“Narada defines bhakti as ‘intense love’ for God.”
When I honestly look at the adherents of most religions, love is not in them. How can there be so much hate in those who proclaim they have a special relationship with god. Of course, it is impossible; if there is not love, then there is not God. We all share the being of the One and this in essence makes us all brothers and sisters of the everlasting Mother and Father. We are all held together intimately by the universal consciousness that we all share.
We are simply caught in Maya and the illusion of separation of being. We’ve fallen madly in love with the perceived power of the “I.” The perception in the material world of being our very own god. Yet the real power of God can only be obtained by the Human with the casting down of the “I” and the enfoldment within the One. We must follow God in the renunciation of our own power.
The whole purpose of your soul being placed in the material world, is for you to choose to reject this perceived separation, and to instead to grasp the pearl of great price, which is the possibility of Union with our Spiritual Father and Mother. We get to select the most incredible and awesome possibility, by choosing to become One within the enteral source of love.
Narada’s Way of Divine Love: The Bhakti Sutras: has had tremendous appeal to this “Christian,” within whom, he had it constantly drummed into him, the notion that God is love, as I watched the symbols of God used as a justification for hate and war. (The handy-dandy, Old Testament was always the club that was used to slay the Lord of Love.) And within the community of ideas of how we, the Human, can be open to receive “God,” rarely is love on the menu. Yet, isn’t the whole point of having a relationship with our Mother and Father based on our desire to be conscribed by and to experience their love become manifest within ourselves? And once this transpires, we are unleashed to love others; this is the basis of all Religion that has worth.
So from the cover comes this: “Narada’s Bhakti Sutras are the most important Hindu text on the path of love of Bhakti-Yoga. By directing our passions toward God, we discover that it is possible to have a relationship with God. The relationship deepens until finally we realize that we are never separate from God–our true divine nature is simply waiting to be revealed.”
Romans 8: 38-39: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.“
“Narada continues…At last I went into a deep forest in search of solitude. Seated under a tree, in a quiet, lonely place, forgetting the world in the love of the Lord, I meditated upon him. Gradually, as my inner vision became clear, I saw the benign Lord of Love seated in the sanctuary of my heart. I was overwhelmed with inexpressible joy, and I could no longer think of myself as separate from God– I had discovered my identity with him…”
Isaiah 54:10
For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
1 John 4: 7-12 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love… Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.“
John 15: 9-13 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.“
“Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, tells his disciple and friend Arjuna:
“Though a man be soiled
With sins of a lifetime,
Let him but love me,
Rightly resolved,
In utter devotion,
I see no sinner,
That man is holy.
Holiness soon
Shall refashion his nature
To peace eternal;
O Son of Kunti,
Of this be certain:
The man that loves me,
He shall not perish.”
A man cannot take breath without drawing in sin; who shall save us?
There is only one Salvation, and it is fully formed and conscribed within the love of the One.
When the Human becomes cognizant of the love of God; All is transformed.
Swami Vivekananda explains…“god is both the subject and the object. He is the ‘I’ and the ‘You.’ How is this? How to know the knower? The knower cannot know himself, I see everything, but cannot see myself. The Atman, the knower, the Lord of all, the real being, is the cause of all vision that is in the universe, but it is impossible for him to see himself or know himself, excepting through reflection. You cannot see your own face except in a mirror, and so the Atman, the Self, cannot see its own nature until it is reflected, and this whole universe, therefore is the Self trying to realize Itself…”
So the Human is actively involved in his|her own becoming, while at the same time, through our being, we are actualizing the reflection of God to the One; in only this way can he|she know and understand the substance of the essence of themselves. And the conclusion of the One is this: What good is unmitigated power and presence if it is not accompanied by love? What is the Good of being if there is no beloved to share it with?
“Now, let me explain that there are two stages of spiritual experience. The devotee first what is known as savikalpa samadhi, that is to say, he has a vision of his Chosen Ideal or particular aspect of God, accompanied by inexpressible bliss. There is still a sense of separateness from God. But at an even higher stage love, lover and beloved become one; there is complete union with God in this samdhi, which is known as nirvikalpa. Then God is experienced as impersonal, immanent, and transcendent. Intense love, prema, refers to this experience.”
“Al-Hallaj, a Sufi having experienced the ultimate Truth declared, ‘I am the Truth, I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I’ Mohammed’s words, ‘Inni– an Allahu la illaha Ana’ is the exact translation of Isaiah: ‘Verily, I, even I, am God and there is none else. Saint Paul says, ‘Optimum ese unire deo’ –the best is to be one with God.
Dionysius stated, “It is the nature of love to change a man into that which he loves.’
The German mystic Meister Eckhart, ‘The soul in her hot pursuit of God become absorbed in Him and she herself is reduced to naught just as the sun will swallow up and put out the dawn… Some there are so simple as to think of God as if he who dwells there and of themselves as being here. It is not so, God and I are One…”
“…So it was with the gopis, the shepherdesses of Brindavan. As soon as they lost themselves in their absorbing love for Krishna, they realized their union with him and became Krishas…”
“The real meaning therefore, is that when intense love for God arises in the heart of man he becomes perfect. To attain perfection means to realize oneness with God, or to unfold the divinity which is already within man… Strictly speaking, this perfection is not something to be attained, for true Being, the Self, the Atman, is one with Bramham. Only ignorance covers the truth of God within us and obstructs our divine sight…When the ego is dissolved, the indwelling God, the Beloved, is realized as our very Self, just as though intense love, lover and beloved become one.”
Corinthians 2:9: But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,”
“Truly has it been said in the Bhagavad-Gita:
Who burns with bliss
And suffers the sorrow
Of every creature
Within his own heart,
Making his own
Each bliss and each sorrow:
Him I hold highest
Of all the yogis.
‘…he grieves no more. Only ‘he suffers the sorrow of every creature.’ He is free from hatred and jealousy; Jealousy and hatred arise from unfulfilled desire. How could jealousy or hatred exist in a man who sees his beloved everywhere?”
” The ocean of Brahman is full of nectar–the joy of the Atman. The treasure I have found there cannot be described in words. The mind cannot conceive of it. My mind fell like a hailstone dropped into the vast expanse of the Braham’s ocean. Touching one drop of it, I melted away and became one with Braham. And now, though I return to human consciousness, I abide in the joy of the Atman.”
In order to be impressed in the image of God, we must embrace no image, but instead must become as clear crystal. Only by subscribing to to the idea that we can hold the All and be held and conscribed by the All within ourselves will God be revealed. Once you begin naming and categorizing you become lost in Maya. The key is to embrace the All. The key is to become One. The key is to self empty so that love can flow into you and through you. If you fill your “self” up with things, ideas and memories, you are unable to love God. God can only fill what is empty, so if you are full or yourself, your ideals, your personal paradigms, then you are utterly lost; no matter what story you tell yourself about your relationship with the One.
Envision the leap of faith; it is the leap that God took, in the midst of his unmitigated power. In the midst of his own “I”, as He|She conceived of bringing connection, unity and love of His|Her other; the Children of the One. Love can only manifest when two become One.
Each day we need to see with new eyes as if we never have experienced any of this before. We need the day spread before us as a spiritual feast of undiscovered being and becoming. We need to share the world within the love of God; within the One.
Tear away the imaginations and the rumination, be still, be in awe, be grateful and be alive in the moment.
Narada’s Way of Divine Love is provides a path of underpinning on which to build your love of the One and to enter into a unity that only can be found within love.
Yet what human will trade him|her self for the full being and presence of the Living One?