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The Compassionate purpose for the creation
And the Question of Free Will
From the book 'Vaisnava Compassion'
By HH Satsvarupa das Goswami
Submitted by Manoj
In Krsna book, Srila Prabhupada tells how Maha-Visnu is lying down''in yoga-nidra and the Vedas personified sing His glories to awaken Him so He can begin the creation:
"O unconquerable Lord, You are the Supreme Personality. No one is equal to You or greater than You. No one can be more glorious in his activities. All glories unto You! All glories unto You! By Your own transcendental nature You fully possess all six opulences. As such, You are able to deliver all conditioned souls from the clutches of maya. O Lord, we fervently pray that You kindly do so. All the living entities, being Your parts and parcels, are naturally joyful, eternal and full of knowledge, but due to their own faults they try to imitate You by trying to become the supreme enjoyer. Thus they disobey Your supremacy and become offenders. And because of their offenses, Your material energy has taken charge of them. Thus their transcendental qualities of joyfulness, bliss and wisdom have been covered by the clouds of the three material qualities. This cosmic manifestation, made of the three material qualities, is just like a prison house for the conditioned souls. The conditioned souls are struggling very hard to escape from material bondage, and according to their different conditions of life they have been given different types of engagement. But since all engagements are based on knowledge supplied by You, the conditioned souls can execute pious activities only when You mercifully inspire them to do so. Therefore, without taking shelter at Your lotus feet one cannot surpass the influence of material energy. Actually, we, as personified Vedic knowledge, are always engaged in Your service by helping the conditioned souls understand You.
-Krsna, Chapter 87, Volume 2, p. 330
Prabhupada writes that the Vedas are meant to help the conditioned souls to understand Krsna. "Of all His glories, the most important is His causeless mercy upon the conditioned souls in reclaiming them from the clutches of maya."
Only if the Lord again creates the universe after the devastation will the living entities have the chance to enact their karma and learn either by suffering or by meeting a pure devotee that the purpose of life is not material enjoyment. The most fortunate living entities meet a guru, who then instructs them on how to become free of the modes of material nature (brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiiva). None of this is possible while the souls lie dormant in Maha-Visnu's abdomen. Therefore, one of the Lord's primary acts of compassion is to create the material world.
Whenever this topic is discussed, it seems someone will always ask the question, "Why should there be any creation in the first place? Creation only means suffering. If Krsna is compassionate, why doesn't He simply bring everyone back to Godhead by arranging for us jivas to be in agreement with Him?"
But that is not how Krsna chooses to show His compassion. Rather, He wants the living entities to maintain their free will. This is because Krsna is interested in love. Love is voluntary; there is no question of forcing love. Therefore, His compassion is not to remove our free will but to allow us our choice while never abandoning us regardless of where we wander.
If we wish to return to Krsna through His compassion, we will first have to accept that we are constitutionally His eternal servants. We cannot be happy acting outside our constitutional position. Actually, it is impossible to act outside that position. That is the meaning of "constitutional." Krsna states in Bhagavad-gita, "As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, 0 son of Prtha." (Bg. 4.11) It is impossible for the living entity to do anything but Krsna's will. Therefore, it is simply a matter of our volition: we either follow the Lord in love, or we follow Him in ignorance.
In our original state, the living entity loves and serves Krsna in one of the five mellows. The love is freely given and is therefore so dear to the Lord that He feels He cannot repay it. Love that is offered out of fear of God's mightiness is not really love. Even love offered dutifully to one's maintainer does not have the flavor of pure love. We each naturally have a loving relationship with Krsna that at present lies dormant. Krsna provides the material creation as a place in which we can find our need for Him, and thus open the door to that hidden love. This question of free love is expanded in the bhakti science. The Caitanya-caritamrta draws a distinction between the various kinds of voluntary love and reveals the type of relationship that is most tasteful to Krsna
"But in the course of exchanging transcendental love of the highest purity, sometimes the subordinate devotee tries to predominate over the predominator. One who lovingly engages with the Supreme Lord as if His mother or father sometimes supersedes the position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Similarly, His fiance or lover sometimes supersedes the position of the Lord. But such attempts are exhibitions of the highest love. Only out of pure love does the subordinate lover of the Supreme Personality of Godhead chide Him. The Lord, enjoying this chiding, takes it very nicely. The exhibition of natural love makes such activities very enjoyable. In worship of the Supreme Lord with veneration there is no manifestation of such natural love because the devotee considers the Lord his superior."
"Regulative principles in devotional service are meant for those who have not invoked their natural love of Godhead. When natural love arises, all regulative methods are surpassed, and pure love is exhibited between the Lord and the devotee. Although on such a platform of love the devotee sometimes appears to predominate over the Lord or transgress regulative principles, such dealings are far more advanced than ordinary dealings through regulative principles with awe and veneration. A devotee who is actually free from all designations due to complete attachment in love for the Supreme exhibits spontaneous love for Godhead, which is always superior to the devotion of regulative principles."
-Cc. Adi 4.2 6, purport
An indication of Krsna's quality as a lover is His unwillingness to force the Jiva to love Him in return, even though it is in the jiva's best interest to do so. This is how Krsna shows compassion. And Krsna has arranged that life in the material world does not have to be an eternal prison sentence. He Himself descends into this world, and sends His pure devotees, in order to deliver the conditioned souls. When Krsna descends, this is His compassion. As He says in Bhagavadgita 4.8, "To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium."
"The Supreme Lord is not forced to appear. Indeed, no one can subject Him to force, for He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Everyone is under His control, and He is not under the control of anyone else.... According to the Visva-kosa dictionary, the word maya is used in the sense of "false pride" and also in the sense of "compassion ...... As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gita (7.14), daivi hy esa guna-mayi mama maya duratyaya: "This divine energy of Mine, consisting of the three modes of material nature, is difficult to overcome." But when Krsna comes the word maya refers to His compassion or mercy upon the devotees and fallen souls. By His potency, the Lord can deliver everyone, whether sinful or pious.
-Bhag. 9.24.57, purport
There is another reason why Krsna provides us with the material creation, and this reason too points to His compassionate nature. He creates the material world because we want it. Krsna is a liberal father, and we His foolish children. A liberal father will advise his children against their foolishness, but ultimately, when they cajole him, he will give in. Srila Prabhupada has stated that the living entities want the material creation to play out their attempt to imitate Krsna. This is because we are envious of His all-supreme, all-blissful position. Krsna provides the creation, and He knows the pain that will accompany the jivas' attempt to enjoy in this unreal world. Therefore, out of His kindness, He does not simply abandon them, but accompanies them through all species as the Supersoul in the heart.
Part of parenthood is allowing one's children to learn from their own mistakes. That too is compassion. Sometimes we really must suffer in order to come to our senses. Srila Prabhupada gives the example of a child who wanted the moon. It is impossible for any parent to deliver his child the moon, so if the child is insistent, the parent gives the child a mirror to reflect the moon. The foolish child then believes he is holding the moon in his hand. This material world is like that same reflected happiness. There is nothing there, but still we chase it. Eventually, we will become tired of our toy and look for reality. This eventuality would not be possible if Krsna simply denied our original desire to be separate from Him.
Krsna especially revealed His mercy on the fallen souls by descending as Lord Caitanya. Not only did Lord Caitanya make His mercy easy to achieve, He taught a simple way by which we could reawaken our dormant love of God. He also exemplified for the fallen souls of Kali-yuga how to practice devotional service. This was the Lord's greatest compassion, because love of God is both the answer to our suffering and our greatest happiness. Thus Lord Caitanya has provided us the means by which we can fulfill the purpose of the material creation.
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