Wings of Love, pages 27 to 48
Date Unknown
SECOND LINK -- LOVE OF OTHERS
What is the second link in this upward flight of love? The first link, as we have seen, is the love of oneself. The second one is loving others. You will never be successful in your progress towards that love which takes you to God, unless you have abundant good will, unlimited love, overflowing kindness and plenty of grace towards all living beings.
"When thou goest unto the church for thy daily prayer," said Jesus Christ, "and kneelest down and raisest thy hand up unto the Lord, if thou rememberest that thy neighbour is angry unto thee, go thou first unto him and love him. Leave the Lord here and go thou thither, love him and crave his pardon. Make peace with him. For, how can he who has not succeeded yet in making peace with men, succeed in making peace with himself and the Lord?" Certainly, the person who refuses to love on the human level, cannot be expected to extend his fervent prayer to the level of God.
A sage living in a certain village was once approached by a devotee who expressed his desire to realize God. He asked the sage what he should do. Surveying him from head to foot and probably understanding his ins and outs, the sage said, "Well, son, shall I ask you, to tell me whether you love anyone? Then I may be able to say something." The devotee, assuming that love is a disqualification for seekers of God, said that he did not love anyone and that his sole aim was the realization of God. Thereupon the sage said, "Son, think well; search your heart. Don't you love your wife, children, family or friends?" The devotee was emphatic. "No, I don't love anyone. I only want to realize God." The sage kept quiet as tears welled up in his eyes. Surprised, the devotee asked the sage: "Father, why are you crying? Why don't you speak?" The sage said, "Oh son, if only you had loved some one, I could have transformed that love into love of God. But love which leads to God is dead in you -- love which is the direct way to Heaven."
In the name of religion, thousands of people have taught you not to love anyone! Their teachings are centred round your egotism, and they cannot take you to God, for love is the power nearest to our Lord Himself.
LOVE IS NOT A FETTER
Why should one be afraid of love? Perhaps because it may bind us? But love binds only when we are unable to radiate more and more love. The implication is that it is only the inadequacy of love that binds us and not love itself. insufficient love, love that is neither full nor frank, becomes a bondage. Only love shrivelled in size can bind the lover. Love that is brimful expanding and extensive breaks all barriers and begins to flow. It knows no frontiers when it develops, and assumes the unlimited immensity of the sky. Hence I say, increase and multiply your love, widen the sphere of its activity, place no restrictions on it, stipulate no conditions for its functioning. Let it expand steadily, let it go beyond the person on whom it has splashed itself. Let it not stop anywhere. Let it not halt in its course. The fear that love may linger on its way makes the so-called spiritualist suspicious of love. But if my love stops in the middle, it is my own fault, not that of love.
There is therefore no valid excuse for my hostility towards it, Love's fault is really the lover's fault. If the lover is coarse and narrow-minded, love cannot but be immobile. If one is hostile to it for this reason alone, one becomes meaner still and more narrow- minded. What little width and amplitude it possesses is lost due to the narrow- mindedness of our so-called religious leaders. In my view, we have to increase our love and let ourselves be submerged into it. On the other hand, he who loses love can save only his ego. So T say, stretch and spread your love. When we throw a pebble into the pond it sinks no doubt, but circular wavelets set in motion by it extend as far as the banks all round. Similarly, when love is generated, let it produce waves of throbbing vibrations like those in the ocean, till it reaches the ultimate shore of God's benign presence. Such a love is nothing less than a fervent prayer.
I would not say that you should hate your parents, hate your wife and children, hate anyone at all. In fact, you must love them so much that they cannot contain it within themselves; they must have it in overflowing abundance. Let your love spread everywhere, over-flooding everything, so that nothing can hold it anywhere. Let it be your aim to generate so much love within that none except God is able to put up with it.
Only the unlimited can sustain the unlimited. No finite receptacle can hold the infinite overflow. The unlimited love will flow over and beyond it. No doubt, it will have its share but far beyond its expectation, far more than it can hold. As far as you are concerned, it can never be a hindrance: love becomes a hindrance when it stops somewhere on the way. Lingering love is no true love; it is lust, sensuous attachment.
Expanding, ever-widening love, on the other hand, is fervent prayer. Let it not be forgotten that the love that stops midway becomes a delusion, lust, and bondage, but the love that marches ahead like the waves in the ocean is nothing less than a fervent prayer, nothing less than God Himself, nothing less than the beatitude of absolute salvation. If love does not stop but marches on, it sets us free. Let there be no cessation in its march ahead until the last man too is brought into its fold When the communion with the Soul Supreme takes place. Let me repeat for the sake of emphasis. I advocate love of self. I advocate love of others. Never consider love unholy or evil. Take care that it does not stop halfway. It is the stoppage that is unholy and not love. Those who consider love unholy and view it In a narrow sense never try to understand that this restricted love is but lingering love. The more it is restricted the shabbier it becomes. The person who withholds love from others becomes centred round egotism. He stops with his ego -- the "I-ness" and "My-ness" of life. In the whole universe of existence the two points that are poles apart are those of the ego and the Supreme Soul.
Cessation of progress or even intermission at the point of 'I' leads to hell. There is no end to the egotist's pain and misery because all the doors of bliss are closed to him. Only love can open them. Similarly, the 'I-centred' man finds all the doors of beauty and harmony closed. Our love can open them. Love is the mysterious secret key to the abode of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Whatever is excellent and perfect in life can be opened up by means of this wonderful key. It is egotism that shuts it up.
Egotism, however, opens up another door, the door opening on to hell, the only door it can open. Let it be remembered that there is no other Key except these two. No man can have both the keys simultaneously. It is divinely ordained that a man can have only one key in his possession at a time. He who is willing to lose one gets the other. The key of love opens up not only the hearts of men but also the heart of every object under the sun, whether it be that of a rock, plant, animal, or the Supreme Soul Himself. Luther Burbank, the celebrated botanist, is remembered throughout the world for an incident wrought by his profound love for the vegetable kingdom. He was able to make plants react favourably to his request, he who had spoken thus to the thorny shrubs, "Friends, you need not be afraid of anyone. These thorns are not necessary for self-protection. Isn't my abundant love enough to protect you?" In the end those thorny shrubs of the desert did listen to him and as a token of their love yielded to him a new variety of plants entirely devoid of thorns. Whenever anyone asked him, "How did you achieve this impossible task?" he would promptly say, "Out of love." I, too, would tell you that even the impossible becomes possible through love. A greater impossibility than God cannot be conceived but he too yields to love.
LOVE -- NEVER AN IMPOSSIBILITY
And love is never an impossibility: it is very simple: it is present in everyone. It has to be developed and widened, Though its seeds have been sown in every one it is the fortunate alone who live to enjoy the flowers of love. Why? We never allow the seeds of love to germinate and grow. We seek love but we don't show it. Love grows when offered, not obtained, for remember that love is an unconditional offer. He who is capable of offering such a love does get it in plenty. Moreover, love offered freely creates the capacity to receive it too. It qualifies the receiver to receive it. The measure of love offered is commensurate with the amount of love received. Only in this manner is further depth achieved and gradually the very vital breaths are transformed into love, into nothing but love wholesome and furl. The beginning of the perfection of love must always be traced to the readiness to offer, not to the eagerness to demand. Peremptory demand will never enable them to make a beginning. Love's state is imperial, not that of a beggar. Those who demand it never get it, and this failure, so dispiriting to them, gradually renders them incapable of offering it too. As the failure increases, the difficulty to secure it increases as well. Please remember therefore that love implies offering without any desire to obtain, to get back in return, to demand. Let us free it from the expectation of obtaining something in return. There can never be a commercial transaction in the affairs of love.
Its pleasure, its bliss, its fullness lie in giving away and not in securing anything in return.
The giving up is so satisfying and blissful that even the question of gaining anything in return does not arise. That is why the person who gives love is ever obliged to the person who accepts it. Only in the act of giving love abundantly -- an entire, unbounded gift, do the vital breaths develop the wings that take them unto God. Friends, let us spread out the wings of love and soar up in the vast firmament of the Supreme Soul. With our wings of love full-fledged, our consciousness of things belonging to us and of those belonging to others -- our awareness of what is mine and what is yours -- disappears, and what is left is the consciousness -- nay, the very being of God. It is in the absence of love that man has of necessity to be on the hard ground of egotism full of thorny shrubs of hatred, violence and anger. Where is the necessity of being stuck in this rocky ground, once the wings of love are grown? Then the flight to the wonderful world of beauty -- limitless, inexhaustible and immaculate beauty -- becomes easy. So let us be filled with love -- towards all love unconditional, love selfless. Standing or sitting, sleeping or waking, let us be submerged in love, love which is the very breath of our existence, love with its waves ever surging in our hearts. You have now reached the precincts of the sacred temple of the most divine. Visiting ordinary temples is not obligatory. Those temples with idols of stone cannot claim perfection and reality. Would it be surprising if the hearts of those who frequent these stone temples become adamantine and hard? No doubt, discussions and discourses on Divine Love do take place in these temples, but what is disseminated from there is nothing but hatred. Hatred and violence disguise themselves in the gaudy clothes of false love. Verily I say that to no other temple should recognition be accorded than to the temple of love, the only temple of our Lord. I am afraid that these other temples have been designed and devised to prevent men from reaching the temple of love. Satan is definitely engaged in this!
Love is itself a temple and a sacred scripture. "The man who has had a smattering of love's language," says Kabir, "is a scholar." Certainly nothing remains to be learnt if one has learnt all about love. Mastery of love implies mastery of all learning. He who hasn't learnt the art of loving is ignorant of everything. No knowledge, no sensation, no experience is superior to love. Love's eye scans what is written on leaves, carved on stones or, hidden waves. Friends, the Lord's autograph can be seen everywhere. Of what real use are the works of mortals? What can we gain from the words of ordinary mortals?
Where will they lead us? Indeed man's words cannot take us above and beyond man. To be able to go beyond man we have to leave him behind. In fact, man's words, scriptures and principles are obstacles in the pathway to God. We have to read, learn and comprehend what is God's to reach God. That can be read in love. We have to learn human languages to read what man has written, his shastras. Similarly, the Lord's language is to be learnt to read the Lord's Book. And his language is love. Learn the art of love which is so necessary if you wish to attain the Lord. The whole creation of the Lord is all around you. Behold it, for your eyes will not fail you, but in the absence of love it can neither be seen nor known. A mysterious miracle takes place when love's eye begins to scan. What was being seen vanishes and what had escaped our notice comes into view. Then nothing remains save the divine form.
I affirm that where the scholar loses, the lover wins; what learning misses, love lights upon. In the case of the scholar having a smattering of love's language, the matter is different. Entry into the depths of life is impossible without love. Mere knowledge loses itself in its peregrinations round the border, and it is incorrect to say that knowledge annihilates distance. Only through love can distance disappear. Knowledge does not go deeper than the physical body, but love does not stop before it reaches the soul. Hence all knowledge divorced from love is unreal and incomplete: Knowledge contained in love is the only real knowledge.
What is the importance of love? How is it to be realized? Shall one incessantly repeat the word 'love' as some zealots repeat the names of Ram and Krishna. Will such loud repetitions of the word 'love' help us realize love. Never. Mere repetitions of names does not achieve anything. Love should be lived; it should be part and parcel of our very being. Life will be purposeful, meaningful, when there is liveliness of love in it. Let the energy of love be vigilant and vibrant and awake in the self. Let no occasion for ardent, sincere love find it slumbering there. Let no challenge offered to love be left unanswered.
For every challenge, for every call, let your love give a befitting reply. Even when there is no challenge from any quarter, let love continue to flow as light flows from the lamp or as sweet fragrance flows from the flower. A calm unbroken current of love should always be present. When the heat is continuously kept moving by means of love-currents, all the obstacles on its way are kept at bay. We find the gentle hill-stream eroding off the hardest rock from its path by means of its constant flow. Can anyone deny the presence of huge stumbling blocks in the path of love? There are, no doubt, hard rocks, but the power of love is equally boundless. Let us make this boundless energy function effectively and be ever active. Utterly slow and silent are its activities, but in that quiet briskness, huge rocks are worn off into fine particles of sand. Much fuss and ado indicates weakness.
Powerful forces function silently. How quiet, silent and free from fuss is the creative activity of God!
Friends, let us give love an opportunity to transform you from the very root. Love's potion can instil a new life in you a life which will never perish. For that reason alone is love free from fear even in the presence of death, because love knows no death.
LOVE DEFIES DEATH
In 1857, when Indians revolted against their rulers, the English speared to death a silent sage who had not spoken a word for years; thinking him to be a spy, an instigator of rebels. The sage who had been silent for years laughed and said TAT TWAM ASI (Thou art that). The man who had speared him was also that -- the Absolute soul. Even at the moment of death he had embraced his murderer while love and fervent prayerfulness had shone in his eyes. No doubt he had discarded verbosity and selfishness from his self but filled it with pure love. Otherwise how could it have gushed out of him when struck with the spear? During all these years when his heart appeared to be mute, it was only filling it up with love. It had become a veritable fountainhead of love, making him incapable of seeing an enemy in his murderer. He only saw his beloved in him. Love had transformed an enemy into a loving friend, death into salvation. Love changes darkness into brilliance, poison into nectar. Can there be a miracle more stupendous than love? More magical than the magic of love? Love can transform everything because it transforms our very visions, and the vision is a creative force. What we see is our world, and the world is what our eyes make of it. If there is love in the vision, there is also the lover all around us. If there is no love there is no God and, to crown all, there is no lover either. There are our enemies instead wherever we see.
One early morning a traveller entered a village. Finding an old man sitting at the threshold, the visitor said, "Sir, what sort of people are the villagers here? I have left my village for good and wish to stay here." The old man surveyed the stranger from head to foot, and said, "May I too ask you what sort of people live in that village which, you say, you have left?" As soon as he heard this, the stranger's eyes became red with anger and he said, "The very thought of these people fills me with anger. Please make no mention of these wretched people. It is because of them that I had to leave that village. Nowhere else in the world can you see such wicked persons as are in that village." The old man said, "Brother, I am sorry. The villagers here are no better than they. You will find only wicked people here, too. You had better go and live in some other village".
Hardly had he left when another stranger entered the village and asked the old man the same question, "Sir, what sort of people live in the village here? I wish to stay here. I had to leave my village." The old man said, "Before I answer your question, may I ask you what sort of people live in the village that you left?" The second stranger said, "Although I never saw such nice people anywhere else, I had to leave the village for some compelling personal reasons." Having said this, he shed tears of loving memory. The old man hastened to reply, "You are welcome to this village, son. You will find the people here even better than your former friends. There are many good people here." After a pause the old man continued, "To whichever village you go, you will be welcomed heartily. In every village you will find good and nice people. The world is what your eyes make of it!" The world is nothing; it is nothing other than what you see. If the vision is full of love, only hearts throbbing with love will come into your field of vision. When you see the entire world thus throbbing with love, know that to be the hour of realization -- the realization of your Master, of the Divine Form. Reaching the precincts of God does not mean that Rama will be waiting there for you in his cloud-coloured splendour and armed with bow and arrows. Reaching the divine presence does not imply that some Krishna like figure will be awaiting you there blowing notes of melody in his divine flute.
Attaining the supreme soul does not indicate that some elderly gentleman with flowing white beard can be seen there controlling the universe. Arriving near God means attaining that experience wherein the entire universe ceases to be mere object and identifies itself with that supreme soul; the object vanishes, the power alone remains. It means the attainment of supreme bliss. It means the attainment of Truth, Beauty, and Eternity. God is not a person but an experience. He is Bliss, a boundless Ocean of Bliss.
Before merging into that ocean a preliminary realization of that ocean must be generated within ourselves.
THE THIRD LINK
I have already discussed the first two links that lead you there step by step. The first link is self-love. The second link is love of others. Let us now discuss the third link, love of God, which enjoins on us the necessity for going beyond the first two. The second link is a step beyond the first, and the third is a step beyond both. The first link involves the admission that"I am." Although it is not reality, it is nevertheless a fact. To the ignorant it is a fact more important than everything else. It may be a means to your awakening, but never to your flight. Those who flee it will find it coming close upon their heels. Can you really run away from your own shadow. I'm sure you can't. The more you try to escape it the speedier does its pursuit become. Therefore accept the fact of 'I am' and engage yourselves in seeking love. When love grows, egotism diminishes and wears off. If one who has accepted the existence of the shadow seeks light, one naturally and necessarily becomes free from all sorts of shadows. Egotism and love stand in the same relationship with each other as shadow and light. The impenetrable darkness of egotism disappears with the advent of the illuminating light of love. Acceptance of the "I" gives rise to "He the other." "Since I am 'I', others are others'. In the light of love, however, the consciousness of "I" as well as that of "the other" vanishes. In the end love alone remains.
Neither "I" nor "you" nor "the other" -- only love. Such a state of love I would call love of God. Actually it is not directed towards anyone in particular, nor from or on behalf of anyone in particular. It simply is. This pure and simple love I call love of God.
What can be the implication of this love of God? It means the suspension of the illusion which had been there continually that I am something, that I am what I am. This is entirely untrue, unreal. You really are not! You have no personal existence. Consider the phenomenon of breathing. Breath is drawn into my body and sent out. If I think I am breathing I am wrong. For, if the air that has gone out does not return, how can I take breath. If I think I am living, I am in the wrong For, the day life goes away from within me, it would not be possible for me to stay behind even a moment. If I think I am born, I am in the wrong If I think I will die, I am still in the wrong. I have not had a birth nor will I die. Neither the breath is mine nor do I have any control over the breath. Neither life nor death is mine. Some mysterious drama is being enacted within me. Some one is sporting inside. Some one is speaking within me. Some one is passing through me. Some one is born within me Some one dies within me. I am a mere play-ground, a field, where figures come and go. I am a mere flute on which someone plays. "I am no better than a hollow piece of bamboo," says Kabir. "Songs of Love directed towards God are thine." The man who realizes this understands well. The person who has crossed the first two stages with the help of the two rungs of the ladder mentioned above, can without any difficulty comprehend this easily and know that there is nothing like individuality in this world.
Whatever exists, exists together, collectively, jointly. Nothing exists in isolation. This breath which I consider mine had already been the breath of millions and millions. This air that I exhale now will constitute the breath of millions and millions yet to be born.
The millions and millions of cells that form and rear my physical body had once been part and parcel of millions and millions of other .physical bodies. How can they be called mine? When I cast off this body these cells may constitute the physical bodies of millions and millions. Even when I have not sloughed off this body, every minute it is undergoing change and old cells are being discarded and new cells are being formed. The new cells that enter your body are verily the old ones that have come away from others. This body which I call mine has already belonged to thousands of men, millions of animals and billions of other living organisms and will henceforth constitute countless similar bodies.
How can it be mine?
Nor is the mind alone. For the constituent parts of the mind too come and go like those of the physical body. There is nothing that is mine. This attitude is the primary stage in the love of God. When we actually realize that there is nothing that is ours, when this attitude further deepens, we feel that we ourselves do not exist since there is nothing that is ours.
As long as the idea " I have something" persists in us, we have the delusion that we are and we begin to desire acquisition measure my greatness in accordance with the largeness of my house. I measure my greatness in accordance with the height of the position I occupy. I measure my greatness in accordance with the extent of my property. I measure my greatness in accordance with the influence of the position I hold. Why? Because my "I-ness" increases in proportion to the increase of my possessions. "I-ness" develops with acquisition. "I-ness" grows in the company of "my-ness". The frontiers of "I-ness ' and "my-ness" are coterminous. Hence, if the delusion of "my-ness" is exterminated, the basis for "I-ness ' disappears. If there is nothing that is mine where can I be? If "my-ness" sinks, "I-ness" becomes feeble, void.
A question often asked of me is this, "Are we to leave off everything and run away in order to efface this wrong notion of 'I-ness'?" My usual reply is that this is not a problem of abnegating or not abnegating what you possess. The crux lies in the attitude of "my- ness"{ towards those things. Even if you lay aside things, the attitude of "my-ness" can linger. That is why the so-called renouncers keep an account of what they have renounced and measure the greatness or smallness of their renunciation in accordance with the value and quantity of the things renounced. Once a saintly man told me, "I have kicked of lakhs of rupees". I said, "Pray, when did you kick it off?" He said, "About thirty years back." On hearing this I was not at all impressed. I submitted, "Sir, the kick does not seem to have achieved much; otherwise these lakhs would have been entirely forgotten in thirty years."
Hence the question is not that of renunciation but is that of realization. In the absence of realization even renunciation may feed your egotism and cause it to swell. The assumption that things are mine is wrong, not the assumption that things exist. There are two phases of misguided attitude. One is that of the hedonist who says, "These are mine I will enjoy them." The other is that of the renouncer who says, "These are mine. I will leave them off." But both say, "These are mine." Real knowledge reveals a third fact. It says, "Whatever is, is God's. Neither mine nor thine. We ourselves are not ours. I really am not. Egotism is thus a delusion. Everything is taking place. I am only a part of that process." If this attitude is maintained, life becomes as natural and easily accessible as water and air. Such a life is a life of sacrifice. Such a life is a life of love. Love of God means forsaking egotism.
Malukadasa has said: birds do not work, the python does not seek a job, and that Rama gives them plenty. People have misunderstood these lines. They say that Malukadasa wants us not to do anything. This, however, is not the correct interpretation. Birds do work from sunrise to sunset. They build nests, peck at grains. What Maluka means is that birds are not self-conscious. If the idea of "I am" must disappear, desire to acquire -- possessiveness -- must go. The attitude that these are mine should vanish. If this attitude develops, love of God too develops. When the development is complete and the feeling "I really am not" is generated, the revolution of which I have been talking takes place. There is a Sufi song. A lover knocks at the door of the beloved. He hears a question coming from within, "Who are you?" He says, "I am your lover." Silence prevails within. Again he knocks and says, "Please answer." After a long pause a reply is heard, "You may go back. There is no space in this house sufficient for two." The lover goes back. Years pass off. Rains set in. Summer and winter come and go. The moon rises and sets. The lover returns again and knocks at the door. The same question is heard once again, "Who are you?" He says, "You yourself". The song narrates that the door then opens. If I were to compose this song, I would have thought that the time had not come for the door to open.
The awareness of "you are" indicates the existence of "I am". I would have compelled the lover to go back once again, and the story would progress a little further thus: when the lover says "you yourself", silence prevails again. After waiting for a long time the lover says, "Let the door be opened now. It is not me; you alone are." To this she replies, "He who is conscious of oneness is conscious of both. He who remembers 'you' does remember 'I'. In this room only one can stay. "The lover retires. Days glide into years but he does not come back, for he has no idea that he has to go anywhere, to return to his beloved, then the beloved herself goes to him and says, "My love! come on. The door is open." Just as "I" vanishes, ' you" too vanishes. What remains alone is present -- that which is sought. After the elimination of "I" and "you" what remains is "God". Where "I" and"you' disappear, the resultant is the Eternal Being, the Beginningless and the endless Existence. It is an ocean of consciousness, the Supreme Being who can be known and lived. We are in it, we stand in it and we live in it. But we do not realize it. We do not feel it within. We do not recognize it. We are full of this "we" or "I" in us. We are not relieved of it. He who is void of "I-ness" is indeed full. Eliminate this "I-ness".It is for this that I have mentioned the three links. He who merges himself into love steps into the void of fullness. Move on step by step. Get lost in love drop by drop. In the end lose yourself into it even as a drop of water loses itself into the ocean. Are you not aware that the tiny drop becomes the vast ocean once it loses itself?