What is called love may be divided into three categories.
We love great men for their high qualities, I mean distinguished men, men of truth,
philanthropists, jnanins, men of grace.
We mix with our friends and relatives intimately and affection develops between them and us. Then we love people- love them ostensibly for a specific purpose, for the reason that we stand to gain from them. For instance, we may seem to love a rich
man hoping that he would help us in our business or some other enterprise.
We may love our employer because he pays us our wages.
These three types of love are neither true nor everlasting.
If our employer sacks us we will cease to have either respect or affection for
him. If people with whom we have had close contacts leave for a distant
place or die or if we lose touch with them, we are likely in due course to
forget them.
All the sorrow we felt in the beginning because of being separated from them will eventually be forgotten. Were it true love the grief also should be enduring. Even our love for a great man is not lasting. If there happens to be a diminution in his qualities- or if he seems to us not as great as we thought he was- we will love him in correspondingly lesser measure.
All three categories of love have some reason [or motive] behind them.
That is why they are not everlasting. We love great men because they
possess certain qualities: there is an element of selfish interest in our
feelings for them: because we think they will be helpful in our
advancement.
True love knows neither reason nor motive.We must, to start with, learn to have disinterested love for an individual, that is love that is not tainted by self-interest.
Before parting
We must not look for any reason to love our preceptor. If we constantly "practise" to have such love for our guru we will be the recipients of his blessings. Our love for him will eventually grow into love that will encompass all. If our love is manifested in this manner there will be fullness, tranquility and bliss.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment