Jayapataka Swami: The thing about free will is that if there is no free will, there can be no love. Krsna wants us to love Him. He wants to have loving exchanges with us, but he doesn’t. Sometimes we see these movies or read about them, about robots and clones. So if we are all clones or robots, it says ‘Love me’ we will mechanically say ‘I love you’, or when you see Barbie dolls. It wouldn’t be too exciting then would it? So He gives us the free will and if we want to serve Him we can. And if we don’t want to, we don’t have to. And if we don’t want to serve Him, He puts us under the material nature and there we
have the opportunity to suffer, enjoy and acquaint with the laws of the material world. So we cant really blame Krsna if we are enjoying or suffering. If we are devotees and we are praying to Him and we get something, we can thank Him for it. So He gives us free will so we can use it properly. So Bhakti yoga is
teaching us how to use our free will properly and how not to abuse it. Bhagavad Gita tells us what the consequences are of activities in the mode of goodness, passion and ignorance.
HH Jayapataka Swami
Melbourne, January 2008