Hari Om
Monday is AUM-day; in search of meditation
These articles first appeared on Yamini-amma's personal blog. They were designed to promote deeper thinking on values, personal growth, Vedantic understanding - and to prompt conversation. Use them for contemplation either before or after your regular meditative practice.
àemn!
Preman - affection, fondness, joy, kindness, tender regard
Love - with the capital 'ell' - is the Universal Love, unconditional, unselfish, unstinting. It seeks no reward, no kudos, has no expectation of receipt. Preman is Pure Love and even in the worldly plain, holds no strings, makes no demands, states no ownership and is a bottomless well of compassion, affection and kindness.
To apply prem in our daily life, we need to be secure within ourselves and clear about our understanding of Love of the capital variety. It is a commodity which is often taken for granted. The mistake is to think it abundant. It is certainly freely available, but the ability to tap into it and work with it and live it… well, that takes some doing.
Even the noblest of people can get lost in the myriad other connotations of love - seriously, check out that list, love in all forms but the Universal. The love which permeates the world in all sorts of guises and which can as often be nothing more than lust, jealousy, anger, greed and so on, all dressed up with a cherry on top to fool the unsuspecting and the needy.
Needy, yes. We all of us, every single one of us, wish to be loved - but what that is to us is as individual as ourselves. There is the expectation of something coming our way - even among the most giving of us. Indeed, almost certainly we all know of at least one person about whom it is said 'they have such love to give' but who seek attention through that love, or control, or drama… indeed 'love' is the most abundant emotion we have available to us and yet it is the most abused, misused and discarded.
In fact, for many, the idea that a Love which makes no request of them, which has no expectation that they can return it, is as alien as the atmosphere of Venus. They have learned that there is always a cost, a charge, for love and they expect to pay it. They can be suspicious of motives, be greatly in fear of it, and seek to second-guess the bearer of Love.
So demeaning has been the experience of love, by some, so sceptical have they become, that there is a refusal to believe such an Unadulterated Love can exist. This is beyond sad.
Those of us who can, who have seen, felt and experienced the capital 'ell' Love have a duty to vibrate and spread it to the world. In thoughts, words or deeds, whichever is appropriate and of which we are capable.
There is room, though, to ask the Parent to listen, to cry in His Ear...
It is my Prayer, that all can come into the embrace of Prem, that all will feel its healing and be lifted.