THE TRIANGLE OF LOVE
We may represent love as a triangle, each of the angles of which corresponds to one of its inseparable characteristics. There can be no triangle without all its three angles, and there can be no true love without its three following characteristics:
The first angle of out triangle of love is that love knows no bargaining. The second angle of the triangle of love is that love knows no fear. The third angle of the love-triangle is that love knows no rival, for in it is always embodied the lover's highest ideal.
Love we hear spoken of everywhere. Everyone says, "Love God".Men do not know what it is to love. If they did, they would not talk so glibly about it. Every man says he can love and then in no time finds out that there is no love in his nature. Every woman says she can love and soon finds out that she cannot. The world id full of the talk of love, but it is hard to love. Where is love? How do you know there is love? The first test of love is that it knows no bargaining. So long as you see a man love another only to get something from him, you know that it is not love. It is shopkeeping. Wherever there is any question of buying and seeling, it is not love. So when a man prays to God, "Give me this, and give me that,"it is not love. How can it be? I offer you a prayer and you give me something in return. That is what it is- mere shopkeeping.
A certain great king went to hunt in a forest, and there he happened to meet a sage. He had a little conversation with him and became so pleased with him that he asked him to accept a present from him. "No", said the sage, "I am perfectly satisfied with my condition. These trees give me enough fruit to eat. These beautiful pure streams supply me with all the water I want. I sleep in these caves. What do I care for your presents, though you be an emporor?" The emporor said, "Just to purify me, to gratify me, come with me into the city and take some present."At last the sage consented to go with the emporor, and he was taken into the epmoror's palace, where there were gold, jewellery, marble, and most wonderful things. Wealth and power were manifest everywhere. The emporor asked the sage to wait a minute while he repeated his prayer, and he went to a corner and began to pray, "Lord, give me more wealth, more children, more territory." Meanwhile, the sage got up and began to walk away. The emporor saw him saw him going and went after him. 'Stay Sir, you did not take my present and are going away." The sage turned to him and said "Beggar, I do not beg of beggars. What can you give? You have been begging yourself all the time. "
That is not the language of love. What is the difference between love and shopkeeping if you ask God to give you this and give you that? The first test of Love is that it knows no bargaining. Love is always the giver and never the taker. Says the child of God: "If God wants, i give Him my everything, but i do not want anything from Him. I want nothing in this universe. I love Him because I want to love Him, and I ask no favour in return. Who cares whether God is almighty or not? I do not want any power from Him not any manifestation of His power. Sufficient for me that He is the God of love. I ask no more questions."
The second test is that love knows no fear. So long as man thinks of God as a Being sitting above the clouds, with rewards in one hand and punishments in the other, there can be no love. Can you frighten me into love? Does the lamb love the lion? The mouse, the cat? The slave, the master? Slaves sometimes simulate love, but is it love? where do you ever see love in fear? It is always a sham. With love never comes the idea of fear. Think of a young mother in the street: If a dog barks at her, she flees into the nearest house. The next day she is in the street with her child, and suppose a lion rushes upon the child. Where will be her position? Just at the mouth of the lion, protecting her child. Love conquered all her fear. So also in the love of God.
Who cares whether God is rewarder or a punisher? That is not the thought of a lover. Think of a judge when he comes home: What does his wife see in him? Not a judge, or a rewarder, or a punisher, but her husband, her love. What do his children see in him? Their loving father- not the punisher or rewarder. So the children of God never see in Him a punisher or a rewarder. it is only people who have never tasted of love that fear and quake. Cast off all fear- though these horrible ideas of God as a punisher or rewarder may have their use in savage minds. Some men, even th emost intellectual, are spiritual savages, and these ideas may help them. But to men who are spiritual, men who are approaching religion, in whom spiritual insight is awakened, such ideas are simply childish, simply foolish. Such men reject all ideas of fear.
The third is a still higher test. Love is always the highest ideal. When one has passed through the first two stages, when one has thrown off all all shopkeeping and cast off all fear, one then begins to realize that love is always the highest ideal. How many times in this world we see a beautiful woman loving an ugly man! How many times we see handsome man loving an ugly woman! What is the attraction? Lookers- on only see the ugly man or the ugly woman, but not so the lover. To the lover, the beloved is the most beautiful being that ever existed. How is it? The woman who loves the ugly man takes, as it were, the ideal of beauty that is in her own mind and projects it on thsi ugly man; and what she loves and worships is not the ugly man, but her own ideal. That man is, as it were, only the suggestion; and upon that suggestion she throws her own ideal and covers it, and it becomes her object of worship. Now this applies in every case where we love.
The highest ideal of every man is called God. Ignorant or wise, saint or sinner, man or woman, educated or uneducated, cultivated or uncultivated- to every human being the highest ideal is God. the synthesis of all the highest ideals of beauty, of sublimity, and of power gives us the most complete conception of the loving and lovable God.
- A chapter from Vedanta, the Voice to Freedom (Swami Vivekanda)
Happy Teacher's Day!
~ Love with Gratitude
