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Written by Sri Swami Chandrashekarendra
Saraswati |
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The purpose of human birth is to live a life full of love for all. No
joy is
greater than that of loving others. Amassing wealth, acquiring property,
earning fame, bedecking oneself give but transient pleasure, not any
sense of fullness. The happiness that permeates our inner being is the
happiness of loving others. When we love others we are not conscious of
our suffering, the physical exertion we make and the money we spend:
indeed the joy of loving gives us a transcendent feeling. A life in
which
there is no love for others is a life lived in vain.
I said that when we love a person we forget our sorrows. But one day, at
last, it may be that the object of our love itself becomes the cause of
great sorrow. One day the person we love leaves us forever-or one day
we will leave him forever. "O he has left me forever"-"O I am leaving
him
for ever": we lament in this manner. We feel disturbed when we realise
that all the happiness that love gave us has at last proved to be a lie
and
ended in sorrow. "Is the final outcome of love then sorrow?” We ask
ourselves in agitation. The greater our love for a person the more
intense
our grief when he or she is separated from us forever. We may then even
wonder whether a life without love, a life of selfishness or a life of
insensibility would be better. One leading such a life will not be
affected
by being separated from the object of his affection.
A selfish or self-centred man, however, gathers only sin. Is it not a
life
lived without joy- a life lived without a sense of fullness- a life
lived in
vain, a life like that of a log of wood or stone?
[The problem then is]: Our love for others ends in sorrow. However, if
there is no love there is no meaning in life. What is the solution to
this
problem? We must create such love as will never change, love that will
be
enduring. The object of our love must never become separated from us,
never desert us. If there were such an object and if we devoted all our
love to it we would never be separated from one another- there would be
eternal bliss, everlasting fullness.
To explain, we must love the One Object that never changes. What is that
Object? The Paramatman. The Paramatman will never be separated from
us. Even if our life departs it will dissolve in the Paramatman and
become
one with him. Only that love is everlasting which is dedicated to him.
The question arises: If one is to love the Paramatman that never
perishes,
does it mean that we must not love anyone else, that we must not love
others because they will perish one day? If our love for the Supreme
Being keeps growing the truth will dawn on us that there is no one or
nothing other than He. All those whom we loved, all those who caused us
sorrow by being separated from us, they too will seem to us the
imperishable Supreme Being. We must learn to look upon the entire
universe as the Paramatman and love it as such. Our love then shall
never
be a cause of sorrow.
Even if it be that our love is not such as to embrace the universe with
all
its creatures as an expression of the Paramatman, we can learn to love
with ease all those great men of Atmic qualities as the Paramatman, so
also our sadguru who is full of wisdom and grace. Sufficient it would be
to
love them and surrender to them. Through them the Paramatman will
give us his blessings. When someone we love dies we should not grieve
for him. We must console ourselves that only the body which was the
disguise of the Paramatman has perished, that the one who was in that
disguise has become united with the Paramatman. Our love then will be
everlasting. We must first learn to have such love for Isvara and for
people of goodness, for men of God. Then step by step, we must enlarge
it to embrace all creation. In this way the purpose of our life will be
fulfilled. |
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