Giving Love

Swami Chinmayananda

oi-Staff

By Staff

Monday, August 31, 2009, 17:31

In true love (prema), there are no desires to be satisfied, no demands to be met, no vulgar expectations to be fulfilled. It is pure prema, which is its own fulfillment, its own reward. To love thus with all our heart is the privilege of our grown-up human stature, our achieved evolutionary growth. Narada describes such an all-inspiring, self-expanding love as anuraga. This is the search for the One in the many. And the Devarshi. without mincing matters, open1y confesses that such pure love is seen manifest only in some rare bossoms.

Each lover has his own specific way of expressing his love. It all depends upon the psychological type to which the individual belongs. There are some among us who love in their world the father more than anyone else. Others love the mother more. Some love their friends. Yet others their master or boss. These are all our various attitudes in love. Paternal, maternal, brother, slave, master, friend attitudes represent some of the more prominent attitudes of love most popularly met with in society. The secret love attitude and wifely attitude are also not rare.

All these attitudes can be encouraged. Each one of them can develop this love potential in us, by loving others in our own particular characteristic love attitude. Once the restraining dam that holds our love in our bossom is burst, we shall be surprised at our own infinite capacities to love. Therein we shall find our fuller existence in life, through an all-consuming total love for all.

In this grand scheme of self-expansion gained through the discovery of our own identity with others, there is no outer limit. There is no power to restrain it, except our own desires or passions.

Therefore, until we purify our own hearts we will not be the efficient instruments to give love.

Devotion to Sri Narayana is also the means for cultivating love within, to hear of His glories, to sing about His beauties, to reflect upon His love, to meditate upon His presence within us are all ways by which a devotee grows in his love for Him.

The Lord is not only a heaven-residing other-world Lord, but He is right here and everywhere. When out of gold some ornaments are made, all such ornaments are of gold alone. Since the universe emerged from the Lord, who was before all creation, everything in the universe can be His essence alone. To recognize Him in and through the world and to adore Him with our sincere and active love for all living creatures is the highest puja, the noblest prayer.

Don't misunderstand from what I just now said that the world IS God. .

The world IS NOT God, the world HAS GOD.

Seek Him through love. Search for Him through your devotion.

Invoke Him with prayer. And finally meet Him in your meditation.

No single individual is God; but all are His expressions.

Your mother's hair is not your mother; but it is her own extension.

Your leg is not you; but you are in your leg.

Milk is not butter; but milk has butter.

.... As butter is in milk, so is Lord Paramesvara in the world. As we churn and take the butter from the milk; so, too, by our love we must get at the Lord, who is now playing hide-and-seek with us and all around us. Catch Him with your goodness, cheer, joy and love for all.

To watch for Him in the day-to-day play of all the happenings around us is a thrilling game, an endless joy, a life-long entertainment. .

Thereafter, joy is not joy - sorrow is not sorrow.

In playing a game, the excitement of the game is its own reward.
We may fall. We don't worry. We may get knocked down and even get hurt. We don't care. We may win. It is of no consequence. We may lose. It doesn't matter. If we had a good, hard, bright game,
that in itself is the real thrill of playing.

To one who knows how to give love in life, to him all his life becomes an exciting game.

About the author

Swami Chinmayananda

Swami Chinmayananda the great master's lectures were an outpour of wisdom. He introduced the Geetha Gnana Yagna. He wrote a lot of books on spirituality, commentaries to Vedantic texts, children books etc. He then started spreading His teachings globally.....