The Expanding Cycle of Spiritual Love

The following is an abridged excerpt from Seva.

Mystics frequently remind us that whatever we give our attention to, that is what we come to love. So when we give the master our time and attention through both inner and outer seva, we are building a relationship of deep love.

By serving the master, our heart attains union with his heart.
_{Maharaj Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. I}

The continuum of love is not a straight line, however – a stage of obedient effort, followed by a stage of surrender, then longing, and finally union. Rather, it is circular. Consistent daily acts of obedience chip away at our ego and encourage the mind to surrender. As surrender grows, it fuels the desire to obey the master more and more – which in turn further increases surrender. Thus, obedience and surrender feed each other in an expanding cycle; and with this the longing for union slowly grows. A lifetime of obedience and outer surrender eventually leads to inner surrender, true longing, and ultimately to union. This is the continuum – an ever-expanding spiral of spiritual love.

As love for the master grows, we may feel a natural urge to express it outwardly, because this is how we’ve been conditioned by the world. But spiritual love is different from worldly love – as it grows, it moves deeper within. Hazur advises: “A lover never advertises that love.”

Well, if there’s love, there is nothing to speak about, and if you speak, there is no love. Love loses its depth when you try to express it. The more you digest it, the more it grows. It is more to experience than to express.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

The master doesn’t need to be shown how much we love him; he knows.… The master sees our love, and yet somehow we find this hard to believe. So we may feel the urge to demonstrate our love through some visible means, at the very least through tears. And if there are no tears – if we don’t feel overwhelmed with emotion – we may judge ourselves and conclude we have no love. But how can there be no love?

When we feel we have no love, it means we are not satisfied with the depth of the love we have. That doesn’t mean that you have no love at all. Otherwise you wouldn’t think about it.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

There may be times when we look at a fellow sevadar’s love for the master, compare ourselves, and find our own love wanting. But Huzur reminds us never to compare ourselves with anyone else:

So many of you tell me in interviews that you don’t have love. I don’t understand your concept of love and how you analyze and measure it. There is nothing to think about love. Love is just there. Our problem is that we compare ourselves with each other. We think that person is more in love than I am and I should be like him. But nobody knows anybody at all.

At times we may look at the master’s love for us and make judgements – he loves this sevadar more than me; he loved me before but he doesn’t love me as much now, and so on. But the master’s love for us is steady and unchanging – it is infinite. Rather than overwhelm us with that boundless ocean, the master simply provides a mirror – he reflects our own love back to us:

You see your own reflection in the master. If you have love and devotion, you will feel he’s in love with you – he loves you. If you are indifferent to him, you’ll feel your master is indifferent to you. This is our own reflection.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Legacy of Love}

Our understanding of love is limited, so we tend to calculate, analyze, and worry. If, instead, we would simply make the necessary sacrifices to obey the master and give him our time and attention, love for him will automatically bloom within us. It will reflect in our words, our deeds, our character, and our very way of life. This is the highest form of service. This is guru bhakati, devotion to the master. This is love.