Yoga Life Book
Page 20
BHAKTI YOGA – LOVE - DEVOTION
SPIRITUAL ELIXIR
What is this love of which all mystics, Easter
and Western, have spoken so insistently? Is it like the love that
we know, involved in a more or less strong drive for possession?
The Love of which the mystics speak is a one that must be completely
purified of the self. The love of the mystics is one in which one
completely and unreservedly surrenders one’s self to one’s
love.
You may well ask why there is this insistent stress on complete
self surrender on the mystic path. The answer is simple: with this
absolute surrender of the last vestiges of ego and selfhood and
without such complete absorption in the object of one’s love;
one cannot attain that unwavering concentration of all one’s
faculties which is the prerequisite of all inner progress.
By Kirpal
Singh
LOVE IS A SECRET
The mystic emphatically states that all love at
whatever level, is a reflection of God consciousness. A “spiritual
love” is
understood to exist when both lover and beloved transcend the
limitations of merely physical or personal satisfaction. The troubadours
(traveling mystic minstrels of the middle ages) flatly stated that
they were seeking entrance to the inner worlds through their love.
In most instances, they hoped to achieve spiritual beatitude. Passion,
whether for a human or a divine Beloved, gave them a foretaste
of the ecstasy and yearning of the world to come. Romantic love
was for them an initiation, a stepping stone to a higher, more
glorious vision. In this respect their view of courtly human
love paralleled the medieval view of spirituality.
If we look into
the true meaning of the word “romantic,” we
find that it means one who has empathy or respect for the inwardness
of others. It was precisely this inwardness with which the romantic
lover strove to identify; when he was successful, he did indeed
achieve a state of transcendence of himself and his limited world.
The person he loved was idealized into the symbol of all beauty
and perfection. The lover was transfigured and transformed into
the image of the beloved.
The whole tradition of romantic love is greatly different today.
Today we fail to see our search for human love in this noble context,
and yet all of us long for human love in a relationship that will
fulfill us completely. Robert Johnson suggests that we are all on
this quest, whether we see it consciously or whether it remains an
unconscious archetype directing our lives. The difference for us
today is that most of us have failed to consciously initiate this
quest for our highest potential. Rather, it is initiated for us by
our latent, unconscious needs for completion and lasting happiness.
We do this by projecting all our ideals of perfection onto our mate.
In
the West, we are used to “falling in love.” This initial
attraction is so strong precisely because it reminds us of an ideal
of perfection. In time, realizing the impossibility of this ideal
in the shortcomings of our partner, we become bitterly disappointed.
As Robert Johnson so artfully puts it, “we follow our projections
about; always searching for the one who will match the impossible
ideal and will magically give us transformation.” If we don’t
find the divine world in our loved one, we suffer and fall into despair.
For the mystic, love is about service. The great fifteenth-century
teacher and poet Kabir said, “Love is giving, giving, and still
more giving.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once asked, “Mother,
how does it happen you are able to do so much, and why are you in
this state of joy?” “My dear,” she said, “it
is because I am so deeply in love.” “But Mother, you’re
a nun.” “Precisely,” she said. “I am married
to Jesus.”
“Yes, I understand, you’re married to Jesus. All nuns are.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she countered. “I
really am so in a state of love that I see the face of my beloved in
the face of the dying man in the streets of Calcutta. I see my Beloved
in the leper whose flesh is decaying, and I can’t do enough for
my beloved.”
The mystic’s message through the ages has been a call to awaken
to the deepest levels of love within ourselves. When love is awakened
within our being, our perception of the universe undergoes a vast
change. From this vantage point, the mystic sees everything as endowed
with love. Even the stars, sun and moon are seen to move and orbit
out of love.
Mystics have stated that love is not only the driving energy behind
all creation but the purpose for its existence. It is the force within
humankind that has sought unity with God consciousness since the
dawn of creation.
By Andrew Vidich (a disciple of Kirpal Singh)
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