Extract from the book :: Power of Love..

“When love glows, it is bliss;

When love flows, it is compassion.

When it blows, it is anger.

When it ferments, it is jealousy.

When it is all ‘NOs’, it is hatred.

When it acts, it is perfection.

When love knows, it is me.”

My dearest Guruji Sri Sri Ravishankar Ji, says that:

There is strength in peace; there is strength in calmness; there is strength in love- which goes unnoticed.

What one can’t win with stick can win with love. Power Of Love needs to be realized. The most powerful thing in the world is love!

Tat Tvan Asi:

When we experience joy, our mind expands.

When we experience pain, our mind gets concentrated and focused, and it comes to one point. In our whole life we always experience pain but we never encounter it; we never stay with it, we never go deep into it.

In love, we can experience pain that brings depth to us. Joy is expansion and height; pain is contraction and depth.

In pain, we consolidate our whole energy. Our consciousness gets deeper and more intense.

Love is very delicate. It makes us delicate from deep inside. It makes us week even though it is greatest strength on this planet. In love, we become vulnerable also. Our whole being is so delicate, so ethereal. And Divine also loves the meek, and the experience of the Divine is so delicate, so supple, so ethereal.

We just need to experience that love is not an emotion, it is our very existence. In love we have longing and pain and that very longing is the Divine.

Guruji says:

“ you are nothing, but burning longing.

You are nothing, but a live glow if love.

You are that longing which you have for me. You are that love which you have for me.

You are that. Be with that.”

Love can be three different types:

One that comes out of charm,

Second, that comes out of familiarity and finally

Third is the Divine Love.

Love that comes out of charm, does not last long. This love is an outcome of unfamiliarity. Once we become familiar with each other, the attraction is quickly lost, and boredom sets in- as in many marriages. This type of love diminishes, and it brings fear, uncertainty, insecurity and sadness.

Love that comes out of familiarity grows as our love for our old friends or for family members. However, this love has no thrill, no enthusiasm, no fire.

But the Divine love spreads both these types of love. It is ever new! The closer we go to it, the more charm and depth we can find there. It has not only familiarity and enthusiasm but also comfort and vast acceptance. It is like a sky- limitless, infinite.

Loving someone:

Why do we love someone?

Is it because of a sense of kinship or intimacy – or do we love someone because he (she) is great or unique?

Guruji says, “ If you love someone for his (or her) qualities, then I tell you, you are hopeless!”

We can love someone without feeling sense of kinship. This type of love generally leads us to competition and jealousy. Also if we love some one only for his/ her qualities, then when the qualities change, or when we get used to those qualities, love also changes. However, if we love someone out of a sense of kinship- if we love someone because he/she belongs to us- then that love remains for lifetime.

The love of kinship is like the love for your own self.

“If the love is based on the qualities of some persons then that love is not stable. After sometime, the qualities change and this love becomes shaky.

Loving someone because of his/her greatness or uniqueness is third rate love.

Loving someone because they belong too you- great or otherwise- is unconditional love” (The Power of Love, 19).

Neither qualities nor action can be perfect all the time. Love, and a feeling of kinship, alone, can be perfect.

Since we feel that we are not made up of love and take love as an emotion, and we try to express it to others. But what happens when someone expresses this love to us?

Generally, we feel obliged and bound, we can shirk or feel shy, or sometime can feel foolish or awkward while other time our ego hardens and doesn’t allow us to receive and reciprocate, and majority of time we doubt the love expressed and our own worthiness.

We are afraid of losing respect because love does not allow distance, and respect tends to require distance.

The more centered you are, the more you know (by experience) that you are love, the more you feel at home with any amount of love, being expressed in any manner- for deep inside, you know, love is not an emotion; it is your very existence. (H.H. Sri Sri Ravishankar Ji).

Here comes another thing, when we love someone and express it to the fellow, but due to any of the above reason person doesn’t accept our proposal then what happens? What we do then?

Get frustrated, turn love into hatred and wish for revenge.

Try to remind the fellow again and again that how much we are in love with him/her

Our behavior changes and we become fussy and cranky, start throwing tantrums.

We feel humiliated and try to protect our respect.

Sometimes we resolve that we will never love that fellow again in our lives.

We may feel hurt and mistreated and due to all these reasons we try to be aloof and indifferent, so that people can sympathize with us and can acknowledge our pain.

But we might have seen that all these things which are given above do not help us in any manner and they actually worsen our situation. Then what is the way to maintain our love our very existence?

Have patience and change expression of love. Be centered, and limit expressing love. Because sometimes over expression puts the person off.

Best thing is, always take it granted that they love you too, and accept their style of expression.

Acknowledge whatever love they have for us and this will turn our demand into gratefulness.

Always keep in mind that hurt or pain is also a part of love, and take responsibility for it.

We can say that love for everyone should be the same but while loving the partner this could be in a different form. Just expression is different. But we see that marriages fall apart now a days- reason is lack of understanding, different style of expression of love and the demand to prove the love all the time. This actually turns off the mind and changes our energy of love to different form where this can ferment of blow or can turn to big NO’s.

We never decide our relationship or partnership with our heads; it’s our heart which draws us towards a partner. But it is still necessary to use intellect too keep a certain balance.

Our mind thinks thousands of things in a day and we hardly can tell which one is right or which one is not.

Guruji says, “ If you just look at someone and say, “Oh!, this is a partner for me!”- i.e., if you just get into a partnership only on an impulse, then tomorrow, your heart goes somewhere else… and on the third day, your heart goes somewhere else, yet again- you will be in trouble and you will put others into trouble also! This won’t work!”

At the same time if you keep thinking in your head, “Who should be my partners? Who is my partner?”- This won’t work either!

Any relationship or partnership can stay only if both the partners think of contributing into that relationship instead of thinking that what they will get out this relationship, then only the relationship remains healthy.

After reading this wonderful book, I wonder .. What is true and what is not.. It is true that love is our very existence.. So live in that .. Realize our personal self.. See Divine in every person and in every thing including personal self. Then the whole world will be one family..

Have fun !!