DIVINE LOVE

DIVINE LOVE

The first angle is,] love questions not.
It is not a beggar. . . . Beggar's love is no love at all





The first sign of love is
when love asks nothing, [when it] gives everything. This is the real spiritual
worship, the worship through love.
We have finished all begging: "Lord, give me this and that." Then will religion begin.


The second [angle of the triangle of love] is that love knows no fear. You may
cut me to pieces, and I [will] still love you.
Love knows no fear. It conquers all evil. The fear of God is the
beginning of religion, but the love of God is the end of religion. All fear has
died out.

The third [angle of the love-triangle is that] love is its own end.
It can never be
the means. The man who says, "I love you for such and such a thing", does not
love. Love can never be the means; it must be the perfect end.

What can you have higher than love?

John will get all the powers of Yoga simply by loving Jane, [although] he may

not know a word about religion, psychology, or theology.

I believe that if a
man and woman can really love, [they can acquire] all the powers the Yogis
claim to have, for love itself is God. That God is omnipresent, and [therefore]
you have that love, whether you know it or not.

This is the question: Is not your husband God, your child God? If you can love
your wife, you have all the religion in the world. You have the whole secret of
religion and Yoga in you. But can you love? That is the question. You say, "I
love . . . Oh Mary, I die for you! " [But if you] see Mary kissing another man,
you want to cut his throat. If Mary sees John talking to another girl, she cannot
sleep at night, and she makes life hell for John. This is not love. This is barter
and sale in sex. It is blasphemy to talk of it as love. The world talks day and
night of God and religion — so of love. Making a sham of everything, that is
what you are doing! Everybody talks of love, [yet in the] columns in the
newspapers [we read] of divorces every day.

Who becomes learned? He who can feel even one drop of love. God is love,
and love is God. And God is everywhere. After seeing that God is love and
God is everywhere, one does not know whether one stands on one's head or [on
one's] feet — like a man who gets a bottle of wine and does not know where he
stands. . . . If we weep ten minutes for God, we will not know where we are for
the next two months. . . . We will not remember the times for meals. We will
not know what we are eating. [How can] you love God and always be so nice
and businesslike? . . . The . . . all-conquering, omnipotent power of love —

how can it come? . .

All other thoughts must go. Everything must vanish
except God. The love the father or mother has for the child, [the love] the wife
[has] for the husband, the husband, for the wife, the friend for the friend — all
these loves concentrated into one must be given to God. Now, if the woman
loves the man, she cannot love another man. If the man loves the woman, he
cannot love another [woman]. Such is the nature of love.

There was one Yogi, a great lover. He was dying of cancer of the throat. He
[was] visited [by] another Yogi, who was a philosopher. [The latter] said,
"Look here, my friend, why don't you concentrate your mind on that sore of
yours and get it cured?" The third time this question was asked [this great
Yogi] said, "Do you think it possible that the [mind] which I have given
entirely to the Lord [can be fixed upon this cage of flesh and blood]?" Christ
refused to bring legions of angels to his aid. Is this little body so great that I
should bring twenty thousand angels to keep it two or three days more?

God is only love and nothing else — love first, love in the
middle, and love at the end.

One Yogi had attained supernatural powers. He said, "See my power! See the
sky; I will cover it with clouds." It began to rain. [Someone] said, "My lord,
you are wonderful. But teach me that, knowing which, I shall not ask for
anything else." ... To get rid even of power, to have nothing, not to want power!
[What this means] cannot be understood simply by intellect.


Love itself is the eternal, endless sacrifice. You will have to give up everything.
You cannot take possession of anything. Finding love, you will never [want]
anything [else]. ...

Why should the lover of God fear anything — fear robbers, fear distress, fear
even for his life? ... The lover [may ]go to the utmost hell, but would it be hell?
We all have to give up these ideas of heaven [and hell] and get greater [love].
... Hundreds there are seeking this madness of love before which everything
[but God vanishes].

At last, love, lover, and beloved become one. That is the goal. ... Why is there
any separation between soul and man, between soul and God? . . . Just to have
this enjoyment of love. He wanted to love Himself, so He split Himself into
many . . . "This is the whole reason for creation", says the lover. "We are all
one. 'I and my Father are one.' Just now I am separate in order to love God. ...
Which is better — to become sugar or to eat sugar? To become sugar, what fun
is that:? To eat sugar — that is infinite enjoyment of love."

There is only one
person from whom she does not hide anything. So with the man. ... The
[husband-] wife relationship is the all-rounded relationship. The relationship of
the sexes [has] all the other loves concentrated into one. In the husband, the
woman has the father, the friend, the child. In the wife, the husband has
mother, daughter, and something else.
 

That tremendous complete love of the
sexes must come [for God] — that same love with which a woman opens
herself to a man without any bond of blood — perfectly, fearlessly, and
shamelessly. No darkness! She would no more hide anything from her lover
than she would from her own self. That very love must come [for God]. These
things are hard and difficult to understand. You will begin to understand by and
by, and all idea of sex will fall away. "Like the water drop on the sand of the
river bank on a summer day, even so is this life and all its relations."

All these ideas [like] "He is the creator", are ideas fit for children. He is my
love, my life itself — that must be the cry of my heart! ...

"I have one hope. They call Thee the Lord of the world, and — good or evil,
great or small — I am part of the world, and Thou art also my love. My body,
my mind. and my soul are all at Thy altar. Love, refuse these gifts not!" 

WHO KNOWS HOW MOTHER PLAYS!

Perchance a prophet thou —
Who knows? Who dares touch
The depths where Mother hides
Her silent failless bolts!

Perchance the child had glimpse
Of shades, behind the scenes,
With eager eyes and strained,
Quivering forms — ready
To jump in front and be
Events! resistless, strong.
Who knows but Mother, how,
And where, and when, they come?  

                                                 
Perchance the shining sage
Saw more than he could tell;
Who knows, what soul, and when,
The Mother makes Her throne?

What law would freedom bind?
What merit guide Her will,
Whose freak is greatest order,
Whose will resistless law?

To child may glories ope
Which father never dreamt;
May thousandfold in daughter
Her powers Mother store.

THE MESSAGE OF DIVINE WISDOM

[The following three chapters were discovered among Swami Vivekananda's papers. He evidently intended to write a book and jotted down some points for the work.]

I BONDAGE  II THE LAW
III THE ABSOLUTE AND THE ATTAINMENT OF FREEDOM

I

BONDAGE

1. Desire is infinite, its fulfilment limited. Desire is unlimited in everyone; the power of fulfilment varies. Thus some are more successful than others in life.

2. This limitation is the bondage we are struggling against all our lives.

3. We desire only the pleasurable, not the painful.

4. The objects of desire are all complex — pleasure-giving and pain-bringing mixed up.

5. We do not or cannot see the painful parts in objects, we are charmed with only the pleasurable portion; and, thus grasping the pleasurable, we unwittingly draw in the painful.

6. At times we vainly hope that in our case only the pleasurable will come, leaving the painful aside, which never happens.

7. Our desires also are constantly changing — what we would prize today we would reject tomorrow. The pleasure of the present will be the pain of the future, the loved hated, and so on.

8. We vainly hope that in the future life we shall be able to gather in only the pleasurable, to the exclusion of the painful.

9. The future is only the extension of the present. Such a thing cannot be!

10. Whosoever seeks pleasure in objects will get it, but he must take the pain with it.

11. All objective pleasure in the long run must bring pain, because of the fact of change or death.

12. Death is the goal of all objects, change is the nature of all objective things.

13. As desire increases, so increases the power of pleasure, so the power of pain.

14. The finer the organism, the higher the culture — the greater is the power to enjoy pleasure and the sharper are the pangs of pain.

15. Mental pleasures are greatly superior to physical joys. Mental pains are more poignant than physical tortures.

16. The power of thought, of looking far away into the future, and the power of memory, of recalling the past to the present, make us live in heaven; they make us live in hell also.

17. The man who can collect the largest amount of pleasurable objects around him is as a rule too unimaginative to enjoy them. The man of great imagination is thwarted by the intensity of his feeling of loss, or fear of loss, or perception of defects.

18. We are struggling hard to conquer pain, succeeding in the attempt, and yet creating new pains at the same time.

19. We achieve success, and we are overthrown by failure; we pursue pleasure and we are pursued by pain.

20. We say we do, we are made to do. We say we work, we are made to labour. We say we live, we are made to die every moment. We are in the crowd, we cannot stop, must go on — it deserves no cheering. Had it not been so, no amount of cheering would make us undertake all this pain and misery for a grain of pleasure — which, alas, in most cases is only a hope!

21. Our pessimism is a dread reality, our optimism is a faint cheering, making the best of a bad job.

II

THE LAW

1. The law is never separate from the phenomena, the principle from the person.

2. The law is the method of action or poise of every single phenomenon within its scope.

3. We get our knowledge of law from the massing and welding of changes that occur. We never see law beyond these changes. The idea of law as something separate from phenomena is a mental abstraction, a convenient use of words and nothing more. Law is a part of every change within its range, a manner which resides in the things governed by the law. The power resides in the things, is a part of our idea of that thing — its action upon something else is in a certain manner — this is our law.

4. Law is in the actual state of things — it is in how they act towards each other, and not in how they should. It might have been better if fire did not burn or water wet; but that they do — this is the law; and if it is a true law, a fire that does not burn or water that does not wet is neither fire nor water.

5. Spiritual laws, ethical laws, social laws, national laws — are laws if they are parts of existing spiritual and human units and the unfailing experience of the action of every unit said to be bound by such laws.

6. We, by turn, are made by law and make it. A generalization of what man does invariably in certain circumstances is a law with regard to man in that particular aspect. It is the invariable, universal human action that is law for man — and which no individual can escape — and yet the summation of the action of each individual is the universal Law. The sum total, or the universal, or the infinite is fashioning the individual, while the individual is keeping by its action the Law alive. Law in this sense is another name for the universal. The universal is dependent upon the individual, the individual dependent upon the universal. It is an infinite made up of finite parts, an infinite of number, though involving the difficulty of assuming an infinity summed up of finites — yet for all practical purposes, it is a fact before us. And as the law, or whole, or the infinite cannot be destroyed — and the destruction of a part of an infinite is an impossibility, as we cannot either add anything to or subtract anything from the infinite — each part persists for ever.

7. Laws regarding the materials of which the body of man is composed have been found out, and also the persistence of these materials through time has been shown. The elements which composed the body of a man a hundred thousand years ago have been proved to be still existing in some place or other. The thoughts which have been projected also are living in other minds.

8. But the difficulty is to find a law about the man beyond the body.

9. The spiritual and ethical laws are not the method of action of every human being. The systems of ethics of morality, even of national laws, are honoured more in the breach than in the observance. If they were laws how could they be broken?

10. No man is able to go against the laws of nature. How is it that we always complain of his breaking the moral laws, national laws?

11. The national laws at best are the embodied will of a majority of the nation — always a state of things wished for, not actually existing.

12. The ideal law may be that no man should covet the belongings of others, but the actual law is that a very large number do.

13. Thus the word law used in regard to laws of nature has a very different interpretation when applied to ethics and human actions generally.

14. Analysing the ethical laws of the world and comparing them with the actual state of things, two laws stand out supreme. The one, that of repelling everything from us — separating ourselves from everyone — which leads to self-aggrandisement even at the cost of everyone else's happiness. The other, that of self-sacrifice — of taking no thought of ourselves — only of others. Both spring from the search for happiness — one, of finding happiness in injuring others and the ability of feeling that happiness only in our own senses. The other, of finding happiness in doing good to others — the ability of feeling happy, as it were, through the senses of others The great and good of the world are those who have the latter power predominating. Yet both these are working side by side conjointly; in almost everyone they are found in mixture, one or the other predominating. The thief steals, perhaps, for someone he loves.

III

THE ABSOLUTE AND THE ATTAINMENT OF FREEDOM

1. Om Tat Sat — that Being — Knowing — Bliss.

(a) The only real Existence, which alone is — everything else exists inasmuch as it reflects that real Existence.

(b) It is the only Knower — the only Self-luminous — the Light of consciousness. Everything else shines by light borrowed from It. Everything else knows inasmuch as it reflects Its knowing.

(c) It is the only Blessedness — as in It there is no want. It comprehends all — is the essence of all.

It is Sat-Chit-Ânanda.

(d) It has no parts, no attributes, neither pleasure nor pain, nor is it matter nor mind. It is the Supreme, Infinite, Impersonal Self in everything, the Infinite Ego of the Universe.

(e) It is the Reality in me, in thee, and in everything — therefore,

"That thou art" — Tattvamasi.

2. The same Impersonal is conceived by the mind as the Creator, the Ruler, and the Dissolver of this universe, its material as well as its efficient cause, the Supreme Ruler — the Living, the Loving, the Beautiful, in the highest sense.

(a) The Absolute Being is manifested in Its highest in Isvara, or the Supreme Ruler, as the highest and omnipotent Life or Energy.

(b) The Absolute Knowledge is manifesting Itself in Its highest as Infinite Love, in the Supreme Lord.

(c) The Absolute Bliss is manifested as the Infinite Beautiful, in the Supreme Lord. He is the greatest attraction of the soul.

Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram.

The Absolute or Brahman, the Sat-Chit-Ananda, is Impersonal and the real Infinite

Every existence from the highest to the lowest, all manifest according to their degree as — energy (in the higher life), attraction (in the higher love), and struggle for equilibrium (in the higher happiness). This highest Energy-Love-Beauty is a person, an individual, the Infinite Mother of this universe — the God of gods — the Lord of lords, omnipresent yet separate from the universe — the Soul of souls, yet separate from every soul — the Mother of this universe, because She has produced it — its Ruler, because She guides it with the greatest love and in the long run brings everything back to Herself. Through Her command the sun and moon shine, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth.

She is the power of all causation. She energises every cause unmistakably to produce the effect. Her will is the only law, and as She cannot make a mistake, nature's laws — Her will — can never be changed. She is the life of the Law of Karma or causation. She is the fructifier of every action. Under Her guidance we are manufacturing our lives through our deeds or Karma.
Freedom is the motive of the universe, freedom its goal. The laws of nature are the methods through which we are struggling to reach that freedom, under the guidance of Mother. This universal struggle for freedom attains its highest expression in man in the conscious desire to be free.

This freedom is attained by the threefold means of — work, worship, and knowledge.

(a) Work — constant, unceasing effort to help others and love others.

(b) Worship — consists in prayer, praise, and meditation.

(c) Knowledge — that follows meditation.

REASON, FAITH AND LOVE

[Swamiji had made the home of the Hale family his headquarters during almost all of 1894 before the pivot of his activities moved eastward to the Atlantic Coast. It was on George W. Hale's letter paper and thus, presumably, during one of his stays in the latter's home, that Swamiji jotted down in pencil a series of notes on the subjects of reason, faith, and love, which have recently come to light. Unfortunately the date of the manuscript cannot be accurately determined.]

Reason — has its limits — its base —
its degeneration. The walls round it —
Agnosticism. Atheism. But must not stop
The beyond is acting upon influencing us every

moment — the sky the stars acting upon us — even
those not seen. Therefore must go beyond — reason
alone can't go — finite cannot get at the infinite

Faith its degeneration when alone — bigotry
fanaticism — sectarianism. Narrowing
finite therefore cannot get to the infinite
Sometimes gain in intensity but loses in
extensity — and in bigots & fanatics become
worship of his own pride & vanity

Is there no other way — there is Love
it never degenerates — peaceful softening
ever widening — the universe is too small
for its expansiveness.

We cannot define it we can only trace
it through its development and describe its surroundings

It is at first — what the gravitation
is to the external world — a tendency to unification
forms and conventionalities are its death.
Worship through forms — methods — services
forms — up to then no love.

When love comes method dies.
Human language and human forms God as father, God as mother, God as
the lover — Surata-vardhanam etc. Solomon's Song of
Songs — Dependence and independence
Love Love —

Love the chaste wife — Anasuya Sita —
not as hard dry duty but as ever pleasing
love — Sita worship —

The madness of Love — God intoxicated man
The allegory of Radha — misunderstood
The restriction more increase —
Lust is the death of love
Self is the death of love
individual to general
Concrete to abstract — to absolute
The praying Mohammedan and the girl
The Sympathy — Kabir —
The Christian nun from whose hands blood came
The Mohammedan Saint
Every particle seeking its own complement
When it finds that it is at rest
Every man seeking — happiness — & stability
The search is real but the objects are themselves
but happiness is coming to them momentary at least
through the search of these objects.

The only object unchangeable and the only complement of character and aspirations of the human Soul is God.

Love is struggle of a human Soul to find its complement its stable equilibrium its infinite rest.

WORK AND ITS SECRET

(lecture Delivered at Los Angeles, California, January 4, 1900)


One of the greatest lessons I have learnt in my life is to pay as much attention to the means of work as to its end.
He was a great man from whom I learnt it, and his own life was a practical
demonstration of this great principle I have been always learning great lessons from that one
principle, and it appears to me that all the secret of success is there; to pay as much attention to
the means as to the end.
Our great defect in life is that we are so much drawn to the ideal, the goal is so much more
enchanting, so much more alluring, so much bigger in our mental horizon, that we lose sight of
the details altogether.

But whenever failure comes, if we analyse it critically, in ninety-nine per cent of cases we shall
find that it was because we did not pay attention to the means. Proper attention to the finishing,
strengthening, of the means is what we need. With the means all right, the end must come. We
forget that it is the cause that produces the effect; the effect cannot come by itself; and unless the
causes are exact, proper, and powerful, the effect will not be produced. Once the ideal is chosen
and the means determined, we may almost let go the ideal, because we are sure it will be there,
when the means are perfected. When the cause is there, there is no more difficulty about the
effect, the effect is bound to come. If we take care of the cause, the effect will take care of itself.
The realization of the ideal is the effect. The means are the cause: attention to the means,
therefore, is the great secret of life. We also read this in the Gita and learn that we have to work,
constantly work with all our power; to put our whole mind in the work, whatever it be, that we
are doing. At the same time, we must not be attached. That is to say, we must not be drawn away
from the work by anything else; still, we must be able to quit the work whenever we like.
If we examine our own lives, we find that the greatest cause of sorrow is this: we take up
something, and put our whole energy on it — perhaps it is a failure and yet we cannot give it up.
We know that it is hurting us, that any further clinging to it is simply bringing misery on us; still,
we cannot tear ourselves away from it. The bee came to sip the honey, but its feet stuck to the
honey-pot and it could not get away. Again and again, we are finding ourselves in that state. That
is the whole secret of existence. Why are we here? We came here to sip the honey, and we find
our hands and feet sticking to it. We are caught, though we came to catch. We came to enjoy; we
are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked.
All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life. We are being worked
upon by other minds, and we are always struggling to work on other minds. We want to enjoy
the pleasures of life; and they eat into our vitals. We want to get everything from nature, but we
find in the long run that nature takes everything from us — depletes us, and casts us aside.
Had it not been for this, life would have been all sunshine. Never mind! With all its failures and
successes, with all its joys and sorrows, it can be one succession of sunshine, if only we are not
caught.

Swami Vivekananda: An Honour to Humanity

swami vivekananda 

Swamiji was a true sannyasi with unassailable integrity and commitments to truth, renunciation and service. So, nothing could change him though he brought about so much change in the world and was virtually swamped by praises. Every moment of his life was spent for the good of others. A couple of months before his passing he said: ‘If in this hell of a world if one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else is mere moonshine.’ His idea of starting a ‘machine for elevating the Indian masses’ took roots even in his lifetime. He was glad to see his ‘boys’ were ‘working in the midst of famine and disease and misery—nursing by the mat-bed of the cholera-stricken Pariah and feeding the starving Chandala’. Personalities like him are rarely born. When they take birth they leave indelible marks on earth which prevail notwithstanding relentless transformation of human civilization. As A. L. Basham finds ‘that in centuries to come he will be remembered as one of the main moulders of the modern world’.

Swami Vivekananda’s guru recognizes him to be a highly evolved soul the moment he sets his eyes on

him for the first time. It happens absolutely in compliance with the scriptural saying that a perfect guru
knows a perfect disciple at the first sight. Therefore, whatever Sri Ramakrishna foresees about him
using his spiritual insight comes true.