By Kirpa Sagar : LOVE is the most universal subject. Starting from the individual, it takes into its fold the family, the community, the caste, the sect, the religion, the region, the nation and the whole mankind. It has its own subtle influence on groups whether formed for a social, economic, political or any other common cause. Even an ordinary man, whether educated or not is found sometimes sermonizing on the subject. In short, Love finds its way into everybody’s life, choosing its own convenient route and the time to enter and the way to express itself.
It is rightly said that Love is God. It means that love is a divine quality that can take man to the highest state of equanimity. A person with spiritual enlightenment looks at every human being as the image of God and treats and trusts him or her as pure at heart. This is the love that knows no age, sex or status. Perhaps a child has it most, because of his sublimity and nearness to Nature. It receives everyone as its own and showers its love and joy on them without any kind of discrimination or prejudice.
No doubt, as one grows, love too tends to flourish in various dimensions. It grows faster, of course, where accompanied by other divine qualities like humility, tolerance, goodwill understanding and respect unto others. But unfortunately, we find in the world of those who are grown up that love gets diluted and polluted by their unwanted negative and destructive instincts of selfishness, ego, jealousy and prejudice, etc. Naturally, blended with such feelings, love does not remain pure, sweet, gentle, pleasant, innocent and, above all, divine.
A Natural Feeling
Love is an inner instinct, a natural feeling. It is a heart to heart and soul to soul relationship. It is to be imbibed and lived and not to be experimented or tested. It is at its best when experienced spiritually in the inner domain. Its manifestation outside will remain as pure as the feeling within. Even when two bodies hug each other, the real bliss shall come from inside – the soul touching the soul. That is where love is natural – the same from outside and from within.
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When we give preference to the outward or physical love, it tends to lack sincerity. It is shrouded by artificiality outside and afflicted by selfishness within. Naturally, it is bereft of the pure feelings of the heart. True love has, therefore, become a rare variety today.
With God dwelling in heart and the mind illumined spiritually, love is a source of strength and not a sign of cowardice even though it is a trait of the humble, meek and the mild. Those afflicted with ego only spoil this sublime, subtle, divine base of life. Their love may prove a false game for them. They will only exploit others in the name of love. No doubt they will find their prey easily, but that will never bring them praise ultimately.
Love begets love; and it must do so. It will do so, so long as it is based on a commonality of purpose. The persons in love with each other should be partners in each other’s welfare – physical, mental and material. They must share each other’s weal and woe. They must help each other to make life happy, prosperous and blissful. And this prevails as a natural phenomenon when the two happen to be spiritually enlightened with God dwelling in heart and the divine light illuminating the mind
No Conditions
“If you judge people, you will have no time to love them”, says Mother Teresa. If you judge people by their caste, religion, profession, status and so on, you will certainly fail to love them. A spiritually enlightened person, however, knows that all are the creation of the One Supreme Father. This automatically takes away the scope for hatred on the basis of caste, creed and colour, language, region and culture, etc. True love knows no conditions. It is a feeling of universal kinship. It means you are at peace with all. When you love one, it does not mean that you hate others.
Love is a tool that makes it easier to achieve our target i.e., the pleasures of life, provided it is truthful. The divine qualities of apology as well as forgiveness are a sign of wisdom and an essential factor for love to prosper. In adversity, one does not blame the other. Instead, both stand unto it and face it with hard work shoulder to shoulder. They take it as the will of God and trust in Him for getting redeemed.
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Love is a commodity to earn as also to distribute. Let us, therefore, deserve to receive love and be capable to share it with others. It is rightly said: “Love the people who love you, because they find in you something that must be loved – develop it; and love the people who hate you because they find in you something that must be hated – change it”. Moreover, it is better to believe all and be cheated by one than disbelieve all and be cheated by none.
Loving people means loving God. Love is an essential constituent of devotion to God. No doubt when we remember God, it is implied that we do it out of love. The best way to express our love towards God is to love and respect His creation i.e. the mankind
Hence, those who do not show love unto people with the same faith and belief as is the Almighty’s due, shall not be treading the path of true love. And, Love has to be true. Any other variety may be anything else but not love.
* The author is a devout
follower of Sant Nirankari Mission