What Divine Love Is
Devotion to God is
constitutionally different from ordinary loves known to us in the world. The
structure of divine love is different from the structure of human affection
because of the nature of the object itself. The object of divine love is God,
whereas the object of human affection is a finite something, located somewhere,
and persisting only for some period of time. Love in this world automatically
become conditional, and there is no such thing as unconditioned love in this
world. It is not possible to love a thing for all time and under every
condition, because human affection is the reaction of the mind in respect of an
object or a condition outside which is felt as a necessity by the mind under a
given condition. When the necessity is not felt, the love vanishes
automatically.
But divine love is of a
different nature; here, the question of conditional necessity does not arise.
When we pray to God for long life or promotion in the office, it cannot be
called an expression of divine love. The intention is to comprehend all that
God is, because of the value that is inherent in God's very existence itself.
God Himself has a value by Himself, and His value does not consist in what He
does for us. But God's value is not merely in His action or in His capacity to
act, but is merely because of His very Being Itself.
The 'being' of a human being,
the individual, is not complete, and therefore it has to be completed by
certain extra additions in the form of qualifying activities. But God has no
such necessity. He need not work to increase the dimension of His Being,
because His Being is infinite, and there is no need to increase the dimension
of infinitude. Hence, the worth or value of God is the very existence of God,
whereas the worth or value of anything else in this world does not lie merely
in its being, but in what it means in its relationship to someone else who is
the experiencer or the observer thereof. God's existence does not depend on the
relationship that He has with others, or what He would mean to others under
different conditions.
In this world, which is a
relational world, or the relative world, as we may prefer to call it, the worth
of a thing depends upon its connectedness with other things. There is no such
thing as a self-existent value in this world, and therefore everything is
conditional.
As a matter of fact, whatever
we experience in this life are the reactions of what we desired in those
previous lives. To give an instance as to how things happen, suppose you ask
for cold, fresh water from the fridge during the hot summer. For some peculiar
reason, our desires do not fructify themselves at once. And so, all these
painful prarabdhas that we are undergoing in this world are cold water
coming in winter, or hot tea coming in midsummer.
We are getting what we wanted
- nothing else. But unfortunately, these things are coming at the wrong time
when we do not want them, which is a different matter altogether. The law of
nature has a system of its own, and for extraordinary reasons which cannot
easily be comprehended by the human mind, the asking is not granted at once –
but it is granted. Sometimes it may be granted after several births. Because of
the weakness of the desire, it has taken so much time to materialize itself.
The conditional relationships
of our individuality with circumstances outside prevent us from having any kind
of genuineness in our approach to things or in our affections.
God is infinite and hence there
are no kleshas (undesirable,
painful, limiting factors) – the afflictions which we are subjected to
are absent in God. He is pristine purity and abundance of everything that is
positively needed for anyone, at any time.
The kleshas or the
painful afflictions, at least in the system of Patanjali, are ignorance of the
true nature of things, known as avidya; and as a consequence thereof,
egoism or the principle of self-affirmation, asmita; and a further consequence
following from it – raga and dvesha, like and dislike; and a far
greater concretization of this attitude manifesting itself as intense love of
physical life and fear of death.
God is not unaware of the true
nature of things, so there is no avidya in Ishvara. He knows the correct
position of everything. He knows the past and the future and the present, and
so there is not the least trace of nescience in God. Everything is known to Him
in its proper place and in its proper condition, so there is no avidya,
no ignorance of any kind. There is no egoism in God because there is no object
in front of God, so there is nothing to oppose Him, confront Him, or limit Him.
He doesn't need anything. He need not show His power to anybody else.
The question of egoism, or the
principle of individual self-affirmation, does not arise in the case of Ishvara
or God, and therefore He has no likes and dislikes. God is not a physical
individual. So, these kleshas are absent in God. Avidya, asmita,
raga, dvesha, and abhinivesha cannot be in God. God does
not perceive objects with eyes as we see objects, for instance, because the
objects are not outside Him.
The mind of God does not move
towards an object, because all objects are comprehended within the Being of
God. His actions, if we can call them actions, do not produce reaction. Every
action that we do has a reaction, but the actions of God cannot have a
reaction. Also, for the same reason, the actions performed by those who are in
God-consciousness do not produce a reaction.
An action produces a reaction
because of the mind impinging upon an object outside, which is the motive
behind the action. Every individual action can be said to be a kind of
interference with the law of nature. Individual actions produce reaction, and
we suffer the consequence of these actions. This is called karmaphala. When there is God-consciousness there is also
an infinitude of awareness in respect of everything. Our actions will then not
be interferences, but rather participations in the existing laws. Participation
in law does not produce any reaction from that law, but interference with law
may produce a reaction. The law of nature and the law of God mean one and the
same thing; they are not two different things. Therefore, there is no question
of any reaction being set up by the actions of God.
The incarnations of God are
not compelled by karma, while our incarnations are forced by karma.
We are born, not of our own accord, but by forces which exert a pressure upon
us and make it obligatory on our part to be born under certain conditions. But
in the case of the incarnations of God or manifestations of God, they are
spontaneous revelations of the Universal Law. All these limiting factors are
absent in the case of God.
God is totality of Being,
all-comprehensiveness, the Supreme Unifying Principle. He is also Supreme Atman
or Paramatman. Such a God is the object of divine devotion.
The various bhavas or
feelings are generated in one's devotion to God, and one of the principles of
the doctrine of bhakti is that we can channelize human love to God. We
can love Him as our father, as our mother, as our friend, as our master, etc.
The worship of God, the adoration of God, is any attitude or function which can
create in one's own mind the dependence of oneself on God, or the surrender of
oneself to God, and also the conviction that God is everything and nothing else
is required when God is attained.
Nine types of devotion or
devotional attitude are Sravanam,
kirtanam, vishnuh smaranam, padasevanam, archanam, bandhanam, dasyam, sakhyan,
atma nivedanam. Constant remembrance of God is a more difficult thing. It
is called the 'practice of the presence of God' in mystical parlance. The mind
is constantly brooding over the presence of God in all things, and this
brooding or remembering can be accentuated by audible japa or singing of
His name as well, so that smarana and kirtana can go together. Padasevana
really means 'serving the feet of God'. Service of anything and any form in
this creation, unselfishly and without any feeling of recompense, may be
regarded as padasevana, because God's feet are everywhere. Archana
is worship – ritualistic, or even psychological, mental. Archana is
worship of God through external symbols, which, though they are symbols from
outside, can draw corresponding feelings from inside, so that the ritual form
of worship may also be regarded as a genuine form of devotion to God.
Excerpts from:
What Divine Love Is - Chapter 33 The Study and
Practice of Yoga by Swami Krishnananda
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