In his rendering of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, The Radiance Sutras, Lorin Roche invites us to be wildly devoted to someone or something, to cherish every perception while letting go of control, and to trust that the ache in the heart is holy. If you want to know the universe, he writes, dare to love one person.
I was in second grade when I got married. It was on the playground at my elementary school. I can’t recall all the details of the momentous occasion, but I do remember a few things. I remember giggling, a lot, as 7-year-olds do. I remember scheming out the ceremony, and who would be my bridesmaids and who would be maid of honor. I remember holding the hands of my betrothed as we walked down the concrete aisle (there was no grass at our school, which many of us still credit for our adult toughness) and how special and silly and wonderful those quick seconds felt. I remember celebrating to “Macho Man” afterward, because what could be a more romantic way to close the ceremony?
This magic all happened within our 25-minute recess. Then the bell rang. My memory is foggy, but I imagine that by the final bell my new husband had his sights set on some other lucky classmate to marry at the next lunch period. Although I didn’t know it at the time, that was one of my earliest memories of my quest for divine love.
Love and loss are not separate
From the moment we are born, we seek the other. We leave the womb and latch onto our mother for nourishment, comfort and warmth. In our formative years, we seek playmates, develop friendships and eventually crush on those particular somebodies who have stolen our hearts. Love is learned. We learn the effortless bliss of being close to those who share their hearts with us unconditionally. Discovering love is one of our greatest human blessings.
In the same period we learn the heartache of separation and distance. Perhaps it happens in that pivotal moment every toddler experiences: the flash of terror amid joyful play when we realize Mommy and Daddy aren’t in sight. Maybe it comes later, when your best friends get invited to the coolest slumber party of the year and you don’t. Maybe it comes when the boy you’ve set your heart on has his heart set on someone else. Maybe it comes when you lose a grandparent, the person who loved you the way your parents could not. In these moments we learn that love and loss are not separate. You cannot experience one without the other.
This is both the beauty and the tragedy of our human ability to give and receive love. It is a blessing and a curse. It is duality. At some point, we are asked to choose. We can keep our hearts open, dedicating our lives to loving regardless of the pain that may come with it, or we can close our hearts entirely, living in solitude with no one but ourselves and our guarded, fragile ego.
Avidya, ignorance, tells us to guard the ego by closing the heart. Aparigraha, non-attachment, tells us to love freely without clinging too hard to the joys or the inevitable sorrows. So how do we choose? How do we keep loving despite knowing the consequences? How do we dedicate our lives to love?
What is love, really?
Perhaps first we ask: what is love, really? Seven-year-old me would have said love was getting married on the playground and holding hands until lunch was over. Fifteen-year-old me would have said love was wanting to be with my boyfriend every second of every day and talking on the phone all night until one of us fell asleep mid-sentence. Those moments, and many like them, were me trying to decipher the code of love. They were micro creations of the macro, snippets of a larger and more profound romance. I have been graced with a few small but poignant glimpses of what love and divine romance truly are. When I heard the stories of Radha and Krishna in my late teens, I began slowly refining my understanding, and I am still refining it today.
Radha and Krishna
Krishna means “all-attractive.” Krishna is an avatar, an incarnation, of God who graces the earth with his love, mischief, glory and radiance, bestowing blessings on everyone equally. Most importantly, his relationship with Radha, his divine consort, is a perfect example of the relationship between God and humans.
Though Krishna is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, all-powerful and able to have anything he wishes because he is the creator himself, his heart rests and takes shelter in knowing that Radha, a human cowherd girl, is devoted to him and loves him most. Krishna cannot go without Radha’s love, and Radha cannot be without Krishna. They are like the sun and its rays: the sun cannot shine without its warmth extending outward, and the rays do not exist without the sun. They are two parts of a whole, seemingly separate but truly not.
In the Rasa Lila, the story of Radha and Krishna’s love, Radha is the ultimate bhakta, the ultimate devotee. We too are asked to offer ourselves in loving God in this same ecstatic, powerful way. This is the premise of bhakti yoga. As the scholar William K. Mahony describes it, to be a bhakta is to know and adore the divine through the sentiments, acts and responsibilities of love; bhakti is both the offering of love and the state of love from which that offering comes.
The practice of bhakti
In bhakti yoga, the sadhana, the practice, is this: you continuously devote yourself to loving God and establishing a steady awareness of God’s love for you, even when you cannot see or feel it. Through the turbulence of life as well as its serenity, God is your beloved and you are God’s. You are dancing together, yet temporarily separate. As Kahlil Gibran writes in The Prophet:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
If we follow this ancient wisdom, we can begin to answer the question “What is love?” For me, the answer begins with “God is love.” Here the puzzle pieces start to fit. If God is love, and we are a reflection of God, then our quest for divine love through experiencing the other makes sense. And we cannot forget the utmost importance of loving ourselves. We are Radha. We are God’s beloved, whom God cannot stand to be without.
The Bhakti Sutras (sutra 6) describe the one who knows this love as becoming ecstatic, stunned into stillness, and delighted in the Self. If we trust these words enough, faith emerges. We have been given the gift of existence. With life and all its mystery, joy and wonder, all that is asked of us is to love ourselves and one another enough that, through our steady devotion to loving, God can feel our potent love in return.
Love, uninterrupted
Today my life is shaped by many experiences of divine love. When I look into the eyes of my partner, when he holds me, I experience God’s love. When I laugh maniacally with my closest friends, I experience God’s love. When I gather with my family, amid the music, the shouting, the talk of politics, the disagreements and the piles of food, I experience God’s love. When I am alone, I experience God’s love. I was experiencing God’s love when I danced to “Macho Man” at my second-grade pseudo-wedding, and I experience it daily as I dance through the ups and downs of my life today.
Mahony uses the Sanskrit word avichhinna, uninterrupted, for this love. Like life itself, it continues from moment to moment. Its presence remains within us even when we do not feel it, even when it is veiled or discolored by our passing feelings, flowing silently from the core of our being like a wellspring of sweet water rising from the depths of the earth.
Sources: Lorin Roche, The Radiance Sutras; William K. Mahony, Exquisite Love; Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet; the Bhakti Sutras of Narada.
