Freedom Means You're Responsible

[ancient_paztriot]

Hridayananda…

 

This question always comes up. If I was a God, why would I leave God? But you see this challenge or this doubt is based on a false premise. It is based on a premise that no one ever knowingly does anything or no one ever consciously does anything that is not good for them. But we can see that every day. For example a great discovery was made several years ago. The discovery was cigarettes cause cancer. When people heard that, they got so nervous they started smoking more. You see? If people are always nice little boys and girls and do what’s best for them, then of course as soon as they found out cigarettes cause cancer everyone would have stopped. It’s been found that despite all propaganda, there is a factual disease called Aids which chiefly afflicts male homosexuals. They try to say no, it’s just… I even saw an article in the Fiji newspaper the other day that said some doctor from America somewhere foolishly saying Well, actually don’t think it’s just a disease for male homosexuals. This virus does not discriminate between male and female. Then it said the proof was that seven percent of the victims are female and only 93 percent are male. So it’s obvious that this is a disease which especially attacks male homosexuals. And yet people cannot stop. Knowing that there’s a very reasonable chance that they’re going to kill themselves. So why do people do that?

 

It’s a cheating propensity. I can defy the laws of nature. I can get away with it. Just like in those Bengali songs, ???, knowing it and hearing it. Everyone knows that criminals are punished and they suffer. Yet there are always new criminals. There are always new criminals. Or the example may be given of a child. You may tell a child Don’t do this. But the child does it. Then when you punish the child, then he stops. So although we were originally Krsna Conscious, we have to learn this lesson. We have free will. We have to learn this lesson. You have to voluntarily love God, otherwise there’s no love. How can you love someone involuntarily? So we have to learn this lesson that we cannot enjoy this world. We cannot enjoy this world. But we are stubborn… I once saw an amazing thing on television. I was a young boy in Los Angeles. A man was from smoking and gotten lung cancer so bad that they cut away his throat box… voice box was cut away so he couldn’t speak. And they cut a hole in his neck and by burping and learning how to shape the sound of the burp he spoke. You know they do that. So this man was so crazy he was putting cigarettes in that little hole and smoking. The truth is stranger than fiction. So where did that come from?

 

We have free will. So actually we are like little Gods although we are not the supreme god. There is a Supreme God who is absolute. But because we are sons of God or children of God, we are like little gods. Just like if you are Mr. Patel, your child is also a Patel. So it’s something like that. Because we are part of God we are also divine. We are little spiritual sparks. So what is the essence of God’s divinity that he is absolute free, that He’s omnipotent, omniscient, He can do anything. So because we are part of God, children of God, in minute quantity, we have that divine power of freedom. We have that freedom. Without freedom all of our activities would be meaningless. Isn’t it? If we had no freedom. Then the life would have no meaning. So because we are part of God, because we have that freedom, we can choose God or we can choose illusion.

 

And once having chosen illusion, how can we blame God? Let’s say you purchase a car and you drive it into a brick wall and you’re being sued. Then you can blame the auto manufacturer. Well if he hadn’t made this car capable of driving into brick walls, I could never have done that. Or if someone opens a store and then you go and steal, then you blame the store owner. But if he hadn’t opened the store I never would’ve become a thief. That’s an interesting argument. You see? The store owner’s responsible. He opened the store and therefore he made it possible for me to become a thief. So it’s his fault. Had there been no store there could be no thief. So this is something like the argument if God hadn’t given me free will, I couldn’t have become a fool. You se? Because the freedom is there. But you’re responsible. Freedom means you’re responsible. You chose to come here thinking you could enjoy without God, you could become like God. Now we have to go back. The proof is… People may give the argument Well I’m not responsible because God created the world in such a way that I came here. So you tell them alright, now go back to God. Well I’m busy. You see they say, I never would have chosen to leave God. Alright then come back now. Well, I’m busy. Isn’t it? In one second they say I never would have chosen to leave God. But when you say alright, now you’re back, now stay. I’m sorry, I’m very busy. You see they’re hypocrites, rascals. Of course we chose to leave God and we choose it again everyday. So the day has to come when we no longer choose to forget God. Then we change our life.