What
do you do when you want to say something?
Just
say it!
Pretty
simple it sounds but not quite so. Saying things that affect no one like “I am
hungry”, “I will go home”, “I am tired”, “can I sleep” are simple and you will
say them a thousand times without batting an eyelid. Try saying “I hate you”
and you will realize how difficult it is to hate a person. Funny it may sound,
but try saying “I love you” and you will find your conscience asking ‘do you,
really?’
Petty
differences arise everyday with people we live and work with everyday. It is so
very difficult to agree with everyone at all times and then there are moments
when you have to say NO not only to an idea but to some person also. You may
even think that it is not possible to accept the idea or the person ever again.
Stop for a while in such situations before declaring ‘universal hatred’. Think
whether you also may be seen in the same light by that person and ‘hated’ so.
Do you really hate that person or just his ideas?
I
was going through Jalaludin Mohammed Rumi’s Masnavi and Fihi ma Fihi. Rumi
incidentally is accepted universally as the founder-philosopher-saint of the
school of Islamic thought that we know as Sufism. He asks if a saint who is
immersed in God slaps another person, is it the saint or God who has slapped
the person? The most common repertoire would be to say that if he is a real
saint, first of all he would not slap. Secondly, why are we dragging an
invisible God into the acts of a human? It is the saint and he must repent his
action.
Think
again. If he is a saint and has renounced his worldly likes and dislikes for
the love of God, there is no reason to suspect that he would slap a person for
something as silly as personal dislike. Secondly, if someone ventures and
manages to tread over the virtuous to an extent that even he would give a slap,
then our man deserves the slap and it is indeed the and of God that gave him
the slap. The faithful and sincere devotee is actually a manifestation of God
and His love for fellow humans. Hate and mischief towards such a soul is
actually mischief towards one’s own self. Hatred therefore is mischief
manifesting itself towards own self. It is difficult to hate your own self.
That is why it is very difficult to hate (in real terms) some one else too.
Well
the question then is, why is it also difficult to say ‘I love you’ so easily?
How
many of us actually ‘love’ someone or something? Will we do beyond the call of
every compulsion, fear or temptation what the ‘love’ actually demands of us?
Will we sacrifice everything that we have, including our honor and wealth, for
what we love? Will we simply surrender ourselves to that which we love? If the
unconditional answer is ‘yes’, perhaps we could say that we love that person or
thing. If not, then perhaps what we have towards the person is a strong ‘like’
or ‘desire’ which are matters of emotion. Love is a matter of the spirit.
The
best example that I can think of quoting is that of the most favored of all of
Lord Krishna’s Gopis, Radha. In one of the bhajans by Hari Om Sharan, there is
a line:
US
WAQT JALDI AANA (when the time for my
soul to depart comes, you [Krishna] must appear before me quickly)
RADHEY
KO SAAT LAANA (bring Radha with you)
NAHI
SHYAM BOOL JAANA (hey Krishna, do not forget to bring her!)
Those
of us familiar with the stories of Krishna will know
that He is the incarnation of Vishnu, Lakshmi is his spiritual consort and even
as Krishna, He had two consorts, Rukmini and Satyabhama. So why
ask him to come posthaste but with Radha? There were a thousand Gopis in Mathura but they had their role only in his childhood. They
played with him and by His grace, received the good fortune of being His play
mates. Why not ask Him to come and be present by Himself or at best with His
actual consort?
The
answer is in the word ‘love’. Think of you as Krishna. There are hundreds of Gopis adoring you and there is this Radha who
completely devotes herself to your love. She dances with you, plays with you,
surrenders herself to the mellifluous notes of the flute and remains ever in
tearful joy and bliss of your company. Under the circumstances, even without
such a girl prompting you, you would have got married to her and made her your
queen. She would have enjoyed the pomp, glory and a richly deserving life of a
queen as your love. In the instant case however, Radha just continued to live
in her love for Krishna so much that such material rewards like being a queen
had no meaning for her. She remained so much in Krishna that even Krishna came to be known as Radheyshyam than Shayamradhey.
Her loves permeates His persona and even His being as God. Together, they
symbolize LOVE in its truest form. The thousands of bhajans and songs in praise
of Radha’s love for Krishna are testimony to the fact that ‘Love’ goes beyond the
physical and symbolic – it is actually spiritual.
It
is difficult to love or hate anyone, unless we actually cross the threshold of
the physical and tread into the spiritual. Of course, we are guided by such
sentiments in our daily lives that, at best, can only be classified as
emotional likes and dislikes. Learning to love and if needed, to hate, is a
matter of spiritual discovery. Like in every other creation of God, both love
and hate exist but they exist beyond our emotional range. They both are a state
of existence that needs to be experienced.
I
am reminded of a line my professor quoted while teaching child psychology:
LOVE
ME IF YOU CAN, HATE ME IF YOU MUST. BUT NEVER IGNORE ME!
Learning
to distinguish between mere like or dislike and love or hate is important as
the former will keep us tied in our mundane and the latter would embark us on a
journey that will transform our life!
