​Why does God not give everyone equal capacity to understand right and wrong?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna question from Bhopesh Prabhu is our capacity to understand right or wrong determined by our brain capacity if God has given us free will why has he not given everyone equal capacity to understand what is right and wrong answer our disposition our present disposition is determined by our past action it is not determined by God’s will God we are all souls parts of Krishna mayy vamsho jiva loke jiva bhutah sanatana so as parts of Krishna he has given us free will by which we can we can move forwards towards him by making right choices but if we have been in material existence for many many lifetimes and in our previous lives we have acted in particular ways and the ways in which we have acted they have become incorporated in our mind something like our mind’s default settings just like if we use in a computer we browse repeatedly towards particular sites then those sites become added to our favorites list and we without much effort go towards those sites something similarly our mind has developed certain inclinations and those inclinations have developed because of our own past actions so the Bhagavad Gita classifies this into three modes of material nature sattva guna, raja guna, tamo guna and it explains that based on the modes we are situated in we will have particular kind of disposition so those who are in the lower modes say in the mode of ignorance or very much in the mode of passion they can not think about long term consequences they can think only in terms of immediate feelings and immediate pleasures and immediate pains so because of this they can think only what feels good and what feels bad not what is right and what is wrong this is not this is not something which God has arranged it is we who have we who have created that kind of conditioning by our own past choices and the important thing is that this conditioning can be removed if we make good choices now by steady right choices we will move onwards and as we keep moving steadier choices again and again we will move closer and closer towards Krishna and as we move closer and closer towards Krishna as we come towards the mode of goodness towards sattva guna then in 14.11 Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that all the doors are illumined by all the doors of the senses are illumined by knowledge that means we understand what I should do what I should not do we are able to discern right and wrong more carefully and more accurately when we are situated in the mode of goodness so it is not related with our capacity to choose right or wrong is not related with brain capacity the brain is primarily an information processing unit and as an information processing unit the brain focuses on the number crunching you could say or data crunching but this is information processing is one thing and action discerning or value assessing you know what is right what is wrong that is another thing a computer for example can process information but a computer cannot make moral decisions because computer doesn’t have conscience computer doesn’t have free will computer doesn’t have consciousness so we do have consciousness and our brain is simply an instrument our capacity to choose right or wrong it is not determined by brain capacity is determined by the kind of it is shaped by not determined by it is shaped by the kind of disposition that we have cultivated by our past choices and presently if you start practicing bhakti if you start connecting with Krishna consistently through the practice of bhakti then our discerning capacity improves and then we can make better choices we can make wiser choices and the more we choose right the greater becomes our capacity to choose right so God gives us knowledge of right and wrong God gives us the capacity to choose right and wrong and when we make wrong choices then we tend to choose wrong things but if we still turn towards Krishna through the process of bhakti by understanding Shastra by understanding scripture then again we can make right choices and increase our capacity to choose freely and our capacity to choose wisely. Hare Krishna. Thank you.