there must be two. I love somebody; somebody loves me, there must be lover, there must be beloved, and the transaction, then 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 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 independence, we can misuse that." (Mayapur, Feb 19, 1976)
All individual jiva-souls eternally are a spiritual bodily form. Only while the individual jiva-souls are fallen, do they artificially appear as a formless impersonal spark, or bodiless individual spark in Krsna's effulgence (the impersonal brahmajyoti)
Krsna is behind everything, both the eternal individual jiva-souls in there unnatural bodiless impersonal conditioned state, and the jiva-souls as their nature personal position as an eternal active contributing servant as a bodily form.
Srila Prabhupāda - "The impersonal conception of the Supreme is so detrimental to the path of devotional service that it is very difficult to associate with the stubborn non-devotees, who always think in terms of material conceptions. Impersonalists always think backwards, they think that because there is form in matter, spirit should be formless; because in matter there is sleep, in spirit there cannot be sleep; and because the sleeping of the Deity is accepted in arcanā worship, the arcanā is māyā. All these thoughts are basically material. To think either positively or negatively is still thinking materially. Knowledge accepted from the superior source of the Vedas is standard." (SB, Canto 3 Ch 9 Text 21, Purport)
Srila Prabhupāda - "Each person is eternal like Krsna is. The Lord says that He existed as a person before the creation (agre) and will also exist after the annihilation, the Lord is a person eternally." (SB, Canto 6 Ch 4 Text 47, Purport)
The individual jiva-souls (marginal living entities) like Krsna, have always existed for "infinity," both are beginningless and endless and were never created, although the individual jiva-soul's existence fully depends on Krsna's energies because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and cause of all causes.
The individual jiva-soul's original home is the perpetual Vaikuntha planets, or Goloka-Vrindavana, and not the decaying material world of repeated birth and death restricted to a material bodily vessel, or a dormant (inactive) "bodiless spark" in the impersonal brahmajyoti, both these are "fallen conditional" states of the jiva-souls.
The individual jiva-souls are eternal spiritual living PERSONS as a spiritual body, they are not the temporary material bodily vessel they possess in the material world that is subjected to the cycle of repeated birth and death.
The individual jiva-souls can never be destroyed, cut into pieces, terminated in any way or extinguished. The individual jiva-souls are indestructible as explained here-
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." (BG, Ch 2 text 12)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change." (BG, Ch 2 text 13)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "O son of Kuntī, the non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed." (BG, Ch 2 text 14)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in both is certainly eligible for liberation." (BG, Ch 2 text 15)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both." (BG, Ch 2 text 16)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul." (BG, Ch 2 text 17)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata." (BG, Ch 2 text 18)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "Neither he who thinks the living entity the slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in knowledge, for the self slays not nor is slain." (BG, Ch 2 text 19)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain." (BG, Ch 2 text 20 "corrected" 1983 edition)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "O Pārtha, how can a person who knows that the soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?" (BG, Ch 2 text 21)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones." (BG, Ch 2 text 22)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind." (BG, Ch 2 text 23)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same." (BG, Ch 2 text 24)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable and immutable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the material body." (BG, Ch 2 text 25)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "If, however, you think that the soul [or the symptoms of life] is always born and dies forever, you still have no reason to lament, O mighty armed." (BG, Ch 2 text 26)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament." (BG, Ch 2 text 27)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest again when annihilated. So what need is there for lamentation?" (BG, Ch 2 text 28)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all." (BG, Ch 2 text 29)
Bhagavad Gita As It Is - "O descendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the material body can never be slain. Therefore, you need not grieve for any living being." (BG, Ch 2 text 30)
Srila Prabhupada – "There are no new souls, new and old are due to this material body, but the jiva-soul is never born and never dies, so if there is no birth, how can there be new souls?" (Letter to Jagadisa dasa, 9 July 1970)
The individual eternal jiva-souls (marginal living entities) are indestructible PERSONS as a spiritual bodily form, who are on an endless journey and can never be destroyed, terminated, extinguished or cut into pieces.
Devotee - "Is the original body of the spirit soul a human form?"
Srila Prabhupāda - "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 Kṛṣṇa, two hands, two legs."
Hari-śauri 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 - [explaining also the material covering] "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 jiva-soul."
Hari-śauri dasa - "They are covered in the spiritual world as well?"
Srila Prabhupada - "Not in the spiritual world, there that is voluntary, some devotee wants to serve Kṛṣṇa as flower; they become flower there. If I want to be a flower I shall lie down at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, and become flower, voluntarily. And he can change from flower to human body. That is spiritual life. There is no restriction. If some devotee wants to serve Kṛṣṇa as cow, he serves Kṛṣṇa as cow, as calf, as flower, as plant, as water, as ground, field, or as father, as mother, as friend, as beloved, anything. Ye yathā mām prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham (BG 4.11). That is Kṛṣṇa's all-powerfulness, spiritual life." (Lecture SB, Canto 6 Ch 1 Text 1, Melb, Australia May 21, 1975)
Srila Prabhupāda - "In Vaikuṇṭha, people, they also dress with yellow cloth, pīta-kauśeya, or this saffron color. This is Vaikuṇṭha dress. Kauśeya, pīta, the dress, garments. Kirīṭinaḥ: "with helmets." Kuṇḍalinaḥ: "with nice earring." Kirīṭinaḥ kuṇḍalino lasat-puṣkara-mālinaḥ, "and very nice flower garland." This is Vaikuṇṭha dress - Lasat puṣkara mālinaḥ, sarve ca nūtna-vayasaḥ: all young men.
In Vaikuṇṭha (the Vaikuntha planets and Goloka-Vrindavana)2 there is no old age, although they are eternal. That is the real form of the spirit. The old age is due to this body, material body. Material things are born and stay for some time, and then it is gradually annihilated. So up to the time of annihilation, it becomes so old, nasty, bad-looking. But in the Vaikuṇṭha there is no such thing. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yam. The Vaikuṇṭha planet, because that is spiritual body, that is nityaḥ śāśvataḥ." (Lecture SB, Canto 6 Ch 1 Text 33, San Francisco, July 18, 1975)
Srila Prabhupāda - "The living entity is not nirākāra. Living entity has got hands, legs, everything, spiritual. Just like my, I have got my body, and this body's covered by this shirt, and because I have got this hand, the shirt has got hand. Otherwise wherefrom this hand comes Unless the spirit soul has got hands and legs, how we have got these material hands and legs? Therefore it is the conclusion that the jiva-soul has form. As Kṛṣṇa has got form, sac cid ānanda vigraha (Bs. 5.1), similarly the jiva-soul, being part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, has also got form. That form is also described in the śāstra.
Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya śatadhā kalpitasya ca, jīva bhāgo sa vijñeyaḥ (CC Madhya 19.140).
A rough idea of the form of the individual jiva-soul has been given in the Padma Purāṇa that one ten thousandth part of the tip of the hair. Now, perhaps we have no instrument how to measure one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. But this is given there. So anyway, because we get information from the Bhagavad-gītā, that this body, material body is, is like a dress. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāny yathā vihāya. As we give up old dress, garment, similarly, when this body becomes useless, we give up this body and accept another new body. Navāni ghṛṇāti." (The Nectar of Devotion lecture, Vrndavana, Oct 26, 1972)
Srila Prabhupada - "Regarding your questions: The dormant spark (individual jiva-soul) fallen to the impersonal brahmajyoti certainly does have form there which means hands, feet, etc. This we learn from Bhagavad-gita. The body is described there as Vasamsi, which means dress. So unless one has got originally hands and legs, how the dress, coat and pants and shirt, takes such form?
Therefore the individual jiva-soul has original form before they fall to the impersonal brahmajyoti. When one is in the material energy, the outwars dress of the individual jiva-soul is evolved materially and when one is in the spiritual energy, the dress is evolved spiritually as one's natural constitution position. This is also not very difficult to understand, as our students before coming to my contact, they were supposed to be materially dressed, attached to sense gratification, and after devoting themselves in Krsna Consciousness, they are gradually developing a spiritual dress. That means attached to satisfying the senses of the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa." (Adapted from letter, Hawaii 14 March, 1969).***.
