Whom to Love
Love, prem, is a word that is used a lot in the Vedas and Shastras to denote God. Today, everyone can be heard uttering this word. Many of us have gone so far as to say to someone else, “I love you.” But what is love and what does it mean to love? The answer is known by very few people. The scriptures tell us that it is only God and the Saints who know what love is and how to love. No one under the influence of maya — a human being, celestial god, animal or demon can ever love. In his Narada Bhakti Sutra, Sage Narada defines love in the 51st aphorism:
anirvachaniya prem svarupan “Love is beyond description and no words can ever express it. It is beyond the comprehension of our material senses, mind and intellect.” Bhakti Rasamrit Sindhu concurs, “The essence of love is beyond the grasp of even the greatest yogis and munis who have performed meditation and penance for thousands of years.” Furthermore, “Even if a person were to adopt a million human forms and perform devotional practices for millions of ages, he would still be unable to receive love.” Let us consider what Jagadguruttam Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj says about what true love is.
Firstly, let us hear what he considers as the simplest definition. It is given in Bhakti Rasamrit Sindhu: love never reduces and continues to increase in every second, even when there is a good reason for its reduction. Now, can any of you say without reservation that the love you are experiencing now or have experienced at some point in your life meets these two criteria? No. It is impossible to find such love in this world. Some of you may disagree; some of you may even feel offended and fervently declare that the love you have for your wife, your husband, your son or your daughter is exactly like this. But if you were to introspect on the above definition behind closed doors, with an unbiased mind, you too would conclude the same.
The love we experience in this world is only an outcome of the temporary attachment of our mind, depending on the level of self-interest we have in the person or thing that we love. This explains why the love we feel or experience in the world keeps changing, and we see this being played out in a myriad of ways in our daily lives. Suppose a boy and a girl swear allegiance to one another on the banks of the holy river Ganges. However, if the boy came across a letter in the girl’s possession in which she expresses her passionate love for someone else, what would happen? Not only would the boy’s love for the girl dissipate in a second, but it could result in a verbal or physical altercation and even murder. What kind of love is this? A little earlier the boy was ready to sacrifice his life on the girl and now he is considering taking it and just over some words scribbled in a letter. A little later, the girl confesses, “My dear. Today is 1 April — April Fool’s Day — so I was just joking with you. That letter is not real, nor are the sentiments I expressed in it.” Upon hearing these words, the boy instantly calms down and embraces her fondly. “Oh, I did wonder how you could do such a thing to me,” and he gets fooled again. This drama is not love.
True love is that which can never reduce or diminish, even if there is a legitimate reason for it to do so. This is something we find hard to believe. Why? Because it is impossible to find such love in this world, and therefore, it is something that none of us have ever experienced. The love we see in the world is attachment of the mind, based on our own selfish interest. If that is jeopardised or compromised, our love reduces immediately and commensurately. In other words, the more our interests are served by someone, the more love we have for that person. The less someone meets our wants and needs, the less is our love for them. This is what worldly love is. The formula is very simple to understand, and we all know it to be true, but very few of us earnestly seek the alternative.
Prem or divine love exists only between God and His Saints and the Guru and his disciples. It is this love — and only this love — that continues to increase irrespective of the circumstances or behaviour of the beloved (God and Guru). When a soul becomes God-realised through the grace of a genuine Guru, he becomes complete with unlimited divine happiness. It is only then that a person can truly love others without desiring anything in return. When a person has attained all there is to attain, what remains to desire?
Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a descension of Shri Radha Krishna who appeared in India about 500 years ago, writes in Shikshasthak, “O Shri Krishna! You can behave with me in only three ways. You can embrace me, You can be a stranger to me or You can summon Your Sudarshan Chakra and kill me. In other words, You can love me, be neutral towards me or kill me. But I challenge You in all three scenarios. Do what You like. Do what pleases You and I shall go on loving You just as I always have regardless.” This is real love.
We should know and understand who a true lover is, what love is, and who the beloved is. A true lover (a devotee of God and Guru) never desires anything in return. He always enjoys giving and only giving because he is happy seeing the happiness in his beloved. A lover who sincerely serves his beloved (God and Guru) never expects his beloved to render services to him in return. He is totally unmindful of the beloved’s behaviour too. This is the total opposite of what we see and do with one another in this world. We define someone else’s love for us based on their behaviour towards us. “I wrote four letters to him and never got a single reply?”
To conclude, in brief, our beloved (the one we should love) is God and Guru, and he is the one who we (as aspiring devotees) should always serve. We should not expect our beloved to serve us. In other words, we should never ask for anything. The one who truly loves is a servant who never expects anything in return, and the one who possesses the treasury of divine love and is waiting to give it to you is called the beloved (God and Guru).
Jagadguru Kripalu Bhaktiyoga Tattvadarshan — the essence of Vedic wisdom, spirituality and devotion in daily life.
