The embarassment of love

It seems that the hardest thing to do in this sahajiya approach (forgive me for continuing to use this word, but I am currently stuck with it and have been unable to find an alternative) is to measure one's success.

The only measure I have at the present is "emotional intensity." This is not happiness or sadness but union or separation, which are both sides of the same coin.

When the object of love becomes coterminus with the Supreme Truth, then the happiness and distress arising from that love is constant and unrelenting. It seems to be mostly suffering, peppered with occasional bursts of extreme ecstasy. In other words, it appears to be an exacerbated version of the material experience itself. In other words, illusion.

Yoga and jnana cannot help. Knowing it is all illusion is part of the unrelenting dynamic of love. Concentration on the object of love is too painful. Like the verse says of Radha, her yoga is to stop thinking of Krishna.


It is too painful to love and too embarrassing to admit love, because love is always full of confusion.
How can anyone choose a path like that? One that promises peace and delivers poison? And then you look closer and see that nobody promised you peace, either.

I recently commented to a friend that I have been engaged in a process of deliberate self-inflicted autism. I have embraced madness. What is the benefit to the world in that? Isn't sanity what we seek? How can you teach something that promises the opposite of what everyone wants?



Comments

Anonymous said…
If Sri Sri Radha Krsna do not give us what we want and ask for, remember They do give us all what we actually need.
Friday, 11 April, 2014
Anonymous said…
Everybody on this planet wants illusion, cause the reality is too painful to bear after the "honeymoon" is over.

Just like in a movie: "...She kept living in a lie, in a lie she wish she could believe, in a lie of love."

What if in this world not everyone is equal, that is the love is not the same for all? What if there is one form of love for only two human beings forming one couple(union) for ever and ever with no boundaries, limits, indescribable and infinite, AND, there's another form of love that is limited only by the honeymoon period, be it 2 months or 20 years, so that everyone can fall in love again, and again, and again.

So, what form of love is more preferable if you happened to live on this planet. Can you live with someone for ever and ever, without lying, cheating...?
What if on this planet there's only illusion of love, of that heavenly infinite love of the couple that everyone hopelessly seeks for. Of what purpose the Divine infinite love would be on Earth if you cannot be honest enough with yourself, let alone your Divine spouse.


Saturday, 12 April, 2014
Jagadananda Das said…
yayā vācehayā dainyaṁ matyā ca sthairyam eti tat |
taṁ yatnena bhajed vidvāṁs tad-viruddhāni varjayet ||223||
dainyaṁ tu paramaṁ premṇaḥ paripākena janyate |
tāsāṁ gokula-nārīṇām iva kṛṣṇa-viyogataḥ ||224||
paripākena dainyasya premājasraṁ vitanyate |
parasparaṁ tayor itthaṁ kārya-kāraṇatekṣyate ||225||

These verses are from Sanatan Goswami's Brihad-bhagavatamrita. Rather famous. It says that humility is the only means to attaining prema, and that it reaches its peak in separation. And that prema and humility have a mutual cause and effect relationship.

Embarassment = humiliation. When one wants love, he or she is asking for trouble. You can't have love unless you are willing to accept that condition.
Saturday, 12 April, 2014
Jagadananda Das said…
"Everybody wants illusion."

Indeed. That is why we say that illusion IS the reality. But only if you see the underlying truth.

It is like the Vaishnavas' idea of the manifest and unmanifest pastimes. Normally we think of the unmanifest (i.e. Goloka) as the Reality, whereas the world in which we are living, breathing, smelling, loving, etc., is not. But when imbued with consciousness, it becomes a greater reality. There actually IS a hierarchy of realities, and the one in which we are NOW called to ACT in love is the highest.
Saturday, 12 April, 2014
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