Part 13: True love is selfless
All our life we have not learnt to love, because we follow the
principle of take, take and take. But if we wish to enter the realm of God we
will have to reverse our principle to give, give and give.
In life we are born with many
relations like our parents, brothers, sisters etc and there are other relations
that we form as time passes. No matter
how closely we feel related to these people, the truth is that all these
relations will cease to exist one day.
Our scriptures inform us that we have had countless such material
relations in our past lives as well, and every time it has been the same story;
we spend some time together and then we all part ways to form relations in our subsequent
lives. Yet, apart from all these
transitory relations, there is one relation which alone is eternal. And that is
our relation with the Supreme Lord of the Universe who is seated in our hearts
and accompanies us in every life form. When
we realize the truth that God alone is our relative and he is the soul of our
soul, we discover the uniquely intimate and divine bond we share with him.
Merciful God has given us the
freedom to develop any relation with him as we like, we can look upon him as
our child, as our friend, king or beloved. Shree Kripaluji Maharaj in his
keertan ‘jo piya ruchi mahaṁ ruchi rākhē’ tells
us to worship God in madhur bhav or
in other words as our soul-beloved.
There is however one correction required even in this bhav, and so Maharajji states:
jo nija sukha ura nahiṁ rākhē
He says;
don’t love God for the sake of your own
happiness. Love Him for the sake of His happiness!
In the world we all say we love,
but the truth is that we love the whole world only for our sake. This is the philosophy of the material world,
where everybody only cares and
fends for themselves. Once during the French revolution, the noblemen were
being beheaded. When this news reached a
hats seller that the royalty was being beheaded, he was grieved. He said, “Oh no! What will happen to my hat
business?” Typical of the material world, he was only concerned with the loss
in his business and not the loss of others lives.
The fact is, before God-realization, all of us are
only concerned about our own happiness.
And even when we go to the Divine Realm, we love God and Guru for our
own happiness. This however needs to be corrected, if we wish to relish the
Bliss of Divine Love. The definition of
love is given as:
āvirbhāva-dinē
na yena ganito hetus taniyān api
kshiyetāpi na chāparādha-vidhinā
natya na yo vardhatē
(Shree Padyavali
345)
This means love is where there is no hetu (cause). If we say, “I love Him
because …” be assured that it is not love. Because the moment there is a cause,
it is no longer love, it becomes business.
All our life we have learnt to do business, but when
we step into the realm of divine love, there should be no cause. The thought of
‘what will I get?’ should not exist. We should only think, ‘What can I give,
and give, and give?’ Mystics of different religious traditions have understood
this secret of the Universe. Saint
Francis of Assisi said,
“O Lord,
let me seek not so much to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying to the little self, that we are
born to Eternal Life”.
So in our practice of spirituality, we have to
repeatedly pay heed to this principle.
If we desire this selfishness to go away, we will have to repeatedly
practice and bring this principle to our mind: “The goal of my love is not my
happiness, but the happiness of my Beloved.”
And when we will repeatedly practice this, it will develop the ‘Seva Bhav’ – the desire to serve.
The ‘Seva Bhav’
is the manifestation of devotion. In other words, the love in the heart
manifests in the desire to serve, the desire to do something for the Beloved.
At least one can mentally hope for the happiness of the Beloved. The consequence of such love is that it can
never be destroyed and this is the final test of Selfless Love.
sarvathā
dhvansa-rahitam
satyapi
dhvansa-kāranē
yad
bhāva-bandhanam yunoh
sa prema
parikirtitah
(Ujjvala
Nilamani)
Dhvansa is a powerful Hindi word, meaning complete
destruction. This verse says, “Let’s say there is a legitimate reason for our
love to be destroyed (that is, our Beloved has done something terrible to us).
If our love does not get destroyed even in that situation, then that is True
Love!” This should always be our ‘acid
test’, and we should keep increasing our love so that we reach this point one
day.
An interesting thing to understand is why does true
love not get destroyed? Remember, it is
not destroyed because it is not engaged in for selfish reasons. The reason for destruction of worldly love is
that we are always looking at fulfilling our self interest and not the
beloved’s. But the moment that love
becomes selfless, the Beloved is free to do whatever He likes.
So, even in Madhur
Bhav or Madhurya Bhav, there are categories. There is Samarthā-rati, Samanjasā-rati and Sādharani-rati. Kubja
looked upon Krishna as her Beloved, but her devotion was characterized by her
desire for self-happiness. The Queens of Dwarika looked upon Krishna as their
Divine husband. However, the nature of their devotion was that they desired
their own happiness along with Krishna’s happiness. However, the Gopis of
Vrindavan actually manifested such Selfless Love:
svasukha vāsana
gandha lēsha shunya
shri krishna
sukhaika tātparyamayi sēvā
The
devotion of the Gopis is such that even the slightest aroma of the trace of the
desire for self-happiness does not exist.
Their only goal is the pleasure of Shree Krishna.
This then becomes one of the most important things in
the path of Divine Love: “Are you totally selfless?” Currently we are not, but
we have to practice and slowly bring ourselves to this point.
No comments:
Post a Comment