free will Is God not to blame for the boredom of robot-like souls?

[dattaswami]

Is God not to blame for the boredom of robot-like souls?

Discourse Podcast

 

Smt. Bindiya Chaudhary asked: Upon reading a recent discourse, some questions have arisen in my mind and are confusing me. You have said that souls can never have absolute God-like freedom in any of the four ages. Since, in the Kṛta Age, souls were like robots working as programmed by God, God took the total responsibility for their thoughts, words, and deeds. But after a long time, the souls were of living in perfect and total discipline.

Now, I am thinking that if in the Krta Age, God had full power over souls and controlled everything including their thoughts, then how could souls have developed the thought of boredom? It means that God himself must have implanted the thought of boredom in them as well. Or was it that it was God who was actually bored and wanted to let souls be free? What is the purpose of first unleashing a dog and then trying to bring it back in the house by its own will?

Shat shat pranam to Swamiji who is the almighty God himself and is helping us souls rise in the spiritual path by his enlightening discourses. Any amount of love and devotion to him is insufficient and I am thankful to him from deep within. Thank you Swamiji.

Swami replied: While clarifying your doubt, we must carefully understand the comparison of a human being with a robot. If God had not given any freedom to human beings, there would hardly be any difference between a human being and a robot. For some time, let us think that God did not give any freedom to human beings, which was actually the condition during the Kruta age. In the Kruta age, human beings were exactly like robots in the sense that both act as per the information available to them. But there is a slight difference between the Kruta Age-humans and robots. The Kruta Age-humans got information directly from the external world. Robots, on the other hand, get information only from the information-chip inserted into them by the scientist who designed them. The scientist, after all, draws information only from the external world. So, the information fed to the robot is indirectly from the same external world. Thus, at this point, the difference between Kruta Age-humans and robots disappears. In the case of the Kruta Age-humans, no scientist inserted any information-chip into them; they themselves filled it with the information directly grasped by them from the external world. The robot, however, is dependent on the scientist to feed information into its information-chip. Leaving aside this matter of detail, the Kruta Age-human, who did not possess freedom, is exactly like a robot in the aspect of acting as per the information available.

As time passed, the Kruta Age humans felt bored. Robots, of course, never get bored and can go on working mechanically as per the program in their information-chip. This again is another difference between a human being and a robot. A robot plays a game of chess using the ‘intelligence’ programmed in its chip by the scientist. It merely executes actions based on the various possibilities of moves in the game. The Kruta Age-human being was also just like the robot playing chess. Based on these similarities, it was stated that human beings in the Kruta Age were just robots. Considering the large number of similarities, it was stated that human beings in the Kruta Age were robots in the sense of a metaphor. Saying that a person is like a lion is a simile, while saying that the person is a lion is a metaphor. Both the simile and the metaphor indicate similarity between two items, while also acknowledging their differences. Neither the simile nor the metaphor suggests an identity between the two items compared. But in the case of a simile, the differences between the two items compared are larger than in the case of a metaphor.

Once God gave freedom to human beings, after the Kruta Age, the differences between human beings and a robot increased. The robot continues to play chess based on the program in its information-chip whereas the free human being does not play as per any fixed program or policy. The freedom given, allows the human being to freely choose to follow its information-chip or not follow it. This freedom creates a huge difference between a free human being and a robot which never has any freedom. It is due to this freedom given by God to humans that God can never be blamed for the wrong choices made by human beings. Human beings alone are responsible for their own choices. If human beings had continued to be like robots, which never have any freedom, then God, who is like the scientist, would be held responsible for the behavior of human beings.

Also, there is no need to blame this freedom given by God. In spite of giving this freedom, there are some human beings who still continue to follow their information-chips like robots. All human beings have not exercised their freedom. All have not deviated from the policy of behaving as per the information chip. Had all human beings deviated, it would be correct to blame the freedom and its Giver. But after granting this freedom, some human beings deviated from their programmed behavior while others did not. Hence, you cannot file a damage suit against God for granting this freedom. If upon granting freedom to human beings, all human beings had universally deviated from the programmed behavior, your advocate could have argued your case. But due to the absence of any such uniform behavior, you cannot support your case with arguments. In that case, your damage suit will be disposed with no costs!