The Lord of Love
By Śrīla Bhakti Rakṣhaka Śrīdhara Deva Goswāmī Mahārāja, from The Loving Search for the Lost Servant. Artwork by Krishna for Today.
A devotee thinks, “Kṛṣṇa is very, very sweet. I can’t avoid Him; I can’t live without tasting His sweetness.” That feeling is the real seed which can produce the bhakti creeper, the creeper of devotion. And that will gradually grow until it touches the feet of Kṛṣṇa.
The creeper will grow, and yet it won’t try to find support anywhere in the planes of consciousness within this world, but it will grow higher and higher. Finally, when it reaches the personal conception of the Absolute, it will experience some sort of satisfaction. Still, it won’t stop there. It will go up to Goloka. It will not stop with the calculative devotion of Vaikuṇṭha. Crossing that plane, it will rise up to the stage of spontaneous, automatic devotion.
There we will find the Lord of love. Love is the worshipping and adoring factor everywhere in that plane. The essential feature of that realm is the relationship of divine love to the central object. And we will find our fulfilment by getting service in a particular position in relation to Him. That is what is needed by everyone: to enter into the land of love and achieve some engagement in the loving service of the central representation of absolute sweetness, beauty, and love. And that highest Absolute Center came down as Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu to invite His long lost servants to return to His home, saying: “I have come to invite you and to take all of you to My home—come with Me!” What a fortunate opportunity we have! By accepting His proposal and gaining admittance in that line, how happily we can go back to home, back to God.
This is the very gist of all religions. Knowingly or unknowingly, every soul is searching for divine love. Still, different varieties of obstacles are coming to dissuade us from our campaign. But the heart won’t be satisfied unless and until it reaches there. Once begun, our journey towards Kṛṣṇa can never be stopped anywhere. It is merely a question of delay: a long, long time, ages and ages may pass by, but our ultimate success cannot be checked.
Kṛṣṇa alone can really attract us. We cannot relish anything else from the depth of our heart and accept it as our final destination. We want only beauty and love, not power or knowledge.
The innermost hankering of every living soul is for beauty, love, affection, and harmony; not for power, knowledge, or anything else. This is the diagnosis of the whole creation in time and space: their common cause is one. But it is rare for a soul to reach such a clear stage of hankering for reality as to understand this point. Few souls are to be found in this world who are really conscious of their innermost necessity, who realize, “We want Kṛṣṇa! We want Vṛndāvan!” Such sincere souls are not easily found. This is mentioned in many places in scripture–manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu (Bhagavad-gītā 7.3); nārāyaṇa parāyaṇaḥ (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.17); brāhmaṇānāṁ sahasrebhyaḥ (Garuḍa Purāṇa).
There is only one end—many are not necessary—only one, the one, that very one we want, is a relationship of divine love.
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