#213 The heart of a devotee has no circumference

There are 3 faulty assumptions about our understanding of love in modern society –

Assumption 1 – Love is a feeling. If I don’t feel love, there is no love in my life.  As long as we take this position we struggle because we are starved for love.

Correction – We feel love. We are loving in our actions. We are love. And so, love is more a verb and a noun than a feeling. This insight liberates us from the pressure to feel love all the time.

Assumption 2 – To feel love, there must be a person to love. People think that to love is simple, but to find the right person to love or to be loved by, is difficult.

Correction – It is very quick and easy to find people to love as it does not depend on how deserving the person is. But to love and sustain care,  a commitment to the happiness and growth of the person is far more long term.

Assumption 3 – We think our problem with love is how to be loved and how to be lovable.

Correction – Being loving has more to do with who you are and your practice of loving, as a person.

Did I say practice? Yes. The practice of loving and discovering love as the fabric of life is enabled by Bhakti, a love for Ishvara. 

We experience suffering when we don’t feel loved and we tend to hurt others by withholding love from them.

If one adds a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water is totally undrinkable. But if one  adds a handful of salt into a river, people can continue to use the water to cook, wash, and even drink. The river is immense. The river has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform.

When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited. We cannot accept others and their shortcomings. We demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t trouble us anymore. Our capacity for understanding and compassion grows. We can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform and see that they were lovable all along.

How can our hearts grow? Is there an expanding circumference for the heart to grow?.

Our hearts grow when we make a shift from ahankara based love to a devotee’s love.

Ahankara is a self concept, based on our limited perception – I am this much only. Henceforth, I am using the word ‘ego’ as a loose translation of ahankara, limited self-concept in line with popular understanding. And so, the love of such a person for anyone or anything is ego based love

A devotee is the one who is discovering the all-knowing and all-pervasive Ishvara. His love for Ishvara may be in the form of seeking solution for problems, worship for gains, enquiry into knowing Ishvara or the one who knows the abiding identity with Ishvara or some of the above. The devotee’s love is that of the jijnasu’s love, born of a growing understanding of Ishvara. 

Narada in his Bhakti Sutras defines Bhakti as para-prema-rupa. Bhakti is in the form of absolute love for God, a love that is unchanging. Is that even possible?

The love for Ishvara is possible only through an enquiry into Ishvara which is found to be oneself.

Can you love chikapikarika? No..

You can only love what you know.

Through the enquiry of Vedanta, the entire world of names and forms including one’s own body and mind is understood as Ishvara.

Ego based love shifts to a devotee’s love.

The enquiry into the svarupa,nature of Ishvara is undersood as one’s svarupa, as consciousness and hence there is nothing but prema, a dynamic love that is a manifestation of the limitless, Ananta, the jnaanam, the light that illumines all, that is YOU.

The heart of devotee expands as it has no circumference. By contrasting ego based love with a devotee’s love, we can grow. This is not to sit in judgement of oneself but to shine some light on the differences between ego-based love and bhakti-based love/ a devotee’s love :

1. Exclusivity vs Inclusivity – Ego based love is based on love for people which is exclusive and limited to them only because they served your interests. It does not extend to other people in the world who are seen as ‘not my people’.

On the other hand, A devotee’s love or bhakti is inclusive of your loved ones and others in the world to whom you extend your care in different ways.

2. Insecurity vs Security – Ego based love rests on insecurity and inadequacy – I am not enough. I am lovable only if someone finds me worthy enough of love.

A devotee’s love or bhakti is based on a sense of security and adequacy. I am blessed by Ishvara every moment evidenced in all the factors that support my life. I am more than enough. There are people to love.

3. Disconnectedness vs Connectedness – Ego based love is based on a pervasive feeling of disconnectedness, loneliness and hence anxiety when the people we love are absent.

A devotee’s love or bhakti is based on recognising an ever-present connection with Ishvara who pervades all beings including the people in our lives.

Just like the baby in the womb is connected to the mother through the umbilical cord and is sustained in all ways by the mother, so too the devotee is ever connected through numerous visible and invisible cords to Ishvara who sustains the devotee in all ways. There may be experiences of aloneness not loneliness.

4. Dependence and Conditionality vs Independence and Unconditionality: Ego-based love is dependent on the actions and behavior of others. If people fulfil our ragas and dveshas, we are happy. If I tell you to sit down and you sit down, I mistake obedience to be love.

A devotee’s love is relatively independent of the actions and behaviour of others. There is accommodation of the other’s angularities as well as one’s own. You naturally reach out to the child crying alone in the park not because you know the child but because you are loving. Your love is not limited by many conditions.

5. Getting vs Giving – Ego based love never feels enough because our attention is focused on what more the person should do for us. The primary question is ‘What can I get’?

A devotee’s love and self-sufficiency focusses on what the person has already done for us and recognises the law of karma imbued with the presence of Ishvara. The primary question in recognition of one’s blessings is ‘What can I give? How can I contribute to the person’s happiness and well-being’? In the giving, there is the receiving.

6. Short lived intensity vs Growing strength – Ego-based love can be intense but often fades over time.

A devotee’s love is a deep, abiding love that grows stronger over time, with the understanding of Ishvara. It has the capacity to expand and include all beings. What do you think our universal prayer of happiness for all beings– sarve bhavantu sukhinah, is about, if not love?

7. Subjectivity vs Objectivity – Ego based love is highly subjective, and based on a limited understanding of I, me and mine.

A devotee’s love is objective, as she is awake to the reality that the entire world is a manifestation of Ishvara. Is there anything that is truly, I, me and mine? And yet I get to be a trustee of this body-mind and even the ego!.  

8. Less vs More Understanding: Ego-based love often lacks understanding and acceptance of the other hence the ego experiences a lot of hurt and wallowing in it.

A devotee ‘s love is characterized by understanding and acceptance of the person’s unique qualities and imperfections. If and when there is hurt, there is also healing from the hurt.

9. Controlling vs Open Communication: Ego-based love often involves controlling or manipulating communication, ’If you love me, you should do this for me’.

A devotee’s love involves open and honest communication based on Dharma. The effort is to not give into samskaaras of manipulating the other person.

10. Chance vs Practice – Ego based love is left to chance and depends on how deserving and exalted people are, in ‘my esteemed opinion’.

A devotee’s love is a deliberate practice of love and care for different beings – acts of kindness, spending quality time with others, hugging and holding the other, giving thoughtful gifts, expressing our care through words, forgiving someone for their hurtful acts, offering enthusiasm and encouragement and so on. 

By contrasting ego based love with a devotee’s love on these 10 points, we can see that our journey of growing in love is the journey of a lifetime.

It is the journey of the disconnected ego to the connected devotee

As the ego undertakes the enquiry into Ishvara, entrenched ideas of I, me and mine  give way to all and ours.

Isha vaasyam sarvam idam.

All that is here is Ishvara. 

This love for Ishvara is the love for all this, idam sarvam.

A devotee does out of love rather than for the sake of love. Whether it is making breakfast, watering the plants, doing the dishes, speaking with someone, it is all done out of the love that one is.       

The heart of the ahankara/ego who looked for fullness discovers that I was the devotee all along, ever connected, ever loving, ever present, ever happy. 

The heart of the devotee has no circumference.