ABOUT THE BEAUTY OF REAL LOVE
(inspired by Shrila Sadhu Maharaja):

Recently I’ve experienced a real change of view due to the blessings of Shrila Sadhu Maharaja whom I met in the spiritual holiday camp in Dole.
And I wish to share this experience with you.

My impression of Shrila Sadhu Maharaja was that he never seems to see the obstacles against seva in the hearts of people, but he only sees

Grace at work. And therefore he is always joyful, emanating love, fanning even the most tiny spark of bhakti in ones heart.

As he blessed me personally so strongly I understood, that my spark is very small and much in need of fanning – and that there are great obstacles in my heart – – but that he loves me despite of it and maybe even more for that.

This realisation made me become very humble. And I understood: there are so many people who love me DESPITE my thoughtlessness, lack of fellow-feeling and authenticity.
And I don’t really appreciate this!

Now I do.

It is the appreciation for this love i.e. grace – as it is bestowed without deserving it – that makes me get up and get out of my self-chosen isolation of “I” and “mine” and open myself to others and work to develop and strengthen this new view.

I am so grateful for this wonderful gift.

To love is not easy. Both, the one who is able to express love to a person without reserve and the one who is able to accept this love with innocent joy – i.e. without the nagging doubt that this love might be a bargain and that one would have to pay it back somehow – are rare.

I never lived in an organised spiritual community, but family life is as good to teach you that. And my spiritual family is also helping me to realise this: They are not easy to love and they don’t find it easy to love me. But we both don’t give up on each other. And THIS is also love.

All on my own, it would of course be easy to deceive myself and feel “all-loving” and “all-loved”.

There was a time when I was really loveless against my family, partner and fellow-beings. I only “loved” God – and considered all other kind of affection as “maya”. But I wasn’t on the stage of an uttama adhikari whose view I only imitated. Therefore it lead into a dead end.

Now I understand that the living bhakti is not in opposition to the fact that we require the love of another person in order to feel complete as human beings. And that our relations on the human level are no obstacles on the spiritual path but paths in themselves.

Real bhakti should make us MORE loving towards everyone in particular, because it gradually weakens the sense of possessiveness from which all illnesses of love spring: jealousy, exploitation, intoxication. It makes love FREE to move between all hearts. And it adds knowledge, it makes love a SEEING love.

It makes us see our own reality, i.e. our shortcomings, faults and “ugliness” (all kind of reasons for not being loved) – and the reality of the BEAUTY OF REAL LOVE working irrespectively of our personal reality.

It makes us realise both MAHAMAYA and YOGAMAYA – what separates us and what unites us.

What we can see more and more is the beauty of real love shining through the more and more transparent, distorted coverings – not to end up in an impersonal love (which is no love, in my eyes, at all), but to show more and more concretely the special and awesome seva every atma-person performs (more or less consciously) by the Grace of Shri Radhika – which again comes down to us through our loving and beloved gurudev and his expansions.

And it is these expansions that matter. They can be other Mahatmas, but also the ones that love us (as human beings) – AND hate us. Or, as Vaisnava Maharaja taught us in Dole: the trees, the moon, the earth, the fire etc.

We are surrounded by friends!

And they are all expansions of the Inner Friend in our heart.

——

If this view is still working in me now, 2 weeks after the camp in Dole, it is due to Shrila Sadhu Maharaja’s grace. I know my realisation will fade and that I will have to work to realise it on my own and in my own life. But it is good to be remineded that it is POSSIBLE to see and love and serve in such a way.

Thank you, Gurudev!

Written by Kalakanthi Dasi

Categories: Articles

1 Comment

Tarun Govinda · August 21, 2012 at 12:01 pm

Beautiful…so inspiring.

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