THE PATH COULD BE FILLED WITH OBSTACLES TO ACHIEVING LOVE
Without understanding that which is Divine, we could never fully love. Our planet has eight billion people, but very few know love. Many people know love to a certain extent, but not love in totality because total love requires a total integration in man – an integration of mind, body and spirit. Until that condition comes about, no one can totally love. But this is no cause for disappointment. We are on the path. And it is good to be on the path.
This path could be filled with so many obstacles to achieving love, which is synonymous with achieving God. We have the strength within us, through meditational practices and through making effort in our daily lives, to overcome these obstacles and problems. It is not easy. Vivekananda, for example, has said that the path to God is the hero’s path.
The purpose of the obstacles is for your evolution. The purpose is to clear up and undo everything you have done. Remember, every suffering that we have is by our own doing. We have been the planters. We have sown, and we must reap. That is the law of karma.
LOVE IS FOREVER THERE
Spiritual practices aim to bring greater clarity and expansion to awareness so that the indefinable quality of love can flow through. As the usual analogy, I use the carburettor in a motor car. The more you open the carburettor, the greater the amount of petrol will flow through.
Similarly, when our awareness expands, greater love will flow through. That love is nothing else than Divinity. It is only our thought processes, our self-centeredness, and our attachments that colour the love that is forever flowing through us. It is like a crystal. You put a red flower behind a crystal, which will seem red. You put a blue flower behind the crystal, which will appear blue.
So, our spiritual practices cleanse the mind so that real love can flow through. By understanding the philosophy behind it, we also understand one thing: that unless I do something about myself, I am blocking love from flowing through. For love is forever there. Love is not only within; love is also without.
THE LIVING GOD
If I love you, what am I loving? I am not loving you as a person but loving the Divinity within you. So, if love is God, it can only communicate with God, and you are just the exterior frame. Therefore, love knows no difference. If someone does you wrong and you have the strength to love that person just as much, then you have some idea of love.
Someone might besmirch you. Someone might do anything to you. As Christ would say, “Love thine enemies, even.” It is easy to love a friend. Learn to love thine enemy. That is the mark of greatness; that is the mark of truth. That is the mark of portraying and living the living God. We do not want dead gods. We want living gods.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1980 – 02
