Dear Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I have heard this advice that instead of loving another person on earth, like husband, mother, friend, etc, we should address our loving feelings to Krishna. But how? How to love someone, that we cannot see? And why should the love we feel towards other person be taken as a false feeling?
Why, if we all are spirit souls, and can love each others' spiritual forms, why gay-love is so forbidden in most of the religions? Maybe the same souls were a married couple in previous life. I ask this question, because someone might ask it from me.
Most of the people are not that spiritual, that they could just love God, and never miss being close to another person. I understand, dear and most respected Gurudeva, that you particularly are on a high level of spirituality, but I think that most of the people cannot be fully satisfied from the love of God. Please clarify my understanding.
Your eternal servant,
S.S.
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Even in this world someone may love someone they don't see. For example, a young girl may fall in love with a movie star that she has never physically seen. She has only seen him in movies. She may collect pictures of him to adorn her room, read articles about him in movie star magazines, and write him love letters as fan mail. Even though she has never actually seen him, she is madly in love with him. So if such a thing is possible in material life, how much more possible it is in spiritual life? Rukmini devi, the first wife of Krishna had never seen Krishna. But just by hearing about Him she fell madly in love with Him and sent a Him letter offering herself as His bride. Krishna reciprocated with her love and rescued her from being married to the rascal Sisupala.
So one can hear about Krishna, see pictures of Krishna, take the prasadam of Krishna, meet the devotees of Krishna, hear the kirtan offered to Krishna, visit the places of Krishna's pastimes--and in this way become completely in love with Krishna 24 hours daily. This is called Krishna consciousness.
The love in this material world is real. But because it is covered love, sometimes we say that it is false. It is covered because instead of loving the eternal spiritual being who resides within the body, we become attracted to the external covering. It is something like loving someone for the clothes they wear instead of for the person that they are. If a boy is simply attracted to a girl's body, he will utilize her for his personal sense gratification. But if he is instead attracted to her spiritual identity, he will serve her by helping her to awaken her dormant Krishna consciousness. This principle is the basis of Krishna conscious married life.
We devotees are certainly meant to have loving feelings for each other. This is why Srila Rupa Goswami has described the six types of love exchanged between devotees in his classic text, the Nectar of Instruction. For example, the spiritual master loves his disciples just like a father loves his sons and daughters. And the disciples love their spiritual master as their spiritual father. Similarly, between fellow devotees also, godbrothers and godsisters, there are the six types of loving exchanges.
Since the human life is meant for achieving spiritual emancipation, we are meant to transcend carnal attraction (lust) and come the platform of pure spiritual love. This is why we have prohibitions against illicit heterosex, homosex, and monosex (masturbation). In other words, because these three types of sex bring us off the spiritual platform down to the bodily plane, they are meant to be avoided. We instead encourage everyone to dive deeply into the sweet nectarean ocean of loving relationships with devotees because this will bring us quickly to the platform of transcendental happiness. Krishna confirms the importance of this in the Adi Purana wherein he states that unless we love His devotees we don't really love Him.
Because in the beginning it is difficult for us to love a God whom we cannot yet see, the Lord kindly manifests Himself in the form of the spiritual master and the devotees so we can learn how to love Him through loving the spiritual master and the devotees. He is also present for us visibly in the form the deity and audibly in the form of the kirtan so we feel our connection with Him immediately.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari |
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