Chapter 1 - Human Affection and Divine Love

“Raso vai Sah; Rasam hi evayam labdhva anandi bhavati.”
God is Love. Whoever tastes the sweetness of divine Love, attains eternal happiness in Life.
     —Taittiriya Upanishad, II, 7.

Life is Love, and whole form and power of Life consist in Love and spring from Love. * * Love is satisfaction with itself, joy in itself, enjoyment in itself,—and therefore Blessedness; and thus it is clear that Life, Love, and Blessedness, are absolutely one and the same.
     —J. G. Fichte

All true love, * * proceed from the penetration of the principium individual soul, which * * results in perfect sanctification and salvation.
     —Arthur Schopenhauer

Love becomes more and more important as we ascend further. Love is an activity of the Soul desiring the Good.
     —Plotinus

The human soul possesses the germ of that indescribable something which poets, dramatists, artists and philosophers of all ages have endeavoured to describe by words and poems, by stories and fables, by symbols and images, by paintings and sculptures. That something is a charm which throws a spell around itself and whosoever comes near it remains enchanted and spell-bound. It sweetens the bitter experiences of life, enlivens worried and dejected hearts and animates them with vigour, strength, hope and cheerfulness. It makes one forget the drudgery of this world and infuses renewed energy to perform the duties of life and to enjoy the toils and troubles with peace, tranquillity and happiness. Were it not for that something, earthly existence would be dull and dreary, human hearts would be dry like a desert and expressions of human affection would be neither seen nor heard in this universe of transitory phenomena. The tie of friendship and the invisible cord that binds the hearts of parents and children, and unites the souls of a husband and a wife, or of a lover and the beloved, would be broken forever, if that something were not behind all those tender feelings and attachments which we call human affections. In fact it is that unspeakable something which expresses itself as human love and human affection, brings peace and happiness to the soul, however momentary they may appear to be. Although it cannot be defined, still it has been called by various names in different countries. In the English language it is called ‘Love’.

Whenever this word is uttered, it touches our hearts and creates a thrilling sensation in the soul of a genuine lover. All human affections are but the manifestations of that wonderful power of love. It is one power that governs our lives. It is inseparable from our being. We do not ask what is love, instinctively we understand its nature. Why?

Because from the very moment that we are conscious of our own existence we begin to love ourselves, either consciously or unconsciously. This love of self is to be found in lower animals as well as in human beings. Wherever there is the expression of self, there is also the manifestation of the love of self. Lower animals cannot know their love of self objectively, but they know it subjectively; they love themselves instinctively, unconsciously as it were. Man is the only animal who is capable of knowing his love of self objectively as well as subjectively.

In the lowest forms of animals this love of self is extremely limited in its sphere. It is confined to their bodies only. But when we rise a little higher in the animal kingdom we notice that in the species of Mammalia the love of self extends a little beyond their bodies. They feel for their offspring, and take caree [care] of them as they do for their own bodies. This is the first expression of motherly affection. The same love gradually develops and manifests itself in man as human love, which is wider in range and stronger in power.

Animal love in man is the love of self, which is identified with the gross physical body. The body being the centre of love, animal love includes love of that which is connected with the body, of every object that is related to the physical form and of all things that bring a pleasing sensation or a comfortable feeling to the animal self.

This love leads to the worship of the gross physical body. The vast majority of mankind love their bodies and bodily comforts. To them that is the be-all and end-all of their life. They become strongly attached to their material forms and express their love of self by decorating their bodies with various things. From the tattooing of the body of a savage to the wearing of the most expensive garments and valuable jewels of a fashionable, up-to-date Parisienne, at every step this love of self and worship of the body are manifested in different ways.

Animal love forces one to seek pleasures of the senses and physical comforts. This love of self as identified with the body is very narrow and limited. It is called attachment to the animal self, or selfishness. Animal love is blind and he who lives on this plane, is extremely selfish, cruel and heartless toward others; but when the same man rises above animal nature, his love becomes less selfish. He, then, feels for others as he feels for himself. It is then human love.

Everyone of us living on the human plane is conscious of the feeling of human love, because all the mankind recognize and love a lover. Whenever and wherever a true lover appears like a magnet, he attracts and draws loving souls around him, and transforms them with the magnetic power of love. The loving heart of a true mother which sends forth the rays of motherly affection, awakens the germ of love that is latent in the soul of her child. Gradually it begins to respond, and becomes attached to its mother just as much as a true mother is attached to her little one. This strong feeling of attachment lies at the bottom of all human affection. As a loving mother is attached to her baby, so loving children, loving youths, and loving friends all become attached to one another. The difference is only in degree and not in kind. Mutual attachment and mutual dependence are the signs of human affection; and this strong attachment, again, is the result of a kind of attraction which exists in the nature of love.

The nature of love is to attract. Wherever there is an expression of love, there is manifested a kind of mutual attraction first, and then mutual attachment and mutual feeling of possession. But in the intensity of love that attachment becomes so close that the lover and the beloved both are united into one. They have two separate bodies; but their mind, heart and soul are turned in the same key. When the one is struck the other responds. Therefore we may say that the climax of attachment is reached when there is perfect union and absolute oneness between the lover and the beloved. The same attraction which is known on the material plane as gravitation, molecular attraction, and chemical affinity when manifesting itself on the soul plane, is called love. Love is the attraction between a soul and a soul. Matter cannot attract the soul. Like attracts the like. We may think by mistake that the dead matter attracts the soul, but in reality it is the soul that attracts another soul. The mother loves the beautiful face of her child and kisses it. However ugly the child may be, the mother does not see that. We have never seen a mother who does not consider her new-born babe to be the best, finest and most beautiful of all. Do you think that when a true mother loves the face of her child, she loves merely the material particles that make up its beautiful form? Certainly not. The particles of matter cannot attract the soul of the mother. It is the soul of the child lying behind the material face that attracts the soul of the mother. If the child dies, the same mother will not care for the material body of the dead babe. It is for this reason said in the Vedanta: “A mother loves her child not for the child’s sake, not for its material form, but for the sake of the soul, the Atman, the Lord that lives in the child”. The mother may not know it, but it is true, nevertheless. Similarly, “a wife loves her husband not for the sake of his physical form, but for the soul, the Atman that lies behind his body”.^[1] Wherever there is true love there is that pure attraction between two souls.

But ordinary human love or human affection which binds the soul to earthly conditions and makes it attached to the pleasures of the senses and which is governed by selfish motives and selfish desires is blind. It brings sorrow, suffering and misery in the end. The excess of ordinary human affection generally leads to tragic results which we so often notice around us, and the graphic descriptions of which we so often read in the pages of the novels and dramas of the world.

Human affection, when governed by selfishness, produces a strong passion which rouses the animal craving for the gratification of the sense desires. From the standpoint of the world it is the most natural and most desirable thing, but from the standpoint of divine love it is nothing but misdirected love. It is an animal passion. All evil and wickedness which we find in a community and whatever is bad and sinful in a society is but the ill-directed working out of the feeling of love. It is the manifestation of selfish love, while all goodness and virtue are the results of acts which proceed from properly directed unselfish love.

Human affection, which lies at the root of murder, theft, robbery and all sorts of vices, is extremely selfish. The same human love when misdirected makes one a thief or a liar, a robber or; a murderer, but when guided by unselfishness, leads to self-sacrifice for the sake of another. A man who sacrifices his own life in saving that of another, loves another’s life exactly in the same degree as a murderer loves his own self when he kills a man to enrich himself or to fulfil his selfish motive. The direction of love is proper and right in the case of the former, while in the case of the latter, it is improper and wrong.

Human affection naturally seeks a return of love. No one has ever seen a lover on the human plane in wordly [worldly?] life who does not expect to be loved in turn or who does not seek some kind of return for his or her love. But on the spiritual plane there are hundreds of instances where men and women have sacrificed everything, even their lives, for the love of some ideal, whether it is personal or impersonal, without seeking any return whatsoever. There is the expression of divine love. So long as love is mutual, that is, for the benefit of both the lover and the beloved, it is human. But when the stream of love flows toward an object simply for the good of the object and makes the lover forget himself for the time being, that love is uplifting and divine. Any thing or any act that makes us forget our small personality, our little individuality, our dear little self, is divine, because it leads Godward. That we should practice, that we should cultivate, and anything that emphasizes our small personality, that centres our thought upon the sense of I, Me, Mine—my opinion, my this and my that—is low down on the human plane, is not spiritual, is not divine. Human love or human affection which is limited by personality and is confined within the narrow sphere of personal self, and which strongly brings out the sense of I, Me, Mine, should be transformed into divine love by not thinking of one’s self, by not seeking one’s own comfort and pleasure, but by directing it toward the soul or the Atman of the beloved, or toward the spiritual ideal, which is divine and perfect.

It is true that human nature seeks companionship and longs for a suitable match for love; but all mortal companions on this plane are only for the time being. That craving of the soul will not be absolutely satisfied until the Eternal object of love is discovered.^[2] The Eternal object of love can be realized in the finite and concrete man or woman when we rise above the physical plane and understand that each individual soul is divine and immortal. It is a mere self-delusion to seek the fulness of love in any man or woman. Therefore, it is necessary to make the Eternal Ideal the object of all human affection.

Father’s love should recognize that Ideal as his child. Mother’s love should see it in her new-born babe; the love of a brother or of a sister should establish fraternal relation with It. A husband who is devoted to his wife should think of his Eternal Ideal in the soul of his wife; and a wife should put her highest spiritual Ideal in the soul of her beloved husband and love him with her whole heart and soul. The love of a friend should look upon It as his dearest friend and the divine companion. In this way all earthly relations could be spiritualized and all human affection could in course of time be transformed into the expressions of divine love in daily life. There would be no more cause of dissatisfaction in a household, no more fighting between brothers and sisters, no more quarreling between parents and children, no more divorce on account of incompatibility of temper. Then each of these human affections will be like a path that leads to divine reality and eternal happiness. Each human affection will then find its right mark to the eternal father, divine mother, divine child, divine husband and divine friend, since Vedanta teaches that Divinity dwells in each individual soul and can be realized through any of these relations.

In India a true and sincere seeker after divine love personifies his divine ideal in the form of an incarnation of God whom he worships as his divine master, and loves Him with his whole heart and soul, establishing all relations which are needed in human affection. He says: “O Lord, Thou art my mother, father, friend and relative; Thou art my knowledge and wealth; Thou art my all in all”. A true lover of God thus forgets all earthly relations and enters into the holy spiritual family of his divine master. This is the spiritual birth of the soul. If absolute sincerity and earnestness be at the bottom of his heart, and if his love be truly unselfish, then the disciple through this devotion will eventually reach the supreme goal of divine love. The stream of human affection breaking down all the barriers of blood relation and the mountain of selfishness, falls in that river of divine love which is constantly flowing from the pure heart and unselfish soul of his spiritual master, into the infinite ocean of Divinity. Thus the true disciple and the divine master become one in spirit and reach the goal together. In this sense a true spiritual master or divine incarnation may be called the mediator, the Saviour of such individual souls who are earnest and sincere seekers after spirituality and divine love. This is the path of love for those who are fortunate enough to find such an all-absorbing spiritual ideal or divine incarnation in a human form. Blessed are they who have become the disciples of a divine master.

In each individual heart is flowing a stream of love, which like a confined river constantly seeks an outlet through which it can run into that ocean of divine love which is called God. It may not find any outlet for many years, or it may remain bottled up for ages within the narrow limits of animal self, but it never loses that innate tendency to run towards the infinite ocean of love. It must find its way out of that limitation sooner or later. Every drop of that stream of love which flows in a human heart, however, contains the germ of divine love. As a drop of water in a river contains all the chemical properties of the water of the ocean, so a drop of love, whether pure or impure, is of the same nature as a drop from the ocean of divine love. It varies in its character according to the direction toward which it flows and to the nature by which it is governed. When it flows toward one’s own self it is animal; when toward another for mutual benefit or for earthly return, it is worldly and human; but when it is directed toward the divine Ideal it is divine.

Divine love brings a cessation of all sorrow, suffering and pain; it lifts the soul above all bondage, breaks the fetters of selfish attachment and worldliness. All selfishness vanishes and the soul enters into the abode of absolute freedom and everlasting happiness.

The object of attachment in human affection is a changeable and mortal object, while the object of attachment in divine love is the unchangeable and immortal Being, the Lord of the universe.

Some people have an erroneous notion that religion of Vedanta teaches that we should not encourage human affection and human love. On the contrary, Vedanta teaches that our life on the human plane will be bitter and dry like a desert if it be not sweetened by human love. If the dew drops of human affection do not moisten the dry and barren heart of a selfish man, how can the germ of divine love which is latent in each soul, sprout and grow into a big tree bearing the blossoms of kindness, sympathy, fellow compassion and all other, tender feelings which produce the fruits of peace, freedom and happiness! So long as we are on the human plane we should cultivate and practise human love and human affection. But when soul learns by bitter experience that the object of human love and affection is only an ordinary mortal, when it longs for an immortal something which is higher and greater, when the soul rises from the human to the spiritual plane, and obtains glimpses of that which is unchangeable and absolute; how can such a soul be satisfied with human limitations and human imperfections I It is then that the soul longs for the expression of all affection on the spiritual plane. It is then that the soul becomes a seeker after the Absolute and a lover of the divine Ideal. Until that time has arrived, one does not care for anything that is higher than human affection. As on the human plane, forced love is never sweet and genuine, so on the spiritual plane love for the spiritual ideal or divine master must be spontaneous and intense, unwavering and whole-souled; otherwise dissatisfaction and unhappiness will be the result, if it be forced in any way by any being. Therefore, according to Vedanta human affection and divine love each has its value in its own sphere.

Divine love seeks no return. Whenever there is a feeling of getting anything as a return of love, it is like a shop-keeper’s love for his customer, or like a paid servant’s love for his master. There is no expression of unselfish love in the service of a paid servant, because he is bound to serve; otherwise he will not receive his wage, and will be dismissed. True love does not manifest itself in bondage or slavery, but in freedom; similarly, a man who serves God for some kind of return has no unselfish love in his heart. A priest who receives salary for his service or preaching, does not serve, does not preach through pure love, but for that return. If he did not get his recompense he would stop preaching. It is for this reason a professional preacher or a paid priest is held in such a low estimation in India. But he works through pure love, whose work is a free offering to the world. Such a man never thinks of earning his livelihood by selling his works. He is sure that the world would feed him and take care of him. He never thinks of the morrow, but the morrow thinks of him. This grand expression of divine love was demonstrated in the lives of Jesus the Christ, Buddha, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and other great preachers of Truth. The commercial instinct of many of the modern preachers has blinded their eyes with a veil of wordliness [worldliness?] and shop-keeper’s love, and therefore they do not see the true spirit of Christ’s teachings. How many religious teachers of to-day explain that divine love which knows no return, and how few preachers do preach without seeking any remuneration for their labour? There is a great difference between a professional preacher and a true lover of God. The one is a beggar, a shop-keeper and the other offers freely what he has to give and thinks of no return of wealth, name, fame or social position.

Divine love brings non-attachment to worldly pleasures and motive power is fear of punishment? No. Can there be love in a slave who serves his master through fear of being punished if he did not serve? Can there be love in the heart of a devotee who worships God to avoid eternal punishment? No. Love and fear cannot dwell in the same place at the same time. Fear proceeds from attachment to self, while true love makes one unattached to self. Fear and love are like two opposite poles. Divine love conquers all fear. Do we not see that when a girl truly falls in love with her lover, she loses all fear? She is not afraid of her parents, relatives, the criticism of her friends, the social custom, the laws of the state, not even death. So a true lover of God does not fear anything in the universe. With this intense feeling of fearlessness the martyrs have boldly faced brutal persecution, excruciating agony and have gone to the stake to be burned alive with a smiling countenance.

A true lover of God loves everything of the world. He does not see good or evil, misery or sorrow, disease or death. Divine love opens his spiritual eye and he realizes that everything comes from God, that everything is God’s, that all living creatures are His children. He sees the divine ideal as manifesting Himself through all animate and inanimate objects of the universe. So he cannot help loving everything and all creatures equally. He feels that nothing in the world can happen without God’s will. He surrenders his individual will to the universal Will. Resigning himself entirely to the all knowing Will, he welcomes most heartily everything good or bad that comes in his way. If a disease comes, he says: “My Beloved has sent me His guest. I must take care of him, and serve him”. He thinks himself extremely blessed at every moment of his life, and welcomes death as he would welcome his most beloved sister, saying: “Come, sister Death, come and take the offering of my body”. How can such a soul be afraid of death? This type of a true lover of God is still to be found in India. Absolute self-surrender and self-resignation take away all fear. This is the state when a man can say from the very bottom of his soul and with perfect assurance: “Let Thy Will be done, and not mine”. Ordinary persons repeat it like a parrot without having any feeling of true self-surrender in their hearts.

Divine love brings non-attachment to worldly pleasures and enjoyments. As a true mother forgets all pleasures and enjoyments when she kisses and fondles her new-born babe, as that all-absorbing motherly love swallows up her attachment to other things, and makes her extremely attached to the child, as she unconsciously renounces every other thought, so a true lover of God unconsciously renounces the desires for any other pleasure or enjoyment. Therefore, divine love makes him unattached to the things of the world. It brings to the soul absolute freedom from the bondage of selfishness and ignorance.

It is nobler and better than good works, greater than knowledge, higher than concentration and meditation, because all these end in divine love, while divine love is its own end. It is the easiest path of all.

Divine love straightens out all crookedness of the heart and destroys the germs of vanity and self-conceit which are deeply rooted in human soul. It cannot be confined by any scripture, but the words and deeds of such a true lover of God become the scriptures of the World.

Divine love brings the highest ecstatic or superconscious state in which the individual soul eternally communes with God, the universal Spirit. In this state of ecstasy the soul of a bhakta becomes intoxicated, as it were, with the wine of divine love. He cannot stand on his feet, he talks in a tongue which no one can understand. Ordinary persons may call him insane because they do not know him in the least.

In India I saw Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna who is regarded as the latest divine manifestation of the present age. He attained to this ecstasy and lived as the perfect embodiment of divine love. In his ecstatic condition he used to be intoxicated just as much as a drunkard would be after drinking bottles of wine. Many people imagined that perhaps he was in the habit of drinking; and when he used to talk in a tongue unknown to human beings they thought that he was mad. Hearing these remarks Ramakrishna replied: “Yes, what people say is perfectly true. In the insane asylum of this world who is not mad? Everyone is mad after something or other; one is mad after a wife, another after a husband, a third after wealth, some after name, fame or objects of ambition or power. Show me one who is not mad after any one of these transitory things, but I am mad after God, who is eternal and everlasting, the Soul of my soul; which is better?”

Such a God-intoxicated soul does not care for what others would say of him. In his eyes nothing exists but he himself and his most beloved Lord. The whole world is on one side, while he is on the other. His spiritual strength knows no bounds. Whosoever has ever tasted one single drop of that soul-stirring divine love, has gained infinite strength and unlimited power which is able to conquer the whole world within the twinkling of an eye. His body may be killed or crucified by the world, but he is immortal as the Lord Himself. Do you think that the souls of the true lovers of God who lived in the past are dead now? No. Each one of them is perfect and blissful and divine. Each one will live with the Lord forever throughout all eternity.

A true lover of God does not care for salvation, nor for Nirvana, nor for heavenly pleasures, nor does he fear rebirth in this world of phenomena.

His constant prayer is:

“O Lord! O Imperishable One! I do not care whether I am born thousands of times over again. Wherever I wander, may I always have undying love and everlasting devotion to Thee; O Embodiment of absolute Existence, Intelligence, Bliss and Love!”

Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna says:

“The two characteristics of ecstatic love are, first, the forgetfulness of the external world, and second, the forgetfulness of one’s own body which is so dear to one. The first is like the unripe mango, the second is like the ripe mango. Ecstatic love of God is like a string in the hands of the bhakta which binds God. The devotee holds the Lord under his control, so to speak. The Lord must come to him whenever he calls out to Him. In Persian books it is written that within the flesh are the bones, within the bones is the marrow, within the marrow, the last and innermost of all, is this ecstatic love. Sri Krishna is called Tribhanga; that is, the usual posture of His body is bent in three different angles. Now a soft substance alone can take such an angular shape, so this form of Sri Krishna implies that His whole being must have been made very tender by this ecstatic love.

“Chaitanya Deva was the incarnation of divine love or bhakti. He came to teach mankind true bhakti. He used to have three states of consciousness in ecstasy. First, consciousness of the gross and subtle body. At this time he would repeat the Name of the Lord and sing His praises in sankirtana. Second, consciousness of the casual body alone. In this state he would become intoxicated with ecstatic joy, and retaining partial consciousness of the external, he would dance in company with other bhaktas. Third, consciousness of the Absolute. In this state he would enter into the highest realm of samadhi, and rising above all sense-consciousness, his body would remain apparently lifeless. These states correspond to the five sheaths of the soul in Vedanta. According to Vedanta the gross body includes the material form which is the outermost sheath and the sheath of prana or the sense-organs and sense-powers. The subtle body includes two sheaths, mental and intellectual. The casual body is the sheath of joyfulness. Beyond these five is the true Self, the Absolute. When the mind reaches this state, the highest samadhi or God-consciousness is the result.

“Suppose you see God, or that God manifests Himself to you. Will you say to Him: ‘Lord, do Thou grant that I may have lots of dispensaries and hospitals, schools and colleges!’ A true devotee shall rather pray in this wise: ‘Grant, O good Lord, that I may have a niche in the Lotus of Thy Feet, that it may be my privilege to live always in Thy Holy Presence and that I may have deep and unalloyed devotion unto Thee’.

“There are three kinds of love,—unselfish (samartha), mutual (samanajasa), and selfish (sadharani). The unselfish love is of the highest kind. The lover only minds the welfare of the beloved and does not care for his own sufferings. In mutual love the lover not only wants the happiness of his beloved but has an eye towards his own happiness also. It is middling. The selfish love is the lowest. It only looks towards its own happiness, no matter whether the beloved suffers weal or woe.”

“Q. Can divine Love be acquired by reading books?

“A. The Hindu almanacs contain predictions of the annual rainfall, mentioning how many inches of rain will fall throughout the country. But if we squeeze the book, so full of rain predictions, not even a drop of water can be got out of it. So also, many good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one spiritual. One must practise the virtues taught therein to acquire the love of God.”

“Q. Why does the God-lover renounce everything for Him?

“A. The moth, after seeing the light, never returns to darkness; the ant dies in the sugar-heap, but never retreats therefrom; similarly the God-lover gladly sacrifices his life for the attainment of divine Bliss and cares for nothing else”.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Cf. Swami Abhedananda: Self-Knowledge, pp. 164-165.

[2]:

“As all love that attaches itself to a person must be impermanent, the love of a woman is doomed to unhappiness. All such love has this sort of failure inherent in it.” “All love that is attached to enduring worth is attached to the absolute, to the idea of God, whether that idea be a pantheistic conception of enduring nature or remain transcendental: the love that attaches itself to an individual thing, as to a woman, must fail”.—Sex and Character, by Otto Weininger, p. 247.