Taste of Heaven: Devotional Love

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Taste of Heaven: Devotional Love

Once, Krishna's wife Rukmini served a glass of steaming hot milk to Radha, His

childhood sweetheart. The moment Radha took a sip of the milk, Krishna's feet

got blisters. A smiling Krishna explained that Radha's devoted heart enthroned

his feet and so, on her drinking the hot milk, His feet got burnt.

This power of devotion symbolises God's response to a devotee's deep love. In

the Srimad Bhagavatam, Krishna says: "Many are the means described for the

attainment of the highest goal... but of all, love is the highest; love and

devotion that make one forget everything else; love that unites the devotee

with me... as all earthly pleasures fade into nothingness."

The path of love is considered supreme because it is wholly selfless and entails

the total erasing of self for the love of the supreme Self. The chains of maya

bind us. The jnani's strength and knowledge breaks the chains; the bhakta on

the other hand, becomes so small and ego-less, he slips through the chains. In

bhakti, the mind melts in love for God and so is dissolved. In jnana, the mind

is mastered and overpowered by the force of wisdom.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba says: "Love is the most powerful thing in the world... All

the yogas are included in the path of love, and whoever attains this love,

attains God."

Mystics and saints of all religions have testified to the glory of supreme love.

‘‘It is the power that moves the sun and other stars." said Dante. According to

scriptures, God created this universe for love and that love is the very

purpose of our existence. Love confers ananda and softens the grind of mundane

existence.

Tyagaraja sang: "Is there greater bliss O God, than to dance, to sing to you, to

pray for your presence, and unite with you in my mind?" The Narada Bhakti Sutras

describe bhakti as a transcendental experience of bliss, in which the ego is

completely dissolved and absorbed in the divine.

Divine love is untainted by any motive. Divine love is transitory, a pale

reflection of the real thing. But love for God is unchanging and eternal.

Worldly love is erratic and subject to change; Divine love is flawless, it is

ever charged with its own energy. It is nitya nutanam or ever-new.

Like God, who is limitless, His love is also without boundaries and

ever-expanding. The love of the gopis for Krishna is celebrated in our

scriptures because it was of this exalted nature. It transcended mind and body

and touched the soul.

The Sufi saint, Bayazid-al-Bistani, expressed it thus: "A single atom of the

love of God in a heart is worth more than a hundred thousand paradises." Sufi

literature and music is rich with the rapture that characterises devotional

love. The Christian mystic Richard of Saint Victor said: "The whole system of

human reasoning succumbs to that which the soul perceives of the divine light;

when the soul is raised above itself and ravished in ecstasy."

To attain this state, how-ever, you have to pay a price. Mirabai, the 16th

century saint-poet, sang: "Kanha, the price He asked, I gave. Some cry, ‘tis

great, and others jeer, ‘tis small — I gave in full, weighed to the utmost

grain, my love, my life, my soul, my all..." As mystics have testified there

is peace and fulfillment in devotion that nothing else can bring. Chaitanya

Mahaprabhu said: "I pray not for wealth, I pray not for honours, I pray not for

pleasures or even for the joys of poetry. I only pray that during all my life, I

may have love: that I may have love to love Thee."

By Shammi Paranjape

Arun Reddy Nukala

+44 7946 595063

http://groups.msn.com/

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