True Love

And what is it to love but for the lover to absorb
forever the Beloved so that the twain be one?
_{The Book of Mirdad}

Love, such a short word, quite easy to say, and yet impossible to describe. The word has become such a cliche that we use it to express various actions, identifying it with almost any pleasant feeling towards anything or anyone. The true depth behind this four-letter word is lost.

What is love? The words of Hazur Maharaj Ji still echo in our ears today. He used to say, “Love is losing your identity, merging into the Beloved and becoming one with him.” Our attention directs itself solely on the Beloved, not out of force but out of helplessness. Love entails living our lives for him - making choices that will lead us to him. It is consciously being with him throughout the day while doing our daily activities and then looking forward to being with him alone in solitude. It is yearning for him; longing for him so much that the soul loses itself in him.

The question is: why don’t we feel this way? Why is it so hard to lose ourselves in his love? Why do our thoughts constantly run elsewhere when we sit in meditation? This is because our focus is still in this world. We love ourselves more than anything else. The love that we know is selfish. We cannot even understand the concept of completely forgetting ourselves for someone else.

Moreover, we do not truly know the Master. We believe in the teachings, we believe in the Master and in God, but we think he is separate from us; one who is far out of our reach. That is why we do not know him. How can we realize him if we do not know him? Love is the most important aspect in achieving our goal. Indeed, we are totally in love with the Master’s physical form, but it is the Shabd - his true form that we need to be in love with.

So the question becomes: how can we love him in the truest sense? First of all, we have to know him. We have to experience the Shabd. The saints tell us that the only way to truly know him is to first know ourselves.

What we see on the outside, what we understand ourselves to be is our ego. Meditation, however, brings us deep within where we get to know our real selves - the soul. And just like a needle that is attracted to the magnet, the soul, upon realizing itself, will instantly merge into its source - the Shabd. This is what Hazur Maharaj Ji is trying to tell us that we have to love the Lord so much that we lose our identity, our ego, and merge into him to become one with him.

Only meditation can awaken our love for the Shabd. It enables us to realize his immense love for us. And every single day, as we sit with him in meditation, we will grow to experience this love. We may not feel it instantly, but over time, it will gradually strengthen our love in the truest sense. Ultimately, it is only through one-pointed devotion that the soul can rise upwards and commune with Shabd.

The only way to strengthen love is by meditation. There is no other way, because the love which we get by experience cannot be compared to any other type of love. You can build love and devotion only through meditation, not otherwise. Meditation builds everlasting love.

He is the One who is behind the screen, and the string is absolutely in his hands. He makes us dance in his love and devotion, and we are just puppets.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Die to Live}

There are times when we become anxious, especially when we meet the Master in the physical form and we ask, “Why can’t we feel the longing that the saints talk about? Why don’t we feel that intense love even after sitting for so many years every single day?” If we could only understand that it is the Lord who is making us anxious to feel that longing. It is he who is pulling us, prompting us to try to go within and meet him.

So you can say, ‘I am doing the meditation’, provided you are doing it. ‘I’ only comes when we don’t do it. When we truly meditate, then ‘I’ just disappears. Then we realize His grace, that but for Him how could we ever think or even attend to it. Then there is no ‘I’, there is nothing but gratefulness - everything in gratitude. Then we know our insignificance.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Die to Live}

That is when we let go of our ego. Nothing in this world will matter because then we will be secure in his love. Whether it is the sun shining or a storm shattering our lives, we will know that it is the Lord pulling us towards him. Ultimately, it is this love that will help us to rise to the level where we can experience that true longing where we lose ourselves, merge into him and become one with him.