How can one distinguish between God's plan and human free will?

Smt. Priyanka Seethepalli asked: Swami, can you please enlighten us regarding the difference between God’s plan and the free will of mankind. Can you extend the same concept of God’s will to various human actions like deforestation and killing of animals resulting in the extinction of some animal species like gorillas, etc?

Swami replied: It is said that anything that happens, happens only by the will of God, due to His omnipotence. But this omnipotence of God cannot be exploited by us and twisted in wrong directions. If a person kills somebody and says that the murder happened by the will of God, since everything happens only by the will of God, the judge will say that he too is giving a death sentence to that person by the will of the same God! Even when the omnipotent God comes down as a Human Incarnation, He follows the traffic rules while walking on the road. He does not stop all the traffic by His omnipotence until He crosses the road! He can prove His omnipotence by stopping the traffic, but He will be criticized for being a mad and egotistic administrator of the world! Killing any bird or animal is the greatest sin, unless your life is in danger because of it.

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