When we don’t love Krishna we suffer – doesn’t that mean Krishna forces us to love him?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question. It is said that love cannot be forced by putting a gun on the head of the beloved, of the object of love. But then when Krishna tells us that when basically in this material world if we don’t love Krishna, we have to suffer material miseries.
So, isn’t it like Krishna is also forcing us to love him? Answer. We have to understand two things that actions have consequences and Krishna loves us. These two are distinct realities.
Ultimately, we could say that the causal connection between actions and their consequences is also governed by Krishna. But it is not that Krishna is personally causing the suffering. Just like in a government, in a state, in a country, there are certain laws.
And if somebody breaks the law, there is punishment. Now, that punishment does not necessarily mean that the king personally hates the offender. It is not that the king has a personal agenda against the offender.
So, if we look at this world, there is living in goodness, passion and ignorance. And if people live piously, they can have reasonably happy lives. Although ultimately there is only disease and death, but still life can be reasonably happy.
If people live in passion and ignorance, then even in this life, people’s actions put them into trouble. In ignorance, they may get into bad habits which ruin their health. In passion, they may get into all kinds of sensual activities which can cause a lot of agony, heartbreak and other things.
If they have illicit affairs and things like that. Now, if we live in goodness, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita also that the fruit of goodness is happiness. Now, in some cases, even if we are living in goodness right now, we may not experience happiness because some past karmic reaction is coming upon us.
But overall, good actions do produce good results. And if a person is consistently living in the mode of goodness, they can have a reasonably happy life in this world. So, now actions have consequences.
It is simply a principle of material nature. It is a law governing material nature. It is not something like Krishna seeking revenge against someone or Krishna personally coercing someone to do something.
Krishna naturally wants us to love him. That’s what we are made for. That’s what is the purpose and perfection of our existence.
But if we don’t love him, Krishna has created a separate world where we can live independent of him. And in this world, how we fare depends on how we act. And depending on whether we act at virtuously or selfishly or viciously, accordingly we get results.
So, it is not exactly similar to a boy saying to a girl, if you don’t love me, I’ll shoot you. Krishna is not doing that. Krishna is giving us an arena where we can exercise our free will and choose not to love him.
And within that, he gives us various options for living. Some lead to relatively happy life, some lead to relatively far, relatively miserable life. That’s the first point.
Second point is that when we say that Krishna, he could have made this world also into a happy place if he had wanted. We need to understand what we exactly mean by happiness. Actually, as long as we have materialistic conception of life, we may think of happiness in terms of the fulfillment of our material desires.
You know, I want this, I want that, I want that. However, ultimately, what we want is love. We all want to love and be loved.
And such loving and being loved finds the deepest fulfillment when it is directed towards the supremely lovable object of love, supremely lovable person. And the supremely lovable person is Krishna. So, in a sense, our longing for happiness can be fulfilled only when we love Krishna.
And if we choose not to love Krishna, and then if we are to still fulfill our longing for happiness, then Krishna would have to create another Krishna. Because ultimately, we want an all-attractive person to love for our longing for love to be fully fulfilled. And when that all-attractive person is not there, no other person can substitute for Krishna.
But in order to gain satisfaction, and if we are not going to love Krishna, we will need a substitute for Krishna. And God, by definition, is supreme. Supreme means there is one supreme being.
We cannot have two or three or five supremes. Therefore, by definition itself, God cannot have a substitute, God cannot have a replacement. So, we cannot be satisfied separate from Krishna.
No matter how much we try. So, even if Krishna made another substitute, but then that substitute would be all-attractive. And people would be attracted to him.
And then this world would again become like a spiritual world centered on that person. So again, the arena for us to enjoy separate from God, that would be thwarted. So, it is not that Krishna is forcing us to choose to love him.
It is rather, by our very nature and by Krishna’s supreme position, there cannot be any substitute for Krishna. And therefore, in principle, we cannot have a world that is a place of happiness without Krishna. Which is not centered on Krishna.
The third point is that, actually, when Krishna… Yes, we do suffer the miseries of material existence when we choose not to love Krishna. And in a sense, we could say that ultimately because we have to come to the platform of loving Krishna, Krishna is forcing us. But, that is where the process of purification comes in.
Purification means, initially we may do something, we may start the practice of bhakti out of frustration. Because, I understand intellectually that loving anything else will cause me misery. So, I love Krishna.
Not because I love Krishna so much, but simply because I want to avoid misery. And everything else causes misery. Because of that, I may focus my attention on Krishna.
But over a period of time, just by focusing my attention on Krishna, I will become purified. As I become purified, I will naturally develop love for Krishna. So, love cannot be forced.
And Krishna doesn’t force love. But, that means love as an emotion can’t be forced. But actually, love as an emotion can be cultivated.
And in a sense, all relationships require this cultivation. Even if a boy and a girl see each other and they have love at first sight. Yes, that’s nice if they are attracted to each other.
But eventually, that initial attraction or infatuation that is there, that is going to decrease. It’s not going to go away. And then afterwards, whether they continue together or not, that will depend on their commitment.
Initially, they are just attracted to the good side of the other person. And because of that, they feel captivated by the other person. That’s why we use the word fall in love.
Now, why fall? Because that initial attraction to each other is almost involuntary. There is no intention. You just see the other person and feel captivated by the person.
So, just as people can involuntarily fall in love, once that attraction starts decreasing, those same people can fall out of love. The same people who say initially that, I can’t live without you. After sometime, they say, I can’t live with you.
Because actually, there was no intention. It was just involuntary that attraction happened. So, initial attraction can start a loving relationship.
But eventually, one has to cultivate love. One has to consciously see the good side of the other person and overlook the negative side, whatever it is, and cultivate attraction. So, the intention to cultivate attraction, that itself may not be an emotion of love, but that is a progression towards love.
So, like that, in every relationship, for it to be steady and sustainable, there has to be love as an intention. And then gradually, love as an emotion will come. So, love as an emotion means we are attracted to the other person and then we feel the emotion of love.
Similarly, when we say that Krishna, there are consequences when we don’t love him, and we may initially start the process of bhakti yoga because out of frustration, out of force. But eventually, through the process of purification, in the process of bhakti, we start cultivating that attraction towards Krishna. Rupa Goswami says, Shivanam means cultivation.
So, the process of bhakti yoga leads to the cultivation of love for Krishna. And by that cultivation, when the love eventually blossoms, it is not because of force, it is because of the all-attractiveness of Krishna, which is manifested in our heart, and because of the attraction for him that is generated within us. So, rather than seeing this as something which is forced, we can see that more as a process of growing up.
Initially, children are attracted to things which are not important. But eventually, they grow up. Initially, the parents force them to study.
But as they grow up, then they start recognizing, oh, this study is important for me, this study is good for me. And some students may even develop a taste for studies. So, like that, initially there may be some force involved.
In fact, the whole process of sadhana bhakti, it is often called as voluntary force. You know, we voluntarily force ourselves to do some things, even when we don’t feel like doing them. And by doing them gradually, we become purified, and then we feel like doing them.
And that is when the love for Krishna becomes natural, and then it becomes a perennial. It becomes eternally ecstatic. Does it answer the question? Thank you.
Very, very nicely done.