Love: The Infinite Mystery

Love is a word spoken and heard countless times, yet it remains beyond understanding. Love has no definition; indeed, it cannot be confined within the boundaries of language. Love is the highest summit of feeling, a sublime state that we may call essence. Love born of this essence transcends language, religion, nation, and caste. It recognises neither king nor beggar. Such a lover can be perceived even by the blind and heard even by the deaf.

In today’s world, the love we commonly witness remains mostly at the emotional level, while only a rare soul ascends into the realm of essence. Modern love often arises from attraction, compulsion, greed, expectation, hope, or desire. This is why so many people say that they have been betrayed in love. Yet, friends, no one truly betrays us; betrayal arises from within. A love that begins in attraction, fear, compulsion, illusion, or blind belief cannot endure.

Attraction inevitably fades. Wherever fear, illusion, greed, or expectation exists, love cannot flourish. Love born merely of duty, or faith placed without understanding, remains confined to the emotional plane. Such emotional love breaks at the slightest tremor of disappointment and scatters into fragments.

Betrayal Cannot Exist in Love

More importantly, how can betrayal exist in love? Love is giving; love is a state of being. It is not a transaction that demands something in return. Love happens—it cannot be created through will or performed under compulsion. Any love that is deliberately “done” or “made” is not true love, for hidden self-interest remains within it. And wherever self-interest exists, love cannot exist.

True love arises from knowing. It is not born merely from acceptance, assumption, or belief. Until you know your beloved deeply, you cannot truly love. One who has genuinely known the beloved remains unwavering in love under every circumstance. In contrast, faith placed without understanding is destined to break, because love is something entirely different and infinitely deeper.

The Expansive Nature of Love

A true lover does not confine love to one person. Love born in the depths of the heart naturally expands outwards. Such a lover begins to see the beloved in everyone—not with the desire to possess everyone, but with the capacity to look upon all beings with the same sacred affection.

This does not mean that such a person makes everyone a personal beloved. It means that every living being is seen through the eyes of love.

Emotion transforms into essence when love arises from true understanding. Emotion, born of thought, is temporary and superficial, while essence is deep and enduring. Such a lover loves nature itself, cherishes the family, devotes oneself to work, and embraces even enemies with love. This kind of love becomes the first step towards Bhakti Yoga—the path of devotion and surrender.

The Crisis of Love in the Modern World

In the present age, love has lost much of its authenticity. Relationships are maintained because of necessity rather than genuine affection. Familial, social, and romantic bonds have become burdens, filled with fractures and conflicts. Although we often know the reasons behind these divisions, we hesitate to acknowledge them because we fear the effort and transformation that acceptance would demand.

We seek to limit love or turn it into a transaction, believing that doing so will provide security.

In family and social relationships, competition frequently becomes dominant. Brothers, sisters, and relatives accuse one another of favouritism, neglect, or unequal affection. Such disputes reveal an attempt to imprison love and demand exclusive possession of it.

In essence, love is either being kept within a cage or exchanged like a commodity—offered only on the condition that love will be received in return. Such expectations belong to the world of commerce, not to the realm of love.

Love: The Path of the Mad

The path of love is the path of the mad. Ordinary intelligence cannot walk upon it. The first requirement on this path is the surrender of the ego. Yet how many of us are truly prepared to abandon our ego?

Most people carry the ego like a heavy burden and guard its rigidity with great determination. At the slightest challenge, they respond with anger or even violence.

On the path of love, however, one must not merely put down this burden; one must be willing to give it away freely. Only those who are truly mad in love can do this. Ordinary intelligence cannot. That is why the path of love is called the path of the mad.

Meera, the queen of Mewar, was a living example of this divine madness. Singing songs of sacred love, she wandered through the streets, stayed wherever she was welcomed, and shared food with whomever she met. She drank poison as though it were holy nectar and remained forever immersed in her love for Krishna.

Who possesses the courage to live as Meera lived? Who is willing to surrender everything for love? Most people merely perform the appearance of love, because true love demands the surrender of everything—even the surrender of oneself.

The Rewards of the Path of Love

Through the path of love, one may attain every joy of life—even the Divine. The only price is the surrender of the ego. Once the ego has been relinquished, everything becomes attainable. A person may then receive what ordinary intelligence could not achieve even in ten lifetimes.

In its truest form, love is limitless. It has no boundaries, no conditions, and no expectations. It is the ultimate surrender, the purest freedom, and the highest state of existence.