#105 Uddhava Gita: From Oneness to Divine Love (Canto 10 Ch 47 Srimad Bhagavatam)

All of us want love. But what is the greatest love of all? Is it the love of a partner, our beloved, our soul mate, twin flame or is it the love of a friend or the love of our children or the love of dog? Is self-love perhaps the greatest love of all?

Let’s do a reality check and you will find that human love or mundane love is conditional, unreliable and temporary. If people do not meet our needs, act within our boundaries or treat us as we think they should then either we will leave or they will.

On the other hand, the highly evolved saint, Rupa Goswami in his Nectar of Devotion, says that the highest form of love is Divine Love or Love of God or Bhakti Yoga. The highest expression of divine love is when one has no desire in one’s heart except to love God, not because of what you will get from this love, not for knowledge or personal benefit but only to satisfy the supreme beloved through surrender, devotion and selfless service.

Each of these three words indicates a letting go of the ego. The ego is a vital part of the mind, it is our identity, it is who we think we are and our mind cannot function without it. But we can transform it. We can give up our false identity that is based on gender (man, woman, trans), my age (adult, child, young, old), nationality (American, Indian,) race (black, white), my career (employee, entrepreneur), and so one. All these identifications are connected with the body. When we understand that I am not defined by my body, my mind, or my egoic identities, I am not defined by my life story, the things I own, the things I have done or not done then we come to the ultimate truth that I am a spiritual being, a soul and full of endless possibilities. As I let go my false self and enter into the real eternal everlasting truth about who I am: a part of God.

I have a relationship with the Supreme Being, a relationship based on love, pure, unmotivated, unending, unlimited, unconditional love. That is what we have all been looking for in this world and haven’t found. The urge to look for this highest quality of love lies in all of us because we are all lovers of God. The science of cultivating this love is called Bhakti. And the best place to learn about divine love is from those who have attained, experienced and shared with us what it is and how it feels.