Unselfish Love
The innate nature of all beings is to love an external object - we cannot but cherish something in the heart. For, truly, the absolute alone is existent. Man is only an ego, apparently separated from it.
Love for external things is an unconscious internal urge to become unified with everything. For, in reality, man is everything, the absolute itself. Love is the forerunner of experience. Love is the craving and experience is the fulfilment of it. None can live without love for something. "The creator pierced the senses with outward activity", and that rule applies to one and all. The mind is the main sense of perception, for it is only the mind that perceives through the various channels of the senses. The senses do not work when the mind does not.
Emotions are generally considered as a hindrance in perfect realisation, but only certain emotions are of a binding nature. Certain others will liberate the jiva (soul) from bondage. The conception of God does not rouse in man any binding emotion - it is pure emotion, without carnality or attachment. Love for God rouses the purest emotions; this is the significance of divine emotion in bhakti.
Love for God can never be the type of love cherished towards wife, children and property. There is much difference. How then does love give us liberation from samsara (worldliness)? Man is an egoistic entity. Ego is his only enemy.
He feels he is entirely different from other things in the world. He is convinced that he is sharply marked off from the rest of the universe, by his physical body. He is sure he is only the body, even though he may try to deny this. When he says 'I' he always points to his chest and not to yonder tree.
"I am doing nothing. You are doing it through me. You are the doer. You are the enjoyer. I am nothing. Thy will be done." This is the highest type of love, this is divine love. Now the ego cannot assert itself for God alone is everywhere. Now the mind cannot modify itself into vrittis (or sense objects) for to him there is no object except God. Who is there left to be loved or hated?
"I feel extreme pangs of separation,
I will perish unless I behold thee.
Let me see thy face even for a minute.
Ah, who will take me to my beloved?
Who will show me this path?
Who will console my heart now?"
Sivananda says: "O Hari! Give me the cup
Of thy divine love and quench my thirst now."
Love for external things is an unconscious internal urge to become unified with everything. For, in reality, man is everything, the absolute itself. Love is the forerunner of experience. Love is the craving and experience is the fulfilment of it. None can live without love for something. "The creator pierced the senses with outward activity", and that rule applies to one and all. The mind is the main sense of perception, for it is only the mind that perceives through the various channels of the senses. The senses do not work when the mind does not.
Emotions are generally considered as a hindrance in perfect realisation, but only certain emotions are of a binding nature. Certain others will liberate the jiva (soul) from bondage. The conception of God does not rouse in man any binding emotion - it is pure emotion, without carnality or attachment. Love for God rouses the purest emotions; this is the significance of divine emotion in bhakti.
Love for God can never be the type of love cherished towards wife, children and property. There is much difference. How then does love give us liberation from samsara (worldliness)? Man is an egoistic entity. Ego is his only enemy.
He feels he is entirely different from other things in the world. He is convinced that he is sharply marked off from the rest of the universe, by his physical body. He is sure he is only the body, even though he may try to deny this. When he says 'I' he always points to his chest and not to yonder tree.
"I am doing nothing. You are doing it through me. You are the doer. You are the enjoyer. I am nothing. Thy will be done." This is the highest type of love, this is divine love. Now the ego cannot assert itself for God alone is everywhere. Now the mind cannot modify itself into vrittis (or sense objects) for to him there is no object except God. Who is there left to be loved or hated?
"I feel extreme pangs of separation,
I will perish unless I behold thee.
Let me see thy face even for a minute.
Ah, who will take me to my beloved?
Who will show me this path?
Who will console my heart now?"
Sivananda says: "O Hari! Give me the cup
Of thy divine love and quench my thirst now."
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