Art of Loving

“We often love things and use people, while actually we should be loving people and using things….”

By Vrajavihārī Dāsa

What is a greater source of inspiration, money or love? A housemaid might be paid a thousand rupees to care for the baby while the mother spends sleepless nights serving her offspring. It is no surprise that the mother serves the child better, although she expects no remuneration. The motivating factor for the mother is love as compared to the maid, who is inspired by money. The world is madly running after money but badly wanting love. Men seek career growth and fame but deep within wish someone genuinely loved them.

For millennia, poets and writers have eulogized romance through their creative and emotional expressions. Sadly, however, just as a hungry man cannot feed others, the world, starved of real love, is unsuccessful in promoting peace and harmony. Little wonder then that glamour heroes and heroines promising love have a tragic end to their own love saga.

THE TRAGIC ‘LOVE’ STORY

As movies end with the clichéd phrase, “And they lived happily ever after…,” most, including the champions of love, sigh, “If ever there was a lie spoken, it is this!” Behind the veil of loving smiles and embraces, the role models privately swear that nothing could be farther from the truth. But why do romantic episodes have a painful end?

‘Love’ in all these cases denotes the ability of the ‘loved’ object/person to satisfy our senses in some way. The more elusive it is, the greater the craving. As the desperation to possess and enjoy the object grows, an esoteric term, ‘Love,’ is assigned to express this emotion. However, as the loved object satisfies the desires, the senses agitate more. Like an itch—the more one rubs it, the greater the demand, and eventually there is more pain and bleeding. Similarly, the mind and senses keep asking for more than what we can provide. Moreover, the body, being temporary, loses its attractive charm with the passage of time. Since, for most, ‘love’ is centered on the body, the blinded lovers now have a rude eye-opener. Thus, although the world glorifies ‘Love’, it’s only an obscure phenomenon that people are chasing. What then is real love and why is it so elusive?

SEARCH FOR REAL LOVE

Each soul is by nature pleasure-seeking. The soul is eternal and the body is temporary. Trapped in a temporary body, the soul is craving eternal pleasure. The facilities of the body fail to fulfill this urge. Only when the soul is connected to God, who also is eternal, full of consciousness and bliss, does this need find its real fulfillment. Each activity, when connected to God, lends a spiritual joy to our pursuits. Presently, all our pursuits are motivated by a pleasure, a mellow which we derive from that activity. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, “That force which drives the philanthropist, the householder and the nationalist to work and serve is called rasa, or a kind of mellow (relationship) whose taste is very sweet.”

The problem occurs because men work hard and long to experience this rasa, which unfortunately doesn’t endure. Therefore, people seek to constantly change the pursuits of enjoyment through ever-new films, music, fashions, drugs, etc. And yet, in an attempt to squeeze happiness from this, there is an undercurrent of frustration because all of this happiness ends with the body. The lasting rasa can only develop when we connect to and love God.

NEED TO LOVE THE ‘ALL-ATTRACTIVE’

Although the propensity to love is most natural, it is imperfect until we know who the supreme beloved is. Our love can be fully satisfied when it is reposed in God or Kṛṣṇa. ‘Kṛṣṇa’ means all-attractive. When one develops attraction and love for Kṛṣṇa, he or she experiences an oceanic flood of ecstasy in the heart.

One who accepts and loves the father will naturally be loving towards his brothers. Similarly, one who loves God sees all living entities as children of God and treats all life reverentially. People in this world are attracted to beauty, name and fame, riches, strength, knowledge, or renunciation. These opulences are unlimitedly present in Kṛṣṇa. Thus, when we love Kṛṣṇa, we are watering the root of the tree. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains, “One should learn the art of loving Kṛṣṇa. At the present moment we are inventing so many ways to utilize our propensity to love, but factually we are missing the real point: Kṛṣṇa. We are watering all parts of the tree, but missing the tree’s root…….. Real self-realization and realization of Kṛṣṇa go together simultaneously. For example, seeing oneself in the morning means seeing the sunrise also; without seeing the sunshine no one can see himself. Similarly, unless one has realized Kṛṣṇa there is no question of self-realization.”

As a devotee makes Kṛṣṇa the object of his love, he experiences Kṛṣṇa’s direct reciprocation and intervention in his own life. Under the shelter of Kṛṣṇa, one thus feels completely loved and cared for, far beyond the achievements of the most intimate bodily relationships.

POWER OF LOVE

Most religions use fear, duty, or promise of reward as the motivation to surrender to God. However, the highest religion is that which advocates uninterrupted and unalloyed devotional service, motivated purely by love (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.2.6). Even the devout Christian philosopher Kierkegaard emphasized the importance of love. In his book Works of Love, Kierkegaard considered God to be the hidden source of all love. He wrote: “A man must love God in unconditional obedience and in adoration……even if that which He demands of you may seem injurious to you.”

Even the word ‘Islam’ means surrender, and absolute surrender is possible only when there is pure love. Therefore, in the Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa declares:

sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ

“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.” [Bhagavad-gītā 18.66]

Devotees desire that their attraction towards Kṛṣṇa flow just as rivers incessantly flow towards the ocean. As the devotee constantly chants Kṛṣṇa’s names and remembers Him, he develops his unconditional love and surrender to Kṛṣṇa. Then he even conquers Kṛṣṇa through the power of his pure love. Thus Kṛṣṇa becomes subordinate and is controlled by His pure devotees in Vṛndāvana, like mother Yaśodā, Nanda Mahārāja, cowherd boys, etc. Kṛṣṇa’s equal friends defeat Him in wrestling; His elders have a protective concern for Him, and they pray for His well-being, although it is Kṛṣṇa who is maintaining the whole creation with simply a fragment of His energy.

This is the power of real love, a torrential downpour that overflows from the pure devotee’s heart and inundates the world with love, happiness, and peace.