Question: The anger and varieties of naughty behavior that Kṛṣṇa showed to Mother Yaśodā are all forms of mutual loving communication. In the purport of verses BG 10.4-5 of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, it states that the different qualities of living entities, whether good or bad, are created by Kṛṣṇa. How to understand that the bad qualities of living entities also come from Kṛṣṇa? Kṛṣṇa is the supreme good. What does He have to do with the bad qualities of the living entities?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
First of all, Kṛṣṇa’s permitting the bad qualities within living entities is not a fault on Kṛṣṇa’s part.
Kṛṣṇa is loving. Kṛṣṇa invests free will in living entities; were there to be no free will, there would be no real love – since love is voluntary, not forced obedience. Similarly, just as Kṛṣṇa has unlimited free will, his part-and-parcel living entities must have minute free will. Living entities can misuse that minute free will. Kṛṣṇa does not interfere.
Material nature comes from Kṛṣṇa. The modes of nature come from Kṛṣṇa. Everything comes from Kṛṣṇa.
When living entities associate with the mode of ignorance, they manifest the bad qualities, which are symptomatic of the mode of ignorance. Kṛṣṇa reciprocates both properly directed as well as misdirected desires of living entities; when souls desire ignorant things, ignorant qualities arise.
Ignorant qualities in the jiva are not what Kṛṣṇa wants; but to honor the living entity’s desires, He sanctions their desires.
You will find this confirmed in Chapter 13 Text 23, Bhagavad-gītā: Kṛṣṇa witnesses, and Kṛṣṇa permits.
This is how we understand all things come from Kṛṣṇa, including bad things. Again, it is not that Kṛṣṇa wishes living entities to have bad qualities but He is reciprocating with the misdirected free will of the living entities.
From within the heart of every living entity, Kṛṣṇa is guiding and encouraging each of us to come back to Him. However, if the living entity says to Kṛṣṇa “No!”, He does not interfere.
When one misuses his free will, accompanying that misuse of free will is illusion and suffering.
Through that suffering, Kṛṣṇa’s intention is to have the living entity learn they have misused their free will and to use it properly instead.
To assist the Supersoul in his reminding wayward souls, what we as devotees are supposed to do is this: carry Kṛṣṇa’s message both by our character and by our speech, requesting misdirected souls to take shelter of Kṛṣṇa instead of turning away from him.
