Words from the Master

True love always gives without a care and it doesn’t know to ask. It does not know any trade. It knows only to give. And it can never be created. It is like this: You can create a plastic rose; but will it have the fragrance of the real rose? No! In the same way, true love can never be created. The love that you live in your everyday lives is like a plastic rose with no fragrance. It appears real, but has no fragrance.

For the real rose to happen, you need to create the right conditions, the right soil, the right amount of water etc. and then it will happen on its own. Likewise, for true love to happen, you can create awareness, clarity, a deep understanding within yourself, and it will blossom from inside you.

In a college gathering one girl asked me, “Swamiji, was it failure in love that caused you to become a sannyasi?”

I told her that it was success in love that caused me to become a sannyasi! Failure in love will create only a Devdas not a sannyasi! Only when you can love the whole world can you become a sannyasi. Only when you can love the whole world, it is real love.

Real love knows no relationships. Only ordinary love knows relationships. In ordinary love, you love your father because he provides for you. You love your mother because she takes care of you. You love your boyfriend because he gives you sensual pleasure. These are the various reasons for ordinary love.

Real love is not like that. It doesn’t say Oh! This is my father. I must love him…No! It knows to keep loving everyone and everything, that’s all. With ordinary love, there will be failure and success. With real love, there is no success or failure, it just IS, that’s all. The success is in finding it!

People think that when nothing works out for you, when love becomes no more, you become a sannyasi. Sannyasis are looked upon as renunciates who are driven by frustration. I tell you: I feel so sad when I think of these people who say these things. They are in such deep ignorance. And they pass judgment from such a state of ignorance. Sannyas is the ultimate marriage – marriage to the Divine!

A true sannyasi is one who is so loving and compassionate that it is said that where he walks, the grass doesn’t die! This is not a story. It is the Truth. A true sannyasi is one who exudes compassion and love towards Existence. A true sannyasi is one who knows that prayer is love and love is prayer.

When you have found real love, your prayer will be just an expression of it. What are Meera Bhajans? They are the loving outpourings of Meera - an enlightened woman from India. She just resonated with Existence and poured from her Being. That is why Meera Bhajans are famous even today. The energy behind it can never fade because it is the Existential Energy. Ordinary love cannot be felt over so many years by so many people. Only pure love can radiate that kind of Energy.

And for Meera, her bhajans were her prayer. When you have found real love, there is no other way. Prayer becomes love. And pure love does not know to ask. It only knows to flow with a totality. When you stop asking in your prayer, you have found real love.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.