Divine Love in Relationships
Explore the power of divine love in transforming relationships, guided by insights from Sa'di and Paramahansa Yogananda.
Table of Contents
The Essence of Divine Love in Relationships
Insights on Divine Love from Paramahansa Yogananda and Roy Eugene Davis
Vedic Philosophy's Perspective on Love
Embracing the Infinite Nature of Love
MEDIA: The Essential Insight for Healthy, Happy Relationships
The Divine Purpose of Relationships
Answering Love's Call in Moments of Challenge
The transformative power of divine love, a force that enriches and redefines our relationships, unfolds in profound ways.
The first lesson in this series is The Essential Insight for Healthy, Happy Relationships. An inspiration for the message comes from a poem on love by Sa'di, a 13th-century Islamic mystic.
Love has a beginning but no end. —Sa'di
How mysterious and compelling! How can love have a beginning but no end?
The Essence of Divine Love in Relationships
Divine love has neither a beginning nor an end. Yet for us, there is a beginning when we discover That eternal Reality in which we live and move and have our being. We realize our innate wholeness, our oneness with that omnipresent reality, which is God as love. Once we realize that power and presence it is eternal for us. It is unconditional, endless. It hasn't changed, but we have.
"Love has a beginning but no end."
—Sa'di, a 13th-century Islamic mystic
Insights on Divine Love from Paramahansa Yogananda and Roy Eugene Davis
Paramahansa Yogananda concluded his masterwork, the Autobiography of a Yogi, with the inspiration: God is Love: God's plan for creation can be rooted only in love.
In the spirit of yoga, my guru, Roy Eugene Davis, always advised us to inquire about such statements as God is Love. What does that mean? How can we understand and know it?
Vedic Philosophy's Perspective on Love
In my book, Living the Eternal Way, I wrote about the Vedic philosophy underlying the assertion that God is Love.
In the process of world manifestation, there is one current or energy that flows out from the transcendental realm into creation, and one which pulls all creation back to itself. The current that moves into the world is called the creative or manifesting current. The current that brings creation back to its source to return to the field of Pure Consciousness is known as the attracting current, also called love.
When God is referred to as love, we are referring to love in the highest sense as ever conscious, ever compassionate, and unconditional. As God is love, the very essence of life, we are never without this divine support. We have the ability to cultivate divine love in our thoughts, words, and actions. The cultivation of divine love can be a path home, back to the true Self. One power is both beyond and through the world.
That is Love. Love loves love—the manifesting current is love in expression. The attracting current draws all souls to awaken to divine love through the power of love itself.
Embracing the Infinite Nature of Love
Here is the rest of Sa'di's poem, In Love, translated by Mahmood Jamal
In love there are no days or nights,
For lovers it is all the same.
The musicians have gone, yet the Sufis listen;
In love there is a beginning but no end.
Each has a name for his Beloved,
But for me my Beloved is nameless.
Sa'di, if you destroy an idol,
Then destroy the idol of the self.
That poem says it. To abide in endless love—unconditional, unchanging love—we must let go of the belief, fantasy, or idolatry that we could ever be separate from the Source. We can never be separate from love itself.
This insight is easy enough to see, consider, or take in at satsang, during a worship service, or even off in nature by ourselves. We feel it. Yes! Love is all. But how does that feeling or insight become realized and actualized?
The Essential Insight for Healthy, Happy Relationships on the Kriya Yoga Path
Through poetic insights and practical guidance, you are invited to explore the depths of divine love, learning to see, forgive, and lead with love in all relationships. Discover how to light up your life with divine remembrance, and let love's eternal presence guide you to healthier, happier connections with those around you.
The Divine Purpose of Relationships
Relationships are our divinely inspired training programs for spiritual awakening. And they work so much better if we know that, and we expect to grow and have our rough edges sanded down in Love's Learning Lab. I'm convinced that's why God provided relationships.
Paramahansa Yogananda summed up the strategy for spiritually inspired, healthy, happy relationships with family, co-workers, community, and all beings. He said: Behold the One in All.
Living with Divine Love
When I remember the truth of who I am as a divine being and that divine truth of others, I can see things more clearly, and step back from taking offense, taking things personally, or getting in a power struggle.
Then, I can see divine love at work. I realize it is helping me sand off those edges that are the ego's strategies for getting what I think I want or mistakenly making someone else responsible for my happiness. The divine love in another rouses the love in me to wake up.
Answering Love's Call in Moments of Challenge
When there is a relationship challenge, I ask myself: What do you want? The practice of asking that question is to remind myself that it is love that I want. I want divine love—unity, peace, and compassion to prevail. I want to see clearly and speak and act with love. Not with the idol of self-righteousness or the bane of neediness. I remind myself that love is my goal; it is my commitment, my prayer, and my practice.
Paramahansa Yogananda wrote about how to meet disharmony with love:
"Each condition of inharmony and criticism which I meet is a direct call to me to release the power of understanding, friendliness, and love. Each encounter with hate and anger calls for compassion and love from me. Each situation involving ugliness or emptiness calls for the release of the power of beauty in the form of creative activity. I have much work to do, and I would be 'about my Father's business.'"
The Ultimate Expression of Love
The only way to have love is to bring it and to be it. We cannot get love; we can't demand it or control it. We can only be it and offer it. What does that look like in the heat of the moment? It looks like a commitment to truth. Staying awake to the reality of our being, the truth that it is all God. That is the Source of love; it is what we love and what brings us together without fail. Don't let any situation take love from you. Ask yourself: what do I want here? What is my commitment?
The Mahabharata's Lesson on Love and Righteousness
There is an exquisite story about the commitment to love that comes at the conclusion of the great epic, the Mahabharata. The war is over, and the Pandavas know it is time for them to renounce their kingdom, leave this realm, and journey to the heavens. Yudhisthira leads the way, followed by his brothers Bheema, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva, their wife Draupadi, and a dog who faithfully accompanies them.
Along the way, Draupadi, then one brother after another, falls by the wayside due to various shortcomings that impede their ascent into the heavenly realms. Soon, only Yudhisthira and the dog remain and continue the journey together.
Then Indra, the king of heaven (the abode of the gods), appears with his chariot, commends Yudhisthira for his righteousness, and tells him to get in to ascend to heaven. When Yudhisthira motions for the dog to get in, Indra says no, dogs are not allowed in heaven.
Yudhisthira says, then I will not come either. How could I leave this being who has been so faithful, only giving love to me? Why would I cause this being grief? No, I will not come, and he turns to go back.
Then Indra calls to him and says turn around and look! Miraculously, the true identity of the dog is revealed as Dharma, the God of Righteousness, Divine Truth, and Order—the very foundation of love. Thus, through his commitment to beholding the One in all, Yudhisthira ascends to the heavenly realms.
Those who know we recently adopted a dog into our family might be suspicious of me telling this story. I don't blame you.
Yesterday afternoon, as I was contemplating this story, I took our new dog, Nimisha, out for her afternoon walk. It was raining and we stopped at an intersection to let the oncoming traffic go by. One car passed by us, and then the next, a red truck, stopped with three cars waiting behind it. He motioned for us to cross.
As we moved in front of him with Nimisha leading the way on her leash, he rolled down his window in the rain, stuck his head out, and said, God always goes first. It's the law, right?
It's possible he might have said, Dogs always go first. It's the law, right? But either way, it fits. Love loves love.
Reflecting Divine Love: An Afternoon Walk's Revelation
Those who know we recently adopted a dog into our family might be suspicious of me telling this story. I don't blame you.
Yesterday afternoon, as I was contemplating this story, I took our new dog, Nimisha, out for her afternoon walk. It was raining and we stopped at an intersection to let the oncoming traffic go by. One car passed by us, and then the next, a red truck, stopped with three cars waiting behind it. He motioned for us to cross.
As we moved in front of him with Nimisha leading the way on her leash, he rolled down his window in the rain, stuck his head out, and said, God always goes first. It's the law, right?
It's possible he might have said, Dogs always go first. It's the law, right? But either way, it fits. Love loves love.
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