Life is a thrilling drama. Typical is that oldest of stories: Two young people meet. They are instantly attracted to each other. Certainly the attraction is deeper than physical. Each senses in the other a quality that satisfies a deep need. Yearning, they reach out as if to absorb a fulfilment long and ardently awaited.
It is all a play of consciousness – ripples rising in expectation, cresting, then scattering in foam – thoughts and emotions that flicker in the sunlight on life’s sea; wavelets that long to merge their separate identities in a larger wave. Waves themselves, however, are ephemeral. Moods pass. The starlight and the dancing, that gentle, sweet touch, those brief glimpses of beautiful, far-off scenes filled with love and happiness: All these change, and soon disappear. Is it all a mirage?
Can God have so arranged human existence that it is based eternally on false hopes? The loving embrace, then its sequel: children, each with its own interests and self-created destiny… Has that ardent coming together had no other purpose than to perpetuate the species?
Sexual union brings fleeting pleasure at first, then exhilaration – followed by physical and emotional depletion, and, if overindulged, by satiety and disgust. What is the purpose?
The expression “falling in love” is a curious one. The experience is indeed a fall from high expectations, a crash downward into brambles of disappointment, suffering, and maybe, compromise. Will it ever be possible to become fully absorbed in that sweet smile, that loving look, that radiance in the eyes? Never! Such is the tragedy of human love.
Love has, in fact, a reality far more spiritual than material. The physical body is only a container for its animating spirit, to which one’s feelings truly belong. The less spiritual the feelings, however, the less also they qualify as love at all.
Every human desire, ambition, and aspiration is destined for ultimate disappointment, unless it transcends its human limitations.
Consider the basic structure within which the universe was manifested: dvaita or duality. The one vast Consciousness moved Itself in opposite directions from its state of rest at the centre. Waves appeared on the surface of the great Ocean of Consciousness. With each wave there came a corresponding trough; the overall ocean level could never change. All this movement exists in thought only. Spirit alone is Absolute; movement is relative. There are degrees of height and depth, which, for simplicity, were divided in scriptures as the three qualities of satva, rajas and tamas.
We can never find fulfilment anywhere except in the inner Self, yet we do absorb qualities from one another through emulation. We need to shed every human trait, including the most sattvic; for as long as we identify it as a quality possessed by the ego, even sattvic qualities suggest that in delusion itself lies the key to enlightenment.
Yet without human friendships we might never get a hint of God’s infinitely greater friendship. Moreover, although human love is “the greatest delusion”, without it we might never feel inspired to seek its true fulfilment, that is, union with God.
Excerpt from Swami’s recent book, Religion in the New Age
(Courtesy Times of India dated 19.02.2010)
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