by Smt. Mandira Lahiri
Since childhood, we
have been hearing this word— LOVE. We were told and taught that love is a
beautiful emotion. It is a divine feeling. It is always within us. We were told
to love everyone and hate none. While growing up, in school, in college, at our
workplace, in our married life, in fact, within us, all around us we witness different
facets of love. Love of a mother for her child, love of a child for his parents,
love for work, love for relationships, love for food, love for animals, love
for peace, love for nature, love for the country, love for humanity, love for
friends, love for luxury, love for cleanliness, love for travelling, love for
hobbies, love for neighbors, love for society, love for good and great things
in life etc.
We have heard about
Mirabai’s unconditional love for Lord Krishna….love of Krishna for Sudama….love
of Shabari for Lord Rama….love of Arjun for Lord Krishna…..Ramakrishna Paramhansa’s
love for Maa Kaali….Eklavya’s love and devotion for Dronacharya…Shravan’s love
for his blind parents….Gandhari’s love for Dhritrashtra made her blindfold
herself for the rest of her life…..Ramakrishna’s love for Vivekananda and vice
versa….love between Laila and Majnu, love between Romeo and Juliet… love
between Heer and Ranjha……Shah Jahan’s love for his beloved wife Mumtaz
Mahal……and so on.
When I was growing
up, my mother was my constant companion and she imparted many a valuable lesson
to me. Out of those which impacted me very strongly were her words on love. She
would tell me to dwell on the power of love…..how unfavorable circumstances
could be transformed into favorable circumstances through love, how a foe could
be turned into a comrade, how an untamed animal could be tamed through love,
how a problem child could become well-behaved through love, how relationships
could be nurtured through love. She taught me to love and respect nature also.
And finally, she made her statements more valid by saying that when you love
others, they love you too. I benefitted hugely by trying to follow some of it
in my life.
Here is an excerpt
from the book— “365 Dalai Lama—Daily Advice from the Heart”: “Love is the ultimate
way to transform people, even when they are full of anger and hatred. If you
express love continually and steadily, without ever tiring, you will touch them.
This takes a lot of time. One needs tremendous patience. But if your intentions
are perfectly pure and if your love and compassion are steady, you will
succeed.”
J. Krishnamurthy in
his book "Meeting Life” explains, “A mind that is self-concerned with its
own ambitions, greed, fears, guilt, suffering has no capacity to love. A mind
that is divided in itself, that lives in fragments, obviously cannot love.
Division implies sorrow; it is the root cause of sorrow- division between ‘you’
and ‘me’, ‘we’ and ‘they’, the black, the white, the brown and so on. So,
wherever there is division, fragmentation, love cannot be, because goodness is
a state of non-division. The world itself is indivisible.”
A prayer in Mother
Teresa’s bool “Love, Joy and Peace” goes this way----“Lord, help us to see, in
your crucifixion and resurrection, an example of how to endure and seemingly to
die, in the agony and conflict of daily life, so that we may live more fully
and more creatively…..Enable us to go through trials patiently and bravely,
trusting that you will support us; for it is only by dying with you that we can
rise with you. Amen.”
Mother Teresa said,
“God is giving us something so that we can show that tender love, that concern.
Sickness comes to teach us something, to open our eyes to the need of the
tender love that we all have and that has been forgotten, been pushed out.”
An excerpt from
Rhonda Byrne’s book—"The Secret”: “There
is no greater power in the Universe than the power of love. The feeling of love
is the highest frequency you can emit. If you can wrap every thought in love,
if you could love everything and everyone, your life would be transformed.”
Our divine Master,
Prajnanpurush Sri Sri Babathakur, in his book ‘Nectar of Wisdom’ has unfolded
the meaning of love beautifully. He says, “LOVE IS DIVINE GRACE ITSELF, AS
ITSELF REVEALS SO. This meaning is absolutely original, though it may not at
first be appreciated by the intelligence of a scientific brain or mind; yet It
ultimately remains the same with Its supreme originality of the highest Divine
Essence as being revealed from within -out of Its spontaneous nature of every
joyful expressiveness.”
Sri Sri Babathakur
often spelt words backwards in order to give us the hidden meaning of some words.
Love becomes then ‘EVOL’ and each letter has a meaning: ‘E means Eternal, V
stands for Virtue, O for of and L for Lord. Thus ‘LOVE’ means ‘ETERNAL VIRTUE
OF LORD.’
Like other saintly
personages, Sri Sri Babathakur also spoke about True Love or Divine Love and
put forward that: “Love, Divine Love knows no hatred, no violence, no
disagreement, no disapproval, no discontentment, no disregard, no disbelief, no
defamation and no fault finding nature. Love has no impurity, no inability, no
doubt, no degree and no duality. Love knows only to embrace all without
hesitation or discrimination of caste, creed, color or class. Love amounts all,
Love adapts all, Love adjusts all, and Love accommodates all. The most notable
feature of Love is that It is: One in One, One of One, One from One, One for
One, One by One, One with One, One to One, One on One and beyond One also.”
Sri Sri Babathakur’s
whole being radiated with Divine Love and he showered that Love on one and all.
