tat sukhe sukhitva, tat vismarate parama vykulata
Love is to be happy in the happiness of the beloved (God) and restless if not thinking about Him.
Narada Bhakti Sutras
Devotion is the supreme means of liberation. Bring love into your life through every thought and work and life will change.
Narada Bhakti Sutras again says,
sa tarayati lokan tarayati - when one is having extreme love not only is he liberated, he also helps in the liberation of others. Whoever comes into contact with such a person will also be saturated with love.
Love is to be happy in the happiness of the beloved (God) and restless if not thinking about Him. Is God ever unhappy? What can we do to make God happy?
God has given us three things - head, heart and hands. Head for intelligence or jnana, the heart for emotion or love, and hands for action or karma. If we integrate all the three in God consciousness life will be complete. Work, think, and move with love. Life is a boat and love is like water. The boat of life sails smoothly in the love of water. Such love comes through total surrender.
Kabir said,
ulti jal me machili chale - fish can swim upstream.
One, who takes shelter in the beloved, is rescued in every situation. When there is a flood a huge elephant may be drowned going down the stream, but small fish can swim up the stream. This is possible because of their surrender and taking shelter in water. In the river of life there are strong currents. If the mind is like the fish, it can go upwards to the source against the current. Ego, vanity and jealousy are the downward currents. Take shelter in God. Do all work as worship. Man is not separate from God but together they are beautiful.
Noble laureate Rabindranath Tagore said, "If I am not there who will love you O God, when you are alone, you are merged in yourself. Let us be together all the time."
Some want to taste the sugar and not become the sugar. They enjoy the love of God rather than being one with God. Love begins with duality and ends in unity. Let this unity come to each of us in every breath. Life will then be complete. Love should not make one weak. Love makes you strong.
nayamatma balahínena labhya, na medhaya na bahuna crutena
The self is not realized by intelligence or by listening to many discourses.
You have to walk the path with love for God and the guru. Integrate knowledge, action and love and integrate the gross, astral and the causal bodies. Integration makes life complete and differentiation makes it difficult. Do not divide. Be whole and complete. When whole, you become holy and healthy. Health in Sanskrit is svastha- being established in yourself. Sickness is deviation from the truth.
The Supreme Divine Love -Parábhakti
Not many can understand love. Love is a state of experience that is obtained through your effort and the grace of God. One who experiences such love in one's heart feels satisfied and complete. There is no ego, no jealousy, no hatred and no loss. There is nothing to lose .You only gain in love. One who loves God loves him in all stages of life.
Narada could not define love. He could only say,
anirvacaníyam premasvarupam - The nature of devotion cannot be exactly defined or analyzed.
yam labdhva puman truptabhavati na kankshati vancati na socati - by obtaining which one is fully content and does not think or need anything else
sa tvasmin parama prema rupa that is the nature of supreme love of God
And he further adds,
amrita swarupaca - it's essential nature is immortality.
As an example of parabhakti Narada said,
yatha vraja gopikanam - like the gopis of Brindavan.
The love of the gopis of Brindavan stands unparalleled as the supreme divine love. They loved Krishna as their heart and soul. The simple, uneducated women of Brindavan gave their minds entirely to Krishna and lived only in Krishna consciousness. Such was the blessed experience of the love of the gopis of Brindavan.
Love for Love's Sake
tat sukhe sukhitvam - Love finds fulfillment in the happiness of the beloved. There is another story about the gopis. Once Krishna had a severe headache. Many remedies were tried, but nothing seemed to work and he was complaining of unbearable pain. Then all those who tried to help turned to Krishna himself, and asked him what can be done to help and they would do anything to help. Krishna said that there was only one remedy. If the dust from the feet of his devotees can be applied to his head it would relieve him. But he also warned that since it was a sacrilege to apply the dust of your feet to the head of Krishna, such devotees could go to hell. On hearing this all those who volunteered withdrew, as they did not want to commit such sin and suffer in hell. This news of Krishna's headache reached the gopis of Brindavan. Gopis who had intense love for Krishna said, "We will all give the dust of our feet if that will make Krishna well. We will gladly go to hell."
Higher Love and Higher Knowledge
Higher knowledge is that by which the unchangeable is known. Parabhakti, the supreme divine love is not different from the higher knowledge. One who reaches the height of love also reaches the height of knowledge. Such knowledge and love meet at the summit of realization.
A great spiritual master of India, who preached the highest advaita philosophy in his work the Vivekacudamani, the crest jewel of discrimination said,
Moksha karana samagrya bhakti reva gariyasi
swasvarupanusandhanam bhakti ityabhidhíyate
Among all means of obtaining liberation divine love is the best; Meditation on the self is called bhakti.
Love of the Immortal Self
Self is eternal and to live in the presence of God is love. Narada describes love as of the essential nature of immortality. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, when the sage yajnavalkya was leaving home in search of the immortal self, his wife Maitreyi wants to know the nature of the self from him. A beautiful dialogue follows in which Yajnavalkya gives a grand description of the self and how all love is based on the self that is God.
Yajnavalkya says,
"The husband is dear to the wife not for his own sake but it is for the sake of the self in the husband, he is dear. The wife is dear to the husband not for her own sake, but for the sake of the self that is in the wife, she is dear. A son or a daughter is dear not for their sake, but for the sake of the self, present in them. Anything one loves is not for its own sake but for the sake of the self within it."
Love is to feel the presence of self or God in everything. Try to love every breath as the breath of God.