"May I have love" A verse by Haridas Shastri (Apr 27, 2009)
This was a response to something an ex-devotee posted about self-love. As often is the case, something else crossed my path at about the same time, namely this verse by Haridas Shastri. It provoked certain thoughts in me that I felt worth sharing. As prayers go, it seems particularly good to me and I had even included it in an earlier post. I wrote this comment on Facebook but never posted it on the blog, though I rather like the trend of the meditation.
वैष्णवे प्रीतिरास्तां
मे प्रीतिरास्तां प्रभोर्गुणे
सेवायां प्रीतिरास्तां
मे प्रीतिरार्तिश्च कीर्तने
आश्रिते प्रीतिरास्तां
मे प्रीतिश्च भजनोन्मुखे
आत्मनि प्रीतिरास्तां
मे कृष्णभक्तिर्यथा भवेत्
sevāyāṁ prītir āstāṁ me prītir ārtiś ca kīrtane
āśrite prītir āstāṁ me prītiś ca bhajanonmukhe
ātmani prītir āstāṁ me kṛṣṇa-bhaktir yathā bhavet
May I have love for the Vaishnavas.
May I have love for the Lord's qualities.
May I have love for service.
May I have love and enthusiasm for Harinam Kirtan.
May I have love for those who have taken refuge in the Lord.
May I have love for those who even have a desire to engage in bhajan.
May I have love for my own eternal self,
by which devotion to Krishna comes about.
What is self-love if we don't know what the Self is?
There are basically two kinds of approach to life: One is
the approach of "being," the other of "becoming." The yogis
and jnanis tend to favor the former approach, the devotees the latter. The two
don't see exactly eye-to-eye because they think the two approaches are in
conflict, but actually, a synthesis of the two is needed.
The materialistic approach to life, especially Western
individualism, puts all the emphasis on becoming, but based in a bodily
conception of life. And this results in many problems, mainly because we have
these material goals based on a false and unattainable concept of self, based
in body image, career goals, goals in our affective life, etc. These are all
basically achieved or not achieved in a relative fashion, based on previous
karmas. And there is very little that we can do about it.
The flip side of the material urge to becoming is the psychologists' idea of self-love. This is really a materialistic philosophy of being. In reality, however, the term self-love in itself is somewhat meaningless, since love is itself a turning outward from the self. It is however a step in the right direction.
The Atma-vādis believe that the self is immutable, perfect,
transcendent. We require nothing more than to be conscious of that
transcendent, spiritual, divine consciousness and everything else falls into
place. Because we have really nothing to do with the false identity of the
body. For them, the question of self-love is meaningless, because there is no
non-self. Love is simply the state of being in that oneness. It is achieved by
a culture of interiorization through meditation, etc.
So, for them, "know yourself" makes sense; "love yourself" is a misstatement based on a misconception about self. Know yourself and you become love.
The Vaishnava concept is oriented to becoming, but it begins
with the above awareness, and is not based on false identities. The soul is
indeed immutable, perfect and transcendent. But its nature is to be ever
becoming in love. This implies, like Haridas Shastri says, bhakti to Krishna. I
love myself in an abstract kind of way because in essence, I am love. But love
without another, without the Other, is meaningless.
Indeed, you can say that there is no love of self without
love of the Self: The soul of the Soul, through which love becomes universal.
But here the implication is that one has to strive, eternally. like a bird
flying in the limitless sky, or the fish swimming in the limitless ocean.
Love means being what one is: The eternal lover of God. That
being implies eternally becoming richer and fuller in love.
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