Hari
OM
Application - that is what 'Workings-days' are about!
The Narada Bhakti Sutra is our guide for a while… the
nature of Love (with the capital 'ell') and a full exploration of it. As
always, you are encouraged to seek out the full text from Chinmaya Publications
(links in side-bar); but for those who prefer e-readers, this version is recommended. Whilst awareness and interest can be
raised by these posts on AV-blog, they cannot substitute for a thorough reading
and contemplation...and practice!
We
saw last week that Sri Narada held up the example of the gopis who were the
intense devotees of Lord Krishna. In order to further raise our thinking of the
nature of capital 'ell' Love, Narada-ji continues;
tiÖhIn<
jara[aimv.23.
Tadvihiinam
jaaraanaam-iva ||23||
Love without the knowledge of His True Nature (is)
like the illicit love for the paramour.
 |
| art by Lirulin-yirth |
A
clear and resounding comparison of the love with which we are all too familiar
and the genuine, capital 'ell' variety of Love! What is required to shift into
the Love Divine? Capital 'k' Knowledge.
The understanding of Reality, which none of our material sciences, no
matter how advanced they are, can actually pinpoint for us. Love Divine does
not succumb to passion, lust, base physical actions. To quote Gurudev directly,
"True Love ennobles, it enlivens, it
enthrals. Pure Love totally transports the devotee into the climes of joyous
satisfaction and a breathless state of perfection. In the love of the gopies
for Krishna, there was nothing base, ignoble or fleshy. It was the expression
of a total merger of their personalities with the Supreme Truth…"
Without
an understanding of Infinitude, the essence of Being, our relationship with our
Divine Nature fails. We can certainly entertain all sorts of notions of
devotion, but without that key piece of Knowledge, all our efforts are actually
still of the lesser form of love. This is not to 'diss' love as we experience
it currently. However, we must be clear at the very least of what the
difference is and then we can clean up our 'house' and make the love we can
manage right now as pure and untied as possible. All elements of selfishness and lust which
arise within our standard form of love must be scooped out. Rising above our
desires, we begin to glimpse and, indeed, experience, aspects of the Divine
such that we switch to a desire for more of That. True Love, once accepted into
our small beings, gets fanned by the joy it generates and starts to emanate
from us. At this point we can begin to permit ourselves to become the
instrument of the Lord - like the flute of Krishna, to be played as He sees
fit. When we are centred on lower love (lust), we depend upon the other for
completion of it. When we are centred on Higher Love (Divinity), we carry our
dependence within ourselves and can never be disappointed by it. Love actually
lives in joy, lust is forever seeking it. Once moved into Love Divine, lust
becomes a memory; the two cannot co-exist. There is no substitute for the
exquisite sweetness of Love Divine.
This
is emphasised further in the concluding sutra of this section;
naSTyev
tiSm<StTsuosuioTvm!.24.
Naastyeva
tasminstat-sukhasukhitvam ||24||
In the profane love for the paramour, the sense of
happiness in 'giving happiness' surely does not exist at all.
In
our day to day existence, we are forever saying things like 'I did that to make
him/her happy', 'he/she made me happy by…' This sutra is making it clear to us
that happiness, as such, is not something which can be given or received and
therefore our assigning 'happiness' to the acts of others or ourselves is to
delude ourselves as to the actual nature of happiness.
It
is heard a lot these days, is it not? "What makes you happy?" What is
mistaken for happiness is, in fact, mere lustful satisfaction. Very often, as
an example of Divine Love given expression, the love of the mother for her
children is given. Even this, though, falls short, as far too many of the human
race fail to experience this love in its purest expression - for all sorts of
diverse reasons. Parents who are able to
provide safe and nourishing environments for their children still cannot, in
the end, provide 'happiness' for those little individuals. Each must,
ultimately, develop their own sense of what is happiness. Those who are
fortunate, will fall into the paths which will lead to spiritual development
and there the potential for reaching True Happiness becomes theirs.
Happiness
is a state which ought not to falter. It is not wild ecstasy, nor does it get
supplanted by gloom and doom. Happiness is the state of mind wherein
contentment resides and permits us the ability to cope more readily, absorb
with less pain, to give without hesitation, to act promptly and to ever have
the Divine present in our thoughts.
The
motto of the Chinmaya Mission is "Maximum Happiness to Maximum People for
Maximum Time". It is achievable. Release clinging, cloying, lustful love
and reach up to Love Divine.
