Posted on: 09 Oct 2021
[Ms. Bhanu Samykya asked: Pādanamaskāram Swami, can we say that soul's free will has more scope in Nivrutti than in Pravrutti? In Pravrutti- soul's action should be in accordance with rules given by God in Scriptures. But in Nivrutti- it is discovered, developed, dragged to climax by devotees only. So, here sages also followed God's rules completely in Pravrutti and used their complete free will in Nivrutti even to extent of threatening God Krishna to accept their complete surrender. So can we say that actual purpose of soul's free will is to use it in Nivrutti? Is this understanding correct? Please enlighten me. - At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Bhanu Samykya.]
Swami replied:- Free will itself means the absence of any external force on your head. You are the master of your path and at the same time, you are the victim of your own bad fruit or you are the rewarded person of your good fruit. Hence, either your intelligence or the intelligence of your elders must be used to find out the good fruit. In such search, your intelligence may go wrong or the intelligence of your elders may go wrong. The reason is that yourself and your elders are at human level and it is said that to err is human. Hence, it is always best to take the advice of the preachers (Gurus). Even the preachers are at human level only. If you are fortunate to recognize the Satguru or contemporary human incarnation of God, it is always the best to ask the advice of such Satguru. Free will exists with the soul completely because the soul is responsible for its own future development in materialistic line or spiritual line (Uddharedātmanā''tmānam— Gītā).
When a student wants to join engineering college with an earnest desire to become engineer, the parents shall not force him to join medical college and to become the doctor. The responsibility of parents lies in advising their son to take mechanical branch or civil branch or some other branch in engineering course. Similarly, the selection of pravrutti or nivrutti is based on the earnest desire of the soul. At the same time, the soul shall be aware of its own strength of its will (called ‘will power’) to judge whether it can stand firm in nivrutti and succeed in it or not. The student can study engineering or medicine course. But, if the student wishes to study the coaching for IAS examination, this question comes, which is that whether the student is capable of studying the IAS course or not. Certainly, IAS is a fare better course than engineering or medicine. Similarly, nivrutti is far far better than pravrutti and hence, the advisor can’t have the possibility of advising the student to drop the IAS coaching. If the student wants to study B.A. Literature, the advisor can say that it is better to study professional course than to study B.A., degree, which has lesser scope of employment. Similarly, if the soul is choosing dushpravrutti in the ways of pravrutti, the advisor has full opportunity to strongly advise the soul not to go for dushpravrutti and it is far far better to stay in pravrutti. Fall down to the lower level shall be always discouraged by any advisor, but, trying to rise to higher level can’t be discouraged by any advisor.
I will clarify this point with an example:- if the son is telling that he will not marry, but will go to a prostitute whenever the necessity of the desire for sex comes, any advisor shall advise that son to marry and lead a legal married life. But, if the son is very much interested in the spiritual line like Adi Shankara or Swami Vivekananda, the advisor can’t oppose such proposal because nivrutti is always far far higher than pravrutti. But, the advisor in the latter case can advise that son to be sure of his will power that is sufficient to get success in nivrutti or not. If success in nivrutti is obtained, it is always the highest divine fruit (Nivṛttistu mahāphalā). In pravrutti also, devotion to God is possible, but, it has risk in the sense that your success depends on your strength of devotion because pravrutti is ‘Markaṭa kiśora nyāya’ in which the baby monkey holds the stomach of the mother monkey and safety of the baby totally depends upon its grip and the mother has no responsibility. The success of nivrutti is said to be ‘Mārjāla kiśora nyāya,’ in which the mother cat carries on its baby with its mouth and the baby has perfect safety. Hence, the devotee shall not enter the nivrutti, which is like IAS examination unless the devotee has full confidence about his/her will power to achieve success in nivrutti.
This means that the final responsibility lies really on the soul itself, but, advise from outside can be taken in doing analysis about the capability and the will power that is very essential factor to get success in nivrutti. Even in this point, the final decision depends on own consciousness and its voice of the devotee (Pramāṇam antaḥkaraṇa pravṛttayaḥ).
Regarding the decision to fight the war or not to fight the war, God Krishna asked Arjuna only to take the final decision (Yathecchasi tathā kuru- Gītā). He told Arjuna that He has given the entire analysis and advised Arjuna to reanalyse it before taking the final decision (Vimṛśyaitadaśeṣeṇa– Gītā). Once Arjuna decided to fight the war, Krishna helped Arjuna in the war just like the mother cat carries on its own child by its mouth. Krishna supported Arjuna after entering the war, but, Krishna did not support Arjuna in taking decision either to fight the war or not to fight the war. Hence, the final decision depends upon the soul itself regarding the selection of pravrutti or nivrutti. If pravrutti is selected, God will help the soul depending upon the meritorious actions of the soul. If the soul selects nivrutti, God takes the responsibility of the soul completely to make it successful in nivrutti. But, God will not recommend either pravrutti or nivrutti, which has to be decided by the soul only depending upon the power of the will and strength of the interest.
You are correct in saying that devotees discovered, developed and dragged this Nivrutti to climax without any intension of God. If you take the owner of an industry, he employs the staff to run the industry on smooth lines and not to marry an employee personally. All the souls whether in Pravrutti or in Nivrutti belong to the Pravrutti only since all souls are living in this society that is run by the constitution of God. It is true that devotees exercised their free will in Nivrutti since Gopikas opposed Krishna by threatening Him to jump in the river of Yamuna and Krishna had to yield to them by their strong decision. Here, the word “strong” is very important and not the word “decision”, which is taken by free will of the devotee. Among sages all did not succeed in Nivrutti and out of thousand Gopikas only twelve Gopikas succeeded to reach Goloka. This is the case of ordinary souls in Nivrutti.
Prahlada, Radha, Meera etc., are divine cases and these cases acted in Nivrutti to give inspiration to the devotees who entered Nivrutti. Sage Narada is their preacher. Prahlada is the incarnation of God Vishnu (Prahlādaścā'smi...—Gita). Radha and Meera were incarnations of God Shiva. Hanuman is the incarnation of God Shiva, who stood an example for Nivrutti in Pravrutti. Nivrutti exists from the beginning of Pravrutti and this state applies to 99% of souls. This is Nivrutti mixed Pravrutti, which is like a sweet in which powder of wheat grains is mixed with sugar. In this line, generally, souls are involved in Nivrutti for the sake of the welfare of their Pravrutti. When Nivrutti gets separated from Pravrutti (this means that the devotee is dedicated to Nivrutti only for the sake of love to God and not for the welfare of Pravrutti) the devotee enters pure Nivrutti, which is like a sweet prepared from pure sugar only. The twelve Gopikas succeeded in Nivrutti have no divine background since they were ordinary souls putting lot of severe effort for God during their millions of previous births. These twelve succeeded sages (Gopikas) were sincere in their efforts and were very pure without any aspiration for any type of worldly welfare. Such Gopikas only passed all the tests of Krishna and became the masters of God in Goloka. This fruit is the unimaginable highest divine fruit because even God becomes their servant! You may say that since Radha was the incarnation of God Shiva, she could attain such possession because God Himself became the servant of Himself. But, the other eleven succeeded Gopikas were only ordinary souls, who attained the highest fruit along with Radha. This means that even an ordinary soul has succeeded in this Nivrutti having lot of previous spiritual background.
The main point is that any adviser including parents can’t obstruct a soul trying for entering Nivrutti because it is the most pious path to reach the ultimate goal called God. Even parents are like other people only because parents do not have extra miraculous power to visualise the future of their issues. They are also like ordinary souls only without any extra miraculous power. Any adviser, unable to stop the soul trying to enter Nivrutti can only advise saying that the strength of the interest of the soul must be in climax to reach the goal in Nivrutti. Even to enter pure Nivirutti, the strength of interest must be in climax because after entering Nivrutti, God also tries to help them since He is overwhelmed by their firm decision.
But, there are failures also after entering pure Nivrutti just like the failed Gopikas in the final birth. Of course, for such devotees, God gives re-human birth to encourage the continuation of their spiritual effort. Finally, everything depends upon the climax strength of the interest (Shraddhaa) of the devotee in getting success in Nivrutti. One may criticize Me that I should view the devotee in the place of the father or mother of the devotee because it is easy to advise others and the pain will be known only to the parents. For your information, My first son left the excellent job and marriage for the sake of pure Nivrutti in spite of My warnings about the strength of interest that can be obtained through large number of previous births only. After finding that his interest is in climax, I encouraged him in Nivrutti and gave My full guidance. Similarly, I found that My disciple, Shri Phani Kumar has the strength of interest for Nivrutti in climax and I also guided him in Nivrutti to the full extent. I have personal practical experience in this topic and hence, I explained this topic to the utmost depth.