Love is All

Love is ultimately the most important theme in spiritual life. Not knowledge, good works, salvation, enlightenment, self-realization or even liberation from material existence. These are very nice, but they are subordinate to love. Love of Godhead is the source and the consummation of all spiritual paths, methods and endeavors. This is the conclusion of the Esoteric Teaching.

As the time of death approaches, we naturally review our life experiences. And we find that the most important subject in our life is love. In the intense retrospection of approaching death, we repeatedly savor our successes in love, and bitterly regret our failures, the lost opportunities, the unspoken words and unmade gestures of love.

Love is the final litmus test of spiritual advancement. How well did we love in this life, and were we able to achieve satisfaction in the quest to give and receive perfect love? Those who fail to rise to love’s challenges and solve love’s problems in this life will certainly have to take another birth to work out their deficiencies. Spiritual liberation is only for those who have found the courage to master the art of loving.

Love is the most important issue in everyone’s life. And we find its resolution only in pure Love of Godhead, the eternal spiritual love that knows no rules, boundaries or limits. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is first of all a loving God, a God of love. In the words of Jesus, “God is love.”

The Supreme Lord is a wonderful personality, full of deep love and affection for His created beings. No one can ever approach His unlimited, unconditional love for the soul. This love relationship between the soul and God is eternal, without beginning or end. No one can find its limits, nor is there any fault or impurity in His love.

Ordinary human love in the material world is, alas, full of imperfections. Even in the improbable event of attaining perfect love in this world, no one can keep it for very long. Time erodes and washes away even the best of the experiences of this life. But spiritual love is eternal, and can never be stopped by any of the conditions of this material world.

Our natural Love of Godhead lies dormant within our hearts, but it can be revived by steady practice of the methods of the Esoteric Teaching, especially by simply chanting the Holy Name of God. God has many names according to His transcendental qualities and pastimes. Any of the unlimited Holy Names of God can confer the greatest benefit on the souls conditioned by material existence and withering away due to lack of love in this world of ignorance and error.

Chanting the Holy Name of God is like a child calling out to her mother and father. God knows our hearts and hears every prayer. Certainly He knows all our desires and our suffering due to separation from Him. God’s compassion is as unconditional as His love, therefore He provide His Holy Names as an infallible means of connecting with Him.

But our defect is that we do not want His association or His love. We think, mistakenly but stubbornly, that we can be happy somehow or other without Him. This is an error. We can no more be happy without God’s love and loving Him, than we could be happy without eating. In fact, love of Godhead is a greater necessity than food. After all, we can always get another body, but there is only one God, and His love is irreplaceable.