God is Love, Live in Love

[Guest guest]

delivering Divine discourses to the gathering. Because, this is the real nature

of mankind.Swarm's advent of this present Avatar hood is to regenerate the

mankind, with the human values informing both our view and way of life. As all

of us know, what these values are viz.,, Sathya, Dharma, Shanthi, Prema and

Ahimsa. If only the prime value of universal Prema is fostered and developed in

our life, it will be very easy and almost automatic to develop the other values.

How do we go about it ? According to Bhagavan it is very simple; it only

requires a degree of earnestness in our efforts. Man is by very nature love

personified. But the self and the desires of the self have come to grip our

thoughts and actions in our lives, past and present. Our efforts, therefore,

should be, to purify our chitha by removing the accumulated dirt slowly so that

the ever present quality of love surfac es in all our thoughts and deeds. Swami

is, in fact, making us aware of the inherent LOVE in us

by subtle methods of spiritual sadhanas inculcating in us.To develop universal

love, we have to first realize that the universe is only a manifestation of

Divinity, and that Divinity is inherent in all living beings, what Swami call

as Resident Divinity We should extend our love to every living beings as a

manifestation of the same divinity, and in the same way, as we love God Swami

also invariably emphasizes the need to have expansion of love and not

contraction of love which means that love should be selfless and with not

selfish motive.We love our family members, because they happen to be our

wife/husband, son, daughter, father or mother. The love extended to all these

relatives is only selfish in nature. Our love is conditional based on our

relationships. We even find variations in the intensity of love towards

different relatives, depending upon the degree of attachment with each one of

them. But the divine love is not conditional It is selfless.Our love

to God should also be selfless. "Love is selflessness and self is lovelessness.

Love is a mutual feeling. Love generates Love. When you love somebody it is

always reciprocated. Even a person of very hard nature responds to love. I

remember a story narrated by a senior devotee in Madras, during one of his

discourses,. in a study circle meeting.It was said that during period of His

boyhood, Sri Krishna was undergoing Gurukula Vaasam (living in the hermitage of

the Guru) with Guru Sandeepini Maharshi along with Balarama and Sudhama. In the

performance of the chores all the three used to go to the forest to fetch

firewood for the Ashram. One day it was too late in the night, they were still

in the forest and they had to camp there. They decided to take turns so that

one could be awake, while the other two could sleep under the tree. First it

was the turn of Sudhama to keep vigil. While doing so, he noticed that a gang

of tribal men were passing by, closely where they were

resting. Sudhama thought that they might cause harm to them and tried to scare

them away, by angry gestures. The tribal folk did not mean any harm to Krishna

and company. And yet when Sudhama tried to threaten them by gestures, they also

reacted likewise. Luckily, without much ado they moved away.Next, it was the

turn of Balarama, to take over from Sudhama. He also noticed the tribal folks

moving about in the area. Balarama too tired to scare them away by angry

gestures to which they responded angrily. Balarama did not leave them at that.

He gestured that he would attack them if they did not move away from that

place. The tribal folk responded in the same manner and measure. They got

nearer to Balarama and beat him brutally and then moved away. Balarama took it

quietly and retired for the night after his time was over.Last it was for Sri

Krishna to take over. The other two could not forget their respective

encounters and were not able to sleep. To their horror, they

found that the tribal people were once again passing through the place. They

were very eager to watch how Krishna was going to tackle them. On seeing the

tribal folk, Krishna waved His hands towards them smilingly conveying His good

wishes. They also responded smilingly. Krishna then, by His gestures, invited

them to come nearer. They came nearer and were all in smiles. They hugged each

other reflecting warmth and friendship. After a while, they went their way.The

devotee, in his talk, was further trying to explain to us, how our own feelings

get reflected in others. When you show hatred to any one, the other party also

responds with hatred. When you show love, they also extend their love to you.

Love is reciprocated by love Swami often points out the simple analogy of a

person looking at the mirror. If the person puts on an angry face, the

reflection is also the same. If, one smiles, the reflection also smiles !Thirty

thousand feet above the earth, when an aircraft

was being high jacked, the devotee heard the command of Swami, to "love the

highjacker". How could you love a 'high jacker', when he was threatening to

blow up the plane killing every body on board. And yet this was the command.

The lady devotee, on hearing the message, mentally extended her love towards

them. It was reported that they, the 'highjackers' subsequently, lost their

nerves to live through the tension drama and ultimately surrendered to the

authorities.It is not enough if you say that you love somebody. In case of pure

love, we follow it up with positive action. When we love our child, we try to

express our love by purchasing and presenting something for the child to bring

joy. Any sincere feeling of love manifests itself into an action.When we love

God, God's love also manifests. In fact, God is ever loving and at times we are

not able to feel and enjoy that divine love because of certain inherent blocks

in our feelings of love. The magnetic power in

iron automatically attracts the ordinary iron. But in case the ordinary iron is

densely covered by rust and other impurities, the magnet can not attract it.

The rust in our feelings has to be removed and our chitha purified to be able

to absorb the abundant love from God. And we too should love God

unconditionally.When once we develop love towards someone, we start listening

to him or her with interest and act in the best way possible to please the

party, whom we love. When we say we love God, it implies and involves total

commitment to the Divine Commands and direction. We can then claim that we love

God, unconditionally.What Is it that Swami is instructing us? "Start the day

with Love spend the day with Love and End the day, with Love." We hear the

sayings of Swami several times, but we fail to put it in practice in our daily

life ‘Start the day with love.... But what do we do? A slight delay in getting

our morning coffee, or in sighting the newspaper boy, makes us

agitated. We have sharp remarks in reserve, for the maidservant if she comes

late or slips up, in work. In our conversations we exhibit irritation, because

it has been our way of life all along. We seem to have lost the faculty of

tolerance and softness in speech. Only when we are free of mental agitation, we

can speak softly and sweetly.Swami has been teaching to mend our habits and has

shown us the ways too. Early morning, if we sit for meditation followed by Japa

and pooja, our mind becomes calm and gets itself conditioned to accept the

events as they come and to develop tolerance, which in turns removes anger and

hatred. Love resumes its place in our mind. This is what Swami wants from us,

under item No I of 9 point Code of Conduct which has been prescribed for all

the devotees.As we go out into the world during the day we come into contact

with various personalities. Some of them, you may like and many others you may

not like. We react differently to different

people. You feel happy to see and talk to the one whom you like. You breed a

sense of aversion to those whom you do not like. It is very difficult to

condition the mind. Yet, we have to try and attempt to foster and develop a

proper balanced attitude and behavior towards every one. Constant remembrance

of Swami, in such situation, to some extent direct us to stick to proper

behavior. Swami teaches us to extend mentally our love towards such persons.

Our smiling face would elicit the same smile from the other party too.However

at times, when we are engaged in conversation with someone, the subject matter

quite often turns to those on whom we may have reservations. We pass comments

and criticize them. Swami warns us to be cautious and careful about this habit

and behavior. Remember Swami's dictum in the 9-Point Code of Conduct, which

says "Don't talk ill of others, especially in their absence".As the day closes

in, we prepare ourselves to retire for the day. While

doing so, we should spend a while in self-retrospection. What are all the

mistakes we have done during the day? Have we strayed away from the path of

Love any time during the day? We should contemplate, and try to improve our

performance the next day. It should be a continuous process. This is the

sadhana of self-discipline.As long as hatred and anger prevails in our mind, it

is very difficult to cultivate love in our hearts.Anger and hatred have to be

eliminated gradually by constant practice and tolerance and love assumes its

place automatically.The most tolerant person may encounter a very difficult man

who may even inflict mental or physical pain on us. Then what are we to do? Here

too, Swami says that we should not act in the manner of 'tit for tat'. For all

the pain inflicted, it is our duty to pray for forgiveness and for his welfare

in spite of all that he has done to you. This pleases Swami very much.Swami

wants us to live happily for ever, with

overwhelming love in our heart, for God is Love !

>From the book "Hrudaya Nivasi" by Bombay Srinivasan

Source: http://www.saibaba.ws/articles/godislove.htm