on love - Bhagavatam

...contd....

on love - Bhagavatam

Both these forms express ‘love’ as an action – a verb. It’s an act between two persons. But the highest form and only thing that’s actually referred correctly as ‘Love’ is when it is a ‘noun’ – a state of existence. In other lower levels of its expression, object, subject and action exist i.e., in “I love him”, I is kartha or subject, him is karma or object and love is kriya or action. Love ‘here’ is action verb. But when I say ‘love’ I don’t mean those levels at all! I mean, when ‘love’ is noun, i.e., is a state of being – where I don’t exist as my ‘ego’ should go away if there is love. ‘You’ and ‘love’ both can’t exist at a time. If I exist, love can’t and if love exists, I can’t. It doesn’t mean I die. It means ‘I’ as an attitude dies. I as an ego die.

When I meet him, my persona dies and I meet him, then it is love. Like-wise, he loses ‘himself’ (here again it is not about physically losing – but mentally as an ego he doesn’t exist). For both, the other only exists. I don’t desire as I don’t exist and for me since only he exists, only his desire matters and exists. Similarly for him too! He doesn’t exist and only I exist for him. Since, this happens, there is no desire and only love remains (Are you still with me?). Then we both exist only ‘in love’

and therefore we become love. That is the state of existence. For example, I love singing. As I sing, I am aware of singing. I hear the song, its tone, lyrics, and notations and then as I keep singing, slowly I lose myself in singing so much so that now I no longer know tone, lyrics or anything as I eventually become singing and ultimately I become ‘the song’. That is the time I experience ‘love’ as I become it.  ‘Love’ is God here at this stage. When you don’t exist, you realize you own it all, you pervade all! But it is not easy to go there, so in this stage if any person practices ‘non-selfishness’ or living for the other, it easily takes that one to this stage.

It means you ‘give, give and give’ to the object of your love as much as possible and is thinking ways and means of giving more. In the process ‘you’ as an ego keeps dying more and more. Gandhi gave himself to the country and didn’t expect anything for ‘himself’ in return. That itself healed him completely and gave that aura of purity and divinity that made him courageous enough to face the British Empire and fearful enough for his opponents!

Meera sang to express her love. She wasn’t working to become ‘Indian Idol’ or asking for votes or money in exchange for her song. I am not saying it is wrong. It just doesn’t let you grow towards ‘love’ – that’s all! Instead lust for money, fame, success creeps into the persona so silently and breaks so many people who were crowned with success at very start of their career. Care to throw in couple of names? Because, she sought nothing, all fame, name, adoration came her way – not only during her times but centuries later too! That’s the paradox of life. You get more and more of what you don’t want! The more you give away something, the more you receive of that!

Radha loved Krishna day in and day out. Her every thought revolved around him. She was in the midst of her worldly duties and yet her mind was centered around Krishna. Whenever I quote such examples I get to hear from people wonderful feedbacks like: “Guruji, just as you asked us to love, I am loving ‘X’ now. Just as Radha, I am married to ‘Y’ and ‘X’ is my Krishna and I his Radha. I am doing exactly as you guided us!”

“What you said is absolutely true maam ‘Love like Radha to experience that bliss’. I did and I am happy. It’s just that my wife is not your student, so doesn’t understand my love. Shall I get her to you for explanation?” and many more in this way. I repeat, I am NOT SUGGESTING extra-marital affair by giving this example do what you want to do with your life, just don’t use my quotes in wrong places to get away with your lustful acts. Radha unlike these people didn’t own, possess or manipulate Krishna. Her love only teaches us to be unselfish. It teaches us to

‘let go’ of our love if that’s what our love wants”. My need, want and desire mean nothing. All that matters is his needs, his wants and his dreams.” If I can think on such grounds, than I become ‘love’. For that I don’t need to touch my love, possess him, own him, sleep with him or take anything from him. Infact, he need not even know that I love him. Because, I am not interested in his part of reaction. My whole concern is that I want him to be happy, safe and successful even if it means being away from me. Please don’t use ‘right examples’ in ‘wrong places’ to do what you want to do. Inspite of fooling people with such quotes, you’ll know that you had manipulated and that knowing will not make you pure. You’ll not even respect yourself. Then how can you expect someone else to respect you?

...contd.....

# on love - bhagavatam, Epics of India, Radha and Krishna, 

Points to understand:

• Just because we use the right examples, our wrongs don't become right.
• People understand as per their level of consciousness. Adi guru, Lord Shiva himself may come and lecture and yet their understanding will remain faithful to their level of consciousness.
• Level of consciousness decides our clarity of thought.
• Our clarity of thought decides and impacts our decisions.
• And our decisions decide whether we become slaves to our senses or becoming masters of our senses!
• Logical arguments may lead to wrong assumptions and understandings.
• Better to have a person who has better clarity of thought than you to guide you till your consciousness level has reached a point worthy of guiding you in the right path. In Eastern culture, that's why Guru/Master is given so much of importance for he does this job.

On love and lover!

 

On love and lover!

I thought I was in love.

I thought I loved.

And,

I felt sad, depressed, angry, frustrated that my love was not returned.

I was angry that I still remained unfulfilled.

My desires were not attended to.

I was where I started.

Then with tear filled eyes I looked at my lover.

First I saw all the pain and suffering inspite of being in love.

And then, as I kept looking at my 'love' I SAW

I saw that 

I was suffering because I was waiting for something in exchange for my love!

How stupid of me! And how stupid of my love!? 

Then I saw that just loving Him was worth everything...

then I saw that loving Him was all that mattered.

I didn't have to look for returns in this love.

Just the act of love redeemed me of all my pains

and then I knelt down and thanked Him for letting me love Him!

# on love, lover, expectations, conditions of love, returns in love 

also read : https://kantipadam.blogspot.com/search?q=I+lessness 

Questions addressed : 

• What is love?
• What should I expect from love?
• Desire and love - is there a connection

Points to be understood :

• As long as you seek anything - any type of gratification, returns, fulfillment from the object of love you DON'T LOVE!
• When you expect something in return to what you give then that is barter system. In Business (since barter is a form of business), there is bound to be pain and suffering. There is bound to be loss and failure. Your expectations will break and yes, you will cry more than you laugh.
• But when you love, it makes you pure over time and you walk from one state of happiness to an another ONLY. There is no loss or failure here. There is no expectation that is broken and no suffering that comes out of it. Love frees you. 
• conditions bind you but love frees you!

On Gratitude :

I knelt down in gratitude as I watched birds fly.

I knelt down in gratitude as I watched sunset.

I knelt down in gratitude as I could kneel down.

and then I kept kneeling down for reason after reason and had to stop when my legs could support my feelings no longer..........

It’s love, love and love – all along!

 

It’s love, love and love – all along!

Now, that is the thing about love! It can embrace outright ‘wrong’ to absolute ‘right’ in one single breath! It can turn a sinner into a saint. It also has turned an average person into a sinner.

It breaks you, crushes you and envelops you.

It makes you and then lets you hang high and dry. It bleeds you to death. It is the song of life. It makes life meaningless. It gives you purpose, direction and drive. It drives you crazy and makes you antagonize all and sundry in your life.  It makes you heartthrob of millions. It turns you into a recluse. It makes you, it breaks you. Do you have experiences to support these statements? Can you share with us?

Now, if love is these many, is it not worth avoided?! Unfortunately, it attaches itself to you more you run away from it. And that is the thing about love! Hate it, live it or love it – but you can’t do without it. Either way each one is living with love. Now the taste and shade of love is all it takes to change the flavour that you live and experience of love. 

If the love for me means the other agrees and behaves as per my desire and whims and fancies, it becomes bitter for me. Then, I suffer because of ‘my love’ in my life. And then, I ask “Why maam, why is it we suffer in love?”

When physical fulfilment is the be all of my love, it is then a source of so much of anger, irritation, restlessness, stress and not to say of ailments that are caused by it, to me.

Contd....

# love, 

read further on love : https://kantipadam.blogspot.com/search?q=on+love+-+bhagavatam 

Read the link for further clarification on love....

Question time :

What is love for you?

on love - Bhagavatam

...contd....

So you see desire expresses itself in various shades – all of which are termed as ‘love’ by the subject. Many times, the subject (the one who declares he is in love) knows it’s’ lust and yet will use word love – not out of ignorance but out of smartness. Lust by itself explains its intentions openly. But no one wants to ‘accept’ that feeling. They want to camouflage their intentions behind the best and accepted pure cover of ‘love’. That way, their desire becomes (only in the eyes of others) valid, acceptable and good. Lust on the other hand becomes its evil forsaken twin. We use word ‘love’ to sell our dark intentions.

“How can you say all our feelings are ‘lust’? On what basis are you converting our love into lust?” asked Vijaya hurt.

Both Chanda and Vijaya had disagreed with Guruji and both questioned her explanation. Yet there was world of difference between both. One came from anger and the other from a belief that Guruji doesn’t have an intention to hurt us or insult us. Because, of that belief, Vijaya felt guilty of her feelings and was hurt with her guilt and hence this hurt did not spit venom of anger on to Guruji. What you said depended solely on from ‘where’ you said was so true here!

“No. I am not saying that your every feeling is based on lust. But.......ok let me put it differently. Let me explain ‘love’ again. Then you decide for yourself what you feel. Good enough?”

We all agreed on that. This was instead of being either defensive or offensive; we actually would get a clear picture of the whole issue. Again, understanding or accepting it depended on our sole discretion.

“I’ll broadly classify love as in three stages. The first stage ‘love’ is to satisfy self. I love mangoes. Not because of mangoes but for the joy it gives ‘me’. ‘Me’ is the key word here. I love anything and everything that ‘pleases’ me or ‘gives me joy’. If the same mango becomes stale, I spit it out. So I don’t ‘love’ mango (put the stress of mango), but ‘I’ (put the stress of ‘I’ here) love mangoes because I am enjoying while eating it. Forget it if you are not able to get it. Understand it this way. At first level or lowest level you ‘love’ things and people that fulfill your need and cater to please your senses. At this level, the stress is always on I, me, myself ONLY. (If any of you can give an example to illustrate this, you are welcome).

Much, much below this level of love is lust. “Love is nothing but sex”. If this is the definition of love and basis of relationship between man and woman, what else could you expect that man say apart from “Everyday since marriage, when I come home, I am crying from within. I’ve been suffering every day of my life”. This man will not only be unhappy and suffering but will be the cause of suffering to the one who is staying with him. I say ‘stay’ because there is nothing as ‘living’ with this sick mind.

...contd.....

It’s love, love and love – all along!

 

Contd....

It’s love, love and love – all along!

When my love is to express it in different way every single day, then it expresses as excellence in my field of world. Then it becomes my inspiration, aspiration, support and expression of my potential best! It can be my mom’s cooking, keeping the house clean, writing memo or a personal letter, driving or giving a lecture. It can be a presentation given in a boardroom or avenue for an artist to express himself! Then, it becomes ‘beautiful’ wah taj!

When it is blinded by wrong beliefs it turns as hatred for a certain class of members. Then it becomes destructive. All works of destruction come under this category. Everybody knows the examples. It’s just that we didn’t see it as ‘love’ gone wrong.

When a person out of low self-esteem, self-hate, manipulates or uses his position to cater to his baser desires of physical fulfilment of various kinds then they are the ones who are caught under scams. Then people ask “But maam, he was a Guru no, then how can he be like that?”

No doubt, no two masters are same. Degree they confer being same, there is world of difference in the same. That difference comes from the ‘shade of love’ that they operate from!

I hope many of your doubts are put to rest here!

What applies to a Master applies to a mother too. No two mothers are same. As their operating centre is totally different. I can go on and on. But in the nutshell, when love goes wrong it hurts all! When it is got right, it becomes blessing, sources of healing, happiness and joy for everyone!

Contd....

# love, 

read further on love : https://kantipadam.blogspot.com/2021/02/on-love-and-lover.html 

Read the link for further clarification on love....

Question time :

Have you experienced love?

on love - Bhagavatam

...contd.....

Still this thing was beyond me. Moreover, I was not much of kid person, so all the more Latin and Greek to me. Few of others too felt this way. But we didn’t openly state this to our Guruji. Not that we were afraid of her or that she wouldn’t explain differently but we somehow felt we were not yet ready to understand it. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t ‘listen’ to what she was telling. We would soak in each syllable that she uttered – not as much for understanding it but to put it on hold. We wanted to

hang on to it for few days to come and keep looking at our feelings all through our day. Maybe, the understanding would happen eventually. Earlier too when we didn’t get all that she said we would just grasp all the words and keep playing them in the mind again and again in the midst of our

maddening, chaotic and boring chores. And doing so we always had a break-through in few weeks time and then we would return to her with that understanding only to be pushed little further by her words. These exercises had bettered our perspective, outlook in so many areas and issues. I am sure it would be the same in our and everyone’s favourite topic – love!

“The next step in love would be mutual i.e., I would benefit the other and he me in this love affair – a la symbiotic relationship. Suppose I love singing, I sing would be first stage. But in next I love singing and hence sing but also want singing to give me name, fame and success. Here love is mutual. If I love someone (it can be a sibling, parent, child, friend or a spouse – don’t always read ‘love’ as relationship between man and woman only), I expect them to love me back. I also expect them to behave as per my expectation. If not, I feel let down and blame the other for breaking my heart. It’s more of barter system here. The relationship is that of ‘I’ scratch, you scratch’. I fought for my country’s freedom, upliftment etc and hence want recognition and some thing in return comes under this category. If I believe in only taking in the name of love, that is no love, it is lust dipped completely in selfishness. In love I’ll look after and cater to your

needs and in exchange you cater to my needs. But many times, people don’t play fair here. They say ‘I love her’ but she doesn’t do A-Z things for me, so I get irritated. If such is the case, there is no love. In the name of love, people demand their rights – be it as a spouse, friend or parent. They don’t look into their side of responsibility to cater and give in that relationship. Beware of such loves! Don’t let people suck you off your energy in the name of love. Such people are ‘human parasites’ – logging on to others and eating them off in the name of love. 

Love also is caring, sharing, being concerned, doing things for the other. If this is missing either from one or both involved it’s no love! In the name of love, you can’t expect the other to work like a servant under you. If there is one who is demanding, ever finding fault with the other (for lack of fulfilling his duties as per his role), ever expecting and conditioning the

other by way of behaviour, habits and what not, know it is an ‘abusive relationship’. There is no love lost between them. Just put your foot down and walk out of such relationships. That doesn’t mean your responsibilities don’t count. No. No one can run away from responsibilities in any relationship. Rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand. Only when it is give and take between both, does it quality as love.

...contd.....