PREMA (superior love for God)
The Lord left Golok to
appear as man in the midst of man only to show His love for them and to teach
them how to love Him. Justy imagine the
depth of His love. Prema is the
particular property of the Lord and Sri Radha, no other Gods or Goddesses can
know or possess it without Their Grace.The Lord when He wanted to taste His
own Rasa* in all its phases created the Jivas
and used them as so many vessels
to contain His Rasa. The Rasa thus made enjoyable is named PREMA.
Lord Krishna said to
Uddhava:”to whom who practices without
break the rigors of Bhakti I come to dwell in his heart and will destroy
his desires.Once Prema is generated in
the heart the Jiva swims in an ocean of unfathomable bliss. A man of Bhakti can
effortlessly attain everything that those who tread other paths can gain. Real Bhaktas
who surrendered to me do not wish for an emperor’s throne, not
sovereignty, not to become Brahma, not to own Siddhis, not even Moksha. Not
even my very Atma is so dear to me as my Bhaktas. I follow the footsteps of
those who want nothing, are always calm, bear no enmity. No one ever knows the
perfect, desireless ecstasy that my Bhaktas experience. Love for me makes ashes
of all sins and removes all obstacles on the path.” Prema has two
characteristics: forgetting of the world around us and the own body.
Prema is much higher
than ordinary devotion, it is a saturation of the heart. Devotion means to have
a constant flow of thoughts towards the Lord, it is a continuous current
flowing to Him. Without such heart-absorbing Prema the Lord is very difficult to attain. If
carnality lurks in the heart Prema can never
subsist. If true love awakens God is no
longer considered as God but looked upon as the most intimate, as one’s own. Prema
is of the form of a very, very subtle unbroken feeling or experience that
develops in volume and intensity at every moment, is free from the three Gunas
and desires. Sensual desires cannot exist when unbroken love operates. Devotees
who attain this love see nothing but love, hear only about love, speek only of love and think of love alone. Divine
love is all-possessing. To such a devotee the entire universe is a mirror
which reflects the Lord and the Lord alone. He always feels “I am His”. The
hearing of His Leelas and reciting His sweet Name makes him run mad in Prema
after the Lord, which is the most desirable stage in life. The chief symptom of
love is meekness, a realisation of one’s
own shortcomings. Such unalloyed devotion is very difficult to attain and to
retain once attained.Without the Lord’s grace none can get it. Once achieved it
must be fostered and protected with great care to reach the Lord and get the
Prema-fruits.
When the individual soul surrenders (Atma
Nivedana) itself to the Lord it becomes entirely under His influence and protection, Maya has no effect on him, all
differences are wiped out. Surrender makes silent,
destroys the Ego and helps in experiencing our nothingness and God’s
omniscience.Any effort comes from the Ego, because it is limited its
capacity is limited too. Bhaktas empty themselves so completely that they entirely live in God, they attribute everything to the Lord’s grace, do not take any credit on
themselves, work for the Lord alone, live for Him. The Lord is their only support, only strength, only hope. When a devotee lives
solely for His Lord then he is a real Bhakta. He becomes extremely restless and miserable at the
slightest laps in his remembrance of the Lord. He radiates
joy all-round as he always dwells in God and in His bliss. This state of Bhakti is wonderfully explained by Lord Kapila to Devahuti:”a true
Bhakta is one who serves Me with no
notion of difference between him and Me, who renounced
his Karma, his very body and soul to Me, the one,
who has no Ego and sees Me in all beings and worships me in them.”
As long as Ego remains we cannot be selfless.
Self-surrender comes as PREMA grows, the
two grow simultaneously. Surrender means giving up one’s
individuality, one’s likes and dislikes.The two obstacles to surrender are Egoism and desire.
Once we see that only God prevails right Sadhana begins. Without melting of the heart, flowing
of tears of joy and hair standing on end from rapture there is no true Bhakti. If once Prema is
generated it never disappears. Love is the essential nature of the human soul
which can never rest without an object of love. Human love has no
permanence in it however pure and sincere it may be.
Firm belief in Seva is the
only prerequisite which a human being has to have when he chooses the Bhakti Marg. The Lord manifests Himself in
every heart and performs Kirtan of His own Name in order to sanctify our unclean hearts and to make us fit for His Seva. How much He
loves us!Those who follow the Bhakti Marg of surrender attain
the ultimate, His grace. If a devotee
wants the Lord, the Lord Himself wants him too, He will listen
to what the devotee tells Him . He left Golok to appear as man in the midst of men only to show His
love for them and to teach how to love Him. Just imagine the depth of His love.
Every Jiva is a divine channel
through which should flow divine love,
bliss, power, wisdom but the channel is blocked by holding the body for the
self, by identification with the perishable body. We have to
remove the blockage, the Ego. Sadly most man prefer to indulge their senses in
pleasures that only degrade them, make them wretched. Who
neglects worshipping the Lord becomes unwittingly a murderer of his own Atman, which is his true destiny. Snared helplessly
by the accumulated
Karma and strengthened by lives of being attached to the body he devolves and wanders the dreadful catacombs of Samsar, even
in bestial forms. Whenever a Jiva, forgetting his own vanity, becomes solely devoted to God, He
stretches out His hand to save him and absolve him
altogether
from his Karma. Boundless becomes the joy of those who are constantly immersed
in Name. The earth has no terrors for them,
nothing is impossible for such Bhaktas. Once love awakes in the heart the Lord draws the soul to Himself
like a magnet.The Atma is an Amsa, a ray of you, oh Lord, who are the totality of
everything, you of infinite compassion and divinity. You came into the world in
various Avatars to illumine the spiritual nature of man, which is difficult to
discover or understand. There are men who leave their homes, all attachments
and become Paramahamsas (swans of the spirit). They play in endless delight at
your Lotosfeet, abjure even Moksha, choose Premabhakti as path and worship you
whole-heartedly. You are always available, the dearest friend or kinsman, and
you, the Antaryamin, the soul of every soul, always loving, are only waiting to
bless your Bhaktas.
The Lord’s Name is the only means of getting Prema, it is the father and mother of Prema
.Love the Name with heart and soul as most beneficial and joy-giving treasure. When the Lord is
worshipped the Name itself spreads its
glories within the heart. Lord Haranath has made the priceless
treasure Name so potent that constant repetition of it
purges of all sins and unloosens all Karma-bindings. It demands the total
heart. He showed us how a Jiva without passing through austerities and penance,
without Sannyas but faith in the holy Name alone can become imbued with all-consuming
love for Him. The more we take His Name the nearer we come to Him. He said:”If
you want to give me pleasure do Name .May all of you make me listen to that
Name to my hearts content and I shall
pass away with that sound in my ears.”
28.5.2015
R.B
*RASA: spiritual transformation of the heart from the state of love for God into liquid emotions by combined types of various ecstasies. It occurs by direct experience of God
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