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Love
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What is love... |
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Q: What exactly is love, Bhagavan? Is love also an emotion like anger, like jealousy or is it a power that is hidden within man? Would love lead to suffering or to joy?
Bhagavan:
"The love that we are talking about is not an emotion, nor some power, as you say. It is none of these things. This love cannot be spoken about. We can tell you what it is not. The love of a parent for the child is not this love. The love between a man and a woman is not this love.
Your love of your friend is not this love. It is not attachment, it is not possession, it is not concern, it is not caring, it is none of these things. It is the stuff with which this universe is created. It is the stuff of the universe. It is your true nature. It is that which is there. If you go deeper and deeper into reality what there is, it is emptiness. It is all emptiness.
That emptiness is love. That is the love we are talking about. It has to be experienced. At the first level you have to become enlightened, at the second level a divine being must come into you, only
then you will know what it is. Otherwise it is beyond your grasp. We are not condemning the love you are experiencing now. This kind of love is perfectly fine.
What we are telling is, `that' love has no cause. If you see somebody, there will be `that' love. If you see an ant there will be `that' love. There is no cause for `that' love. For the love that you know there must be a cause. It must be your child, wife, friend, then there is love. On the other hand, when you experience causeless Love, you are in Oneness. You are no more separate from the dog, the leper, the beggar, or the rich.nobody is separate from you. There is complete Oneness. It is a love born of Oneness. So, It has no cause."
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Love as a permanent emotion... |
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Q: What is love Bhagavan, and if love has to be a permanent emotion in me, what should I do?
Bhagavan:
"What is love - we cannot talk about that. What is not love - we can talk about. Love is not attachment, love is not possession, love is not controlling somebody, love is not making use of somebody, love is not all that you conceive of. You cannot know love but you can experience love.
The only thing that we can talk about that it is unconditional. If you love somebody just because somebody is good looking, somebody is wealthy or popular or this or that obviously that is not love. But if you're not able to give any reason at all, then probably you have discovered love.That love is unconditional and such love is not an imaginary love.
Thousands of people have discovered it and you can discover it. That is the purpose of human existence. Otherwise life is worthless.
Genuine affection is to be affected by the other. This is the state of love that I give you as a personal experience in our Deekshas."
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Causeless love and limitless joy... |
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Q: What should I do to discover causeless love and limitless joy?
Bhagavan:
"One of the most important teachings of the dharma is that the content is not important. How you experience the Content that is important. What ever is happening in your life, you must learn the art of experiencing it. That is the true ‘art of living'. The true art of living is to experience fully, totally and completely whatever is going on.
So, mostly what is going on is human interactions, your friends, your relatives, your boss, your children and your family. You are all the time interacting with them because life is relationship. Without relationship you don't exist. So, in this relationship you are transacting some kind of interaction. You may get hurt, you may get provoked, and you may get back some memories, all these are happening.
Whatever is happening, if you can experience fully, as I was speaking earlier, then you will find there is limitless joy. Now, what happens when there is so much joy? It doesn't stop there. It becomes love. Only a happy and joyous person can truly love. An unhappy person cannot love. That love is nothing but attachment, possession…true love comes only when there is true joy and true joy comes only when you experience what ever is going on inside. It is not very difficult.
Practice this for 21 days, if you keep trying it will become natural. What is not natural, what is not easy, I don't teach. There is no point in teaching that. Only what you can do I am teaching. The brain must learn a new pattern of functioning. It takes 21 days for that. After 21 days of practice you will find it becomes easy. It becomes like alcoholic addiction or drug addiction. Why are you addicted? Because it gives you so much joy or happiness or freedom. Same thing happens here also. Only thing is there are no negative side effects. There are very good effects on the other hand. You discover love, compassion. All these things happen.
So basically you must start with pain. You hold that pain like you hold a newborn baby. So carefully you must hold that pain you must know that it is a blessing. You must hold it, you must not condemn or judge it and strangely you'll find it is very painful. It will become pain in the chest region but slowly you'll find, you'll discover a freedom, joy and that will become love. That is the way to get this causeless love and limitless joy."
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True love... |
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Q: Bhagavan, could you please explain what is true Love?
Bhagavan:
"OK. Before understanding what is true love let us know what is the current state of man. Today, basically most of you are beggars of love. You want others to show you love. You don't give love. What you think is love, is actually craving for love. That is why when people love each other it is actually that, "She needed his need for her, and He needed her need for him." Of course, you also give love. But what kind of a love is that? It is very conditional love. Suppose your husband takes care of you very well, you love him. If he drinks and ill-treats you and doesn't fulfil your expectations, do you love him? No. If your parents are very nice to you, you'll love them. Similarly if your children are very successful, you'll love them.
Sometimes when I meet some children's parents, whose son is in the US, a software engineer, they are thrilled about it. They refer to their own children as "AAP". But if he is a porter in the railway station or airport, they will use "TU" or some such word. So what is your love for your own child? That is why 2000 years ago Avvaiyaar said "Kondu Vandal tagappan"(i.e. Unless you succeed, your father doesn't care for you.) The son must succeed, only then the father respects him. Similarly, if the wife is very nice, very beautiful, the husband loves her. If she gets small pox or cancer and she is disfigured, there is embarrassment and discomfort. There are always thoughts like there is nothing more to life, there is fear of society and dissatisfaction. So what happened to that love? So this is conditional love.
There are yet other people who think they love, for e.g. some social workers. They feel they are compassionate and want to give up their lives for people. But what they don't understand is the so-called compassion and love they feel is coming out of a concept, conditioning and a trauma. These people can be called self-righteous people.
So where you are begging for love, that is not love. Where there is attachment and possession and making use of people that is not love. Love born of concepts and conditioning is not love. So, what you know is conditional love. You can see it in your own relationships.
But there is also a causeless love. There is no reason for causeless love, it is simply there. That is the love I am talking about. Only if you discover THAT love you can enter Sathyaloka. Otherwise you just cannot enter because your body frequency will not vibrate with Sathyaloka. So you should love your wife just because she's there. That's all. Not because she is beautiful or she is a rich man's daughter or that she cares for you or as a duty. It is spontaneous. That is causeless love. It is your true nature actually. It is not something to be acquired. You can never acquire anything. You can only be what you are. That is your real nature. Some of you would have experienced this love sporadically in your lives. But unfortunately the mind takes over. So if you discover this love, then the world will be a different world.
Bhagavan with your grace we will try our level best to discover this causeless love.
(Sri Bhagavan laughs) See, you cannot try to love, that will never happen. What do you know about love? All that you know is, you have jealousy, selfishness, anger, hatred, lack of love and therefore craving for love. That is the truth about you. You are not a Mahatma Gandhi, Surdas, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. You are only what you are. Isn't it? So all that you must do is, "become aware that you don't have love, love starts happening automatically. You have been trying to love, but where have you changed one bit? You are exactly where you were. So now stop trying to become, BE exactly what you are. See the terrible things in your heart. How when somebody comes to you, you smile and say hello sir welcome... but that is not the truth. Inside you are thinking, why did he come now? Actually you are putting on a nice mask. You have never faced the actual you, the truth. The truth has gone far behind. I do know devotees, they wear a mask even before Me and I also go along with them. (Bhagavan says this smilingly) Why should I take out their masks? That would be too painful for them. That mask is there because of the society, education, culture etc. People think that is the only way to survive. We cannot help it.
When people get married, there is joy in their relationship in the beginning. Slowly the mask (images) sets in the wife and the husband also develops the mask. And the mask begins to relate. The real person has withdrawn. There is no more joy in the relationship. That is how your hearts get closed.
So, all that we are telling you is ‘become aware of your games.’ Just do that. That's all. I am not asking you to be a saint or a sage. You are horrible people, terrible people, isn't it? (everybody laughs). Embrace that thing. 'Yes, I am horrible, I am terrible.' Love that. Love yourself and you'll see the great miracle happen. You will discover love."
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