Sai message for the day

[Guest guest]

You repeatedly mention `love' in your discourses. Why? Don't we have

prema, love, within us? If not, how are we to develop it? What is the

difference between prema, love and móha, attachment?

 

You think you have prema, love. It is a mistake. You have only

abhimana, attachment. There is a lot of difference between the two.

You have misdirected love and allowed it to flow in different ways

and ultimately got it steeped in attachment. You have forgotten real

prema.

 

The love you have towards your children is vatsalya, `affection'.

Your love towards your wife is anuraga, `attachment' and your love

towards worldly objects is mamakara , `possessiveness'. Your love

towards your equals is maitri, `friendship'. Like this, love flows in

many different directions. All this is not love in the true sense of

the term. This is all physical, worldly, ever changing and temporary.

This may give you prapancikánanda, worldly pleasure, bhautikánanda,

mundane pleasure, indriyánanda, sensual pleasure, and manasikananda

desire oriented love. They give you only pleasure.

 

Today you may be happy with one thing and tomorrow you may not be

with the same thing. In winter, you are happy wearing a woollen coat

but in summer, you will be unhappy if you wear the same woollen coat.

Therefore, time, position, space and states of mind bind happiness.

This is the type of happiness you get out of abhimána, attachment.

Dasaratha, the king of Ayodhya in the Ramayana, died of his

attachment to Rama as he couldn't bear separation from him. It is

again, the attachment of Kaikeyi that led to the attempt to crown

Bharata and the exile of Rama.

 

You observe the contrast between Rama and Dasaratha. The father,

Dasaratha, due to his attachment to Kaikeyi, had to be separated from

Rama by granting her the boons he had promised. But, his son, Rama,

left his consort Sita to her fate in a forest, when a washerman spoke

ill of her as she had spent eight long months in Lanka under the

control of Ravana. What supreme detachment! He had no attachment to

the kingdom either. So, he simply obeyed his father's command and

left for the forest.

 

In the Mahabharata, you know how king Dhritarashtra remained silent

due to attachment when his sons were committing atrocities against

their cousins, the Pandavas, which ultimately led to the death of all

his progeny. Isn't it so?

 

Don't you know that Yasoda couldn't fully comprehend the divinity of

Krishna because she considered him always only her son and never as

God, due to her vátsalya, attachment? Had Buddha been attached to his

wife, Yasodhara and his son, Rahul, would it have been possible for

him to leave them? Krishna, once he left Vrepalle, a place where he

had spent his boyhood, never stepped in there again. He was not

attached to the place. But, his connection with the Gopis continued,

as it was only love-to-love relationship, which was divine. The love

of the Pandavas suffered no decrease or loss in spite of the terrible

sufferings they had gone through.

 

Love is changeless. Love is steady and unshakeable. Love is non-dual.

Love is not carried away by praise nor does it vanish with blame.

Love is selfless and unconditional. Love is spiritual and essentially

divine: It was the love of Jesus for humanity that made him pray for

those who had persecuted him while he was on the cross. Isn't that a

climax of love?

 

Attachment is confined to getting and forgetting, while love always

gives and forgives. Love is God. God is love. Live in love.

Attachment is bondage leading to misery. Attachment is narrow and

utterly selfish.

 

A child is full of love and bliss. As he grows up, he starts loving

toys; thereafter he loves to play and slowly starts loving friends.

On becoming a youth, he loves a life-partner, then his family, and

gradually he develops love for possessions, position and properties.

Thus, love is allowed to flow in different directions, and as such,

it becomes diluted and finally reduced to attachment.

 

Your love for God is devotion, and helps you to cultivate virtues

like humility and obedience and makes your life blissful. It helps

you to attain mukti, liberation. What you need today is the expansion

of love.

 

First of all, you start with loving your family, extend your love to

your relations and slowly to your community and your country as a

whole and ultimately to the entire universe. You can realise and

experience God only by and through Love, as God is the embodiment of

Love. You may find people in want of one thing or other. But, you

find none lacking in love. You have to channelise it. Love is the

natural quality which is God's gift to man.