The fundamental need within every living being is to find pleasure. The ultimate pleasure is the pleasure of loving and of being loved. If we do not have that, then all the other sensory pleasures will never satisfy the heart. And the perfect love is the eternal love between the soul and God. But in order for love to be real and satisfying, the supreme absolute has created every living being with free will.
If we do not have free will, then we are like robots. A robot can do incredible things but cannot have relationships, it cannot love. So this is a necessity for love to be true and satisfying—that there be free will. The quality of God is that He is swarat, fully independent. So as His parts and parcels, we also have our minute independence. In order to freely love we must have the freedom not to love. If someone puts a gun on your head and says, “Do what I say, please me according to my desire,” you would probably do it; but will you be really happy doing it? And will that person be really happy forcing you to do it? Not really! But if you had your free will—to reject that person or to want to please that person—that satisfies the heart of both, because there is love.
So God has created everything and everyone in such a way that there can be perfect love. Thus he has given us the free will not to love Him, the free will to accept Him or to reject Him. That is His love.
– Radhanath Swami
22 Comments
This is most inspriring article by HH Radhanath Swami. Without free will there can not be a true, genuine and blissful love.
Radhanath Swami Maharaj so beautifully explains the importance of free will in love. It is very important in this age where spurned love leads to unpleasant outcomes like acid attacks, suicides and depression.
People often question that if nothing moves without God’s sanction, then why does he allow people to commit sin…..Swamiji beautifully answers that God has given everyone independence otherwise everyone will be like a robot without genuine love……….
Thank you for sharing how the Lord is so magnanimous in His love for us.
The Lord wants us to love him with our own free will.
People always ask if there is a God then why there is suffering & HH Radhanath Maharaj has very nicely answered this question by explaining about free will.
True love indeed has to be born of free will. Else it would mean bondage. Thank you Radhanath Swami for the wonderful article.
We may exercise our free will not to love Supreme Lord Sri Krishna but such exercise will put us under illusion.After suffering for many many births in this material world, we will come unto understanding that we have abused the free will given by Supreme Lord Sri Krishna, which was supposed to be used for Loving Him unconditionally.The analogy given by Radhanath Swami for explaining term free will is fantastic and very nice.
We often hear people criticizing God for giving the suffering which they think is being inflicted by Him. However, these people don’t understand that it’s not God Who is responsible, but they themselves are responsible. “As you sow, so shall you reap”. Thank you very much Radhanath Swami for this great explanation of free will.
Its all about us but very little do we know, we are fools with all our degrees-The fundamental need within every living being is to find pleasure. The ultimate pleasure is the pleasure of loving and of being loved.
Supreme Lord who loves us the most has created this material world because we, his kids , wanted to enjoy separately with our free will. But here also he is taking care of us and is calling us back to him …..Maharaj is showing us that path only to return back to our father ..our Supreme Lord Krishna….Thanks for sharing such a nice article.
Wonderful explanation of free will. Existence of free will shows us God’s love for us.
So wonderful-The quality of God is that He is swarat, fully independent. So as His parts and parcels, we also have our minute independence.
Radhanath Swami has surrendered his free will towards the loving service of God and having developed that love, he is sharing all the knowledge that he has gained in the process very lovingly with all of us.
Thank you Radhanath Maharaj for sharing the divine nature of Krishna’s love.
Beautiful article. Many thanks for sharing this wisdom.
Even who reject God or condemn Him, are able to do so only because they have been given the “free will.” God is so big magnanimous that because He still loves them….He does not withdraw their free will. Thank you Radhanath Swami Maharaj for the wonderful explanation with the analogy of “Robot” and “gun point love”.
True love cannot be forced, it should come freely from within.
As Radhanath Swami always says, “Everyone is looking for two things- To Love, and To Be Loved”. All the activities of humans are based upon these two areas.
Free will means to free will to love or free will to reject. Free will is to do right things and free will to do wrong things. Thank you Radhanath Swami Maharaj.
Our free will!!!!!!!
Very correct. Without free will, no love. All glories to HH Radhanatha Svami Maharaja.