There is a small but tremendous word in the English language which in its all-pervasive import spans the meaning of life. It is understood and cherished by all people everywhere in the world, whatever may be their stage of evolution in the scale of civilization, or in the intircate domain of carnal passions and human sentiments. It is the motive-power which drives both the sinner and the saint, and is the cause of suffering and joy, comdey and tragedy, bondage and liberation. That word is 'Love'.
Everybody-of any age, nation, colour, politics, religion or no religion-talks of love. Everybody seeks to love and be loved. Even God is not excluded from this. Those who know God from personal experience have said that God's soul-hunger is infinitely more intense than the soul's God-hunger.
Jalal-ud Din Rumi, the great Sufi mystic, gives us the feel of this truth when he says:
"When in this heart the lightening spark of love arises,
Be sure this love is reciprocated in that heart.
When the love of God arises in thy heart,
Without doubt God also feels love for thee."
(Quoted by Evelyn Underhill in her Mysticism, The World Publishing Co., New York, 1967, p.134)
In his powerful poem 'The Hound Of Heaven', Francis Thompson, speaks of this quest of God for man's soul:
"I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years;
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind..."
But with all his racing speed and skill of evasion, he could not escape
'From those strong feet that followed and followed after.'
Meister Eckhart says beautifully:
Eath cannot get away from heaven: let the earth drop downwards or rise upwards,
heaven still penetrates it, imbuing it with strength and making it fruitful, whether it will or no.
That is how God treats man: when he thinks to escape God, he runs into God's bosom, for every hideout is open to him.
Now, how did this extraordinary love-affair which, in its unimaginable sweep involves not only the entire creation but also the creator, begin?
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad(I.IV.1-3) we read:
In the beginning this universe was the Self alone in the shape of a person. He relfected and saw nothing else but His Self...He was not at all happy. Therefore, a person is not happy when alone. He desired a mate. He became the size of man and wife in close embrace. He divided this body into two. From that arose Pati and Patni, husband and wife. There (as Yajnavalkya said)the body(before one accepts a wife) is one half of oneself, like the half of the split pea. Therefore, this space is indeed filled by the wife. He was united with her. From that union human beings were born.
In whatever light we may take this statement in the Upanishad, what we are expected to understand is that love is urdhvamulam, that is to say, it is, as it were, a creeper with roots in heaven. The source of love is the Ultimate Reality. It flows from God to creation. Again, when this love is manifested in creation, in whatever form it may appear, in the ultimate analysis, it is a movement from the creature to the creator.
There are loves and loves. Loves covered with mud and filth, lost in sensuality and animality; and love crystal and iridescent, rising heavenward like a golden flame on wings of super-sensuous flight, arousing ecstasy in God's own heart. No love is so fallen as will be completely bereft of the hidden touch of the Divine.
The reason for this is explained in those famous passages of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad(IV.5.6):
Verily, not for the sake of the husband, my dear, is the husband loved, but he is loved for the sake of the Self(which in its true nature, is one with the Supreme Self).
Verily, not for the sake of the wife, my dear, is the wife loved, but she is loved for the sake of the Self.
Verily, not for the sake of the sons, my dear, are the sons loved, but they are loved for the sake of the Self.
Verily, not for the sake of the wealth, my dear, is the wealth loved, but it is loved for the sake of the Self.
Thus continuing, Yajnavalkya, the great seer, instructs his wife Maitreyi that nothing in this world is loved for its own sake but for the sake of the Atman or the Self.
With this instrument of love, God's creation is perpetuated, and souls are kept bound. The greatest use, however, that can be made of love is to take it back to its source, which is God, and capture God Himself with the instrument of love. All other loves only increase your hunger and thirst, and leave you sometimes low and sometimes high, sometimes morose and sometimes frustrated.
As the Holy Mother, Sri Saradamani Devi, says, the heart's innermost love should be given only to God. From all other loves come affliction. It is only the love of God that can assuage the insatiable hunger and thirst of our souls for all time, because God is the very source of love.
This all-powerful instrument of love has been used by aspirants down the centuries to realize God. In the devotional scriptures of the Hindus one reads that love has been used in five different bhavas or attitudes, viz:
Santa, the serene attitude of the seers of olden times. A quiet flowing love, like that of the single-minded devotion of a wife to her husband.
Dasya, the attitude of the servant to the Master, like that of Hanuman to Sri Rama, as one finds in the Ramayana, the great Hindu epic.
Sakhya, the attitude of friendship. 'Come here, and sit and share this fruit' -approach which the friends of Krishna used to have for him.
Vatsalya, the attitude of the mother toward her child, like the love of Yasoda for Krishna.
Madhura, the sweet attitude of a woman toward her paramour, or of a bride to the bridgroom.
Of all these atitudes, in the last mentioned, or the Madhura Bhava, are compounded all the other four attitudes. That is to say, this attitude of love for God can be considered to be more powerful than all the others because it includes the entire gamut of love.
'God as Lord is feared, God as father is revered, God as Master is honoured and served; God as Beloved and Beautiful is embraced.'
This union and communion of the soul with the over-soul is known in Hindu religious literature as the consummation of Madhura Bhava. It has been called 'bridal mysticism.' The Gopis, or cowherd maidens in the Bhagavata, set an ideal for all posterity in this manner of supreme devotion to the Lord.
In the Narada Bhakti Sutras(21) it is said:
Verily it is indescribable-Para-bhakti, the highest form of devotion to Lord Krishna-it is seen manifest in the lives of the Gopis of Vrindavan.
This love which is steeped in erotic imagery has often been an onject of critisim of those who, to say the least, did not understand what they were criticizing. It requires a highly evolved devotee to penetrate in the heart of the supreme devotion of the Gopis and to be able to understand its pure and superior character.
Uddhava, the great devotee, says in the Bhagavatam(X.47.61):
"May I be born even as a bower or creeper or blade of grass in the blessed Vrindavan where I shall be covered with the dust of the feet of these Gopis who abandoned the unbreakable bondage of love of their own near and dear ones, and if adherence to the paths of virtue approved by society, which remains only as an aspiration and a quest even for the Vedas and its followers."
'Bridal mysticism,' has not been the monopoly of Hinuduism. The theory of spiritual marraige in Christian mysticism is an identical concept. The key to this way of loving God was introduced in Christianity by Christ himself in his parable of the ten virgins and the Bridegroom.
The idea of spiritual marraige, or the Gopis' way of love was successfully cultivated by mystics like St. Bernard, John Ruysbrock, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa. One cannot read their lives without being convinced how all consuming was the love of the Bridegroom.