The meaning of love

“What is true love, sir? How can I ever hope oneness with the Divine?’’, a disciple queried his Guru. The Guru took him to a pond then immersed his head within till he was gasping for breath. Then his Guru took him out of it all and said, “The day you find the Divine in all, hearing, seeing, knowing all…When you feel torture, pain all, yet can say, ‘ You may curse me, you may hurt me yet I will still love you unconditionally,’that is when you have found true love.” On a tangential plane he quoted from the Bible, “Even Christ descended upon this earth to shower his beneficence upon all. Yet He was misunderstood. Even when He was nailed upon the cross not one word of complaint escaped from his lips. On the contrary as he bled from his countless wounds he uttered, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do…”

Closer home, Guru Nanak preached the message of love and universal brotherhood. As for Lord Krishna, when his own kin, Duryodhana , attempted to capture him when He went to the Kauravas as the messenger of peace, Lord Krishna showed his  Vishwarupa to warn of the consequences. Much later, when Duryodhana’s cousin, Arjuna, aggrandised by his ego grandly told Krishna to draw the chariot between the two armies,on the battlefield of Kurukshetra , the Lord did so.

Upon viewing his kin on the other side, Arjuna felt weak. Then Krishna with the aim of elevating this mood, embarked upon the Bhagawat Gita. In between, He blessed him with his Divine Vishwarupa. There, within the Lord’s mouth, when Arjuna beheld the various daivik and asuri shakti, Arjuna knelt before the Lord and beseeched him, “Lord, I cannot behold the vibrancy of this form …bless me and once again appear as my dear friend in your earthly form.”

True love is much like that. We go searching for someone special not realising that the Divine lies within all of us. Much like Sant Kabir sang, we set out like the musk deer searching all around for the intoxicating fragrance of love not realising it lies deep within us.  Finally, it is only when we behold the Divine all about and resolve to love all unconditionally can we experience it. Yes. Love the whole universe in its entirety. Only then can we ever find true love which will have us in a state of Unity.