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Love is Without any Barrier

Love is Without any Barrier
His Holiness Shri Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji Maharaja
(From lecture series „Hinduism“, Part 24)

We have some concept of love. We have some experience of love. And we have definitely desire for love. But the same word is being used for spiritual love. And the spiritual love is absolutely different than what you know and what you have experienced.

So now comes the difficulty. You have an experience of love and I want to teach you spiritual love. So whenever I going to use the word „love“ you are going to take the meaning of love which you know, which you have experienced.

So how am I going to tell you that?

The only way I can tell is by using the language that you kn0w and the experience which you have gone through.

This is what Bhagavatam is doing. It is trying to teach us pure unconditional love, the supreme nature of God. God has got various natures, but His nature, His highest quality, is pure love. And that's why Bhagavatam is the greatest literature, because in other books this supreme nature is not depicted. His other powers, that He is omniscient, He is omnipresent, He has yogic powers, He can create – all these things are described, and they are also described here [in Bhagavatam]. But what Bhagavatam wants to describe is the unique characteristic of God, which makes us hankering for it and if we can get it, that is the perfection of life, and that is the pure love.

That is really the message of Bhagavatam through these stories. And that is the purpose of Krishna's appearance here in Vrindavan. As I said, He lived 125 years and He was here [in Vrindavan] about 11 years. But during these 11 years He showed the pure love. Afterwards also He showed love, but that love becomes conditioned because of His royalty and because of protocols. If you are a royal person than that majesty comes, and when majesty comes then love becomes subdued. Here in Vrindavan, Krishna does not have this majestic feature, although He did things which make Him extraordinary, like showing that He lifts Govardhana Hill. But still people don't worship Him like God.

They are saying, „Jai Krishna!“, but they think that,
He is our friend“.

Therefore, their love does not become constricted. Otherwise, if they would have recognized that He is God, than again their love becomes constricted and awe and reference comes.

You can have two things for God, awe and reference, and love. In love there is also reference, and in reference there is also love. But when there is pure love where reference is subued, that is superior to where you have reference and love is subdued. So either your reference can take supreme position and your love is subdued, or your love can take supreme position and reference is subdued.

This Vrindavan shows love where reference is secondary. And when Krishna goes out of Vrindavan and He becomes a prince or a king and has family life, there also He has loving relationships. But now awe and reference raises its head, reference becomes superior. That's why these pastimes are so relishable and described in all poetry, in paintings, in music, in drama, in dance … everywhere these pastimes are depicted, because they are a manifestation of that love which is not restricted by reference. And this raslila shows that supreme manifestation of that love. Because unless it is depicted and contrasted, we are not going to understand why this is so great.

So here it is shown that there is nothing which is restricting you.

When there is wife and husband relationship then certain restrictions come. When marriage is there, then the relation is there because of the ceremony. Love may be there or may not be there, yet the relation is still there. But in case of girlfriend and boyfriend, if love is there, then there is a relationship, and if no love is there then there is no relationship. So it's only love which makes the relation. That's why it is shown here the He is not married to them. That is the purpose of God having these girlfriends, which means the relation here is only pure love and not because Krishna did some ceremony with brahmanas and then He has to take care of these wives and He has to now show love.

[Continuation of class after a break]

There are two types of identification. One is where two things become one, and other is that two things maintain their individual identity but they become one in love. This oneness in love is what is most relishable. Because if two things become one, as it happens in impersonal realization, then there is no one to enjoy and there is nothing enjoyed, because in order to enjoy you have to have two things. Here the identity of the devotee and the object of love, God/Krishna they are ontologically maintained, but there is union in love to such an extent that one does not feel the difference at all between oneself and the object of love. This is because one gives up oneself completely. How we feel the difference from others is because of our ego, because of our feeling of separateness. And love is that which brings closeness.

Closeness or intimacy is not so much physical.

The real intimacy is within the mind, within the heart, which is because of love. Otherwise, two persons can live under the same roof and they are not living together. They have physical proximity but within their mind they are completely distant. So what is being shown and described here is, how we can be one, how we can have union in love. Because physical oneness is not possible, you cannot live with one person 24 hours physically, even if a person is your lover or husband or wife or whatever, you cannot be 24 hours together, it's not feasible, but it is possible in love. If nothing else, you have to sleep at night, and even if you are sleeping in the same bed, you are still different from the other person because you go into your own dreamworld and the other person goes into his or her own dreamworld.

But if there is union in love,
then you are never separated,
even if you are physically 10,000 miles away,
you still remain linked-up,
connected.

There have been many amazing stories where lovers have been separated physically, but when something happens to one of them, it manifests in the body of the other person. This you cannot explain logically or scientifically and people may not believe it but, as I said, the truth is not always logical. Truth is something which exists and you have to accept it. There have been many instances like this. Some relative gets an accident and suddenly you feel sad without any apparent reason.

Why this happens?
- Because love is without any barrier.

Then this distance is not a barrier. Of course, if you love somebody you also want to be close to that person physically. But even if you are not physically close, you remain close in the mind. Therefore, in Krishna's pastimes also, sometimes He is there with the devotee and sometimes He creates separation, and that separation increases the intensity of love. Because in separation, the beloved cannot think of anything else but the lover.

This is also one of the meaning of Krishna going to the forest for tending cows. He has love for His parents and girlfriends, all these women in Vraja. But then during the daytime when He goes to the forest there is a feeling of separation, and through this separation they are with Krishna in a very intense mood of love. And when He comes back in the evening then there is union again. And when He comes back, then all the birds, forest animals and trees feel separation from Krishna. It is described that when Krishna comes back to the village in the evening, then all the birds and the animals from the forest will follow Him, and when He enters the village, they go back waiting for Him when He will come back in the morning. And when He comes back in the morning, then they all feel so happy and follow Him around.

In Krishna's pastimes He creates separation and union, separation and union. This is the way to relish love. Love is relished like that. If there is always union, then it is not so relishable as when some separation is created and then you have union again. So the intensity of love goes on increasing. Therefore, Krishna and His devotees never get bored of each other. Their love is always fresh and it keeps on increasing. In the material world it is seen that when people fall into love, the love is very intense and with time the intensity goes down.

With Krishna it is the other way around. With time the intensity of love keeps on increasing and there is no limit to it, because in the spiritual world everything is unending. So the love of the Gopis for Krishna and Krishna's love for the Gopis is everincreasing and because it is ever increasing, every time the Gopis see Krishna, they feel as if they have never seen Him, as if they are seeing Him for the first time. And therefore, their intensity, their curiosity to see Him is so great that they curse Brahma [for his failed creation],

Why did he create these eyelids?“

- Because it becomes an obstruction.

So try to imagine the intensity of love they have for Krishna that even the blinking of an eye becomes an obstruction in their having darshan. This is the ultimate darshan. That is the intensity of love they have. They say that when they are separated from Krishna, one moment of time appears like millions of years.

Time is a very interesting phenomena. You can perceive the same time sometimes slow and sometimes fast. If you are in pain, the time seems to be stretched, if you cannot sleep at night, then night looks like it is never coming to an end. But when something is pleasurable, things are going very nicely, it looks like, „Wow, one hour has gone so fast!“

With Krishna it is like that. When Gopis are with Krishna, then night passes just like that. When they are in separation, it looks like time stands still.

***