[Posted August 24, 2007]

An Act of Love - On the Way to Sainthood

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Was it all just an act, then?

TimeAugust 23, 2007 - DAVID VAN BIEMA

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."

That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and — except for a five-week break in 1959 — never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. "The smile," she writes, is "a mask" or "a cloak that covers everything." Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. "I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love," she remarks to an adviser. "If you were [there], you would have said, 'What hypocrisy.'" go to story

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Love - It's personal

How Can You Love Someone You Don't Know? Hansadutta das

Krishna is not simply God. God is a title, indicating an office or position. The person who holds an office is different from that office. In other words, the word God or knowledge that there is a God is insufficient, incomplete. We must know the person who is God. Who is God? What is God doing? Is He sleeping? Void? Impersonal? Unknowable? Unthinkable? Does He have a name? These questions have to be confronted.

Jesus repeatedly told his followers, "Whatever I do, I do it on behalf of the Father. I and the Father are one." And praying to God, he says, "I have kept them [his disciples] in Your name." In fact, this is not a new philosophy. Christ did not reveal anything new. Neither did he reveal anything specific about God the Father. In the Bible we do not find very much about the names of God, descriptions of Him and His activities. For that matter, we do not see any clear conception of our relationship to God. How shall we love such a God? Where is the question of love? When we speak of love, there must be a person, some qualities, characteristics, features which distinguish him from everyone else. more

Love's Symptoms

excerpt from Dharma: The Way of Transcendence: "What is Dharma?"

Was Mother Teresa immersed in love of God or perverse love of suffering?

So, here the Srimad-Bhagavatam gives a simple definition of the best religion: That religion is the best by which you can develop your devotion and love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead. How nice this definition is! You may follow Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam — it doesn't matter. But the test of your success is how far you have developed love of God. If you have developed your sense of love for God, you have actually followed religious principles. Religion does not mean that you go to a temple, mosque, or church and as a matter of formality observe some rituals, make some donation, and then come back home and do all kinds of nonsense. That is not religion. Suppose someone is said to be great. What is the proof of his greatness? He must have great riches, knowledge, influence, beauty, etc. Similarly, what is the proof that someone is a man of religious principles? The proof is that he has developed love of God. Then he is religious.

Now, someone may say, "Oh, yes, I love God." But what is the nature of that love? In our experience in this world we commonly see that a man will love a beautiful girl. But for how long? As long as she is beautiful. And a girl loves a boy — for how long? As long as his pocket is all right. This is not love: it is lust. "I love your skin, I love your money" — that is not love. Here the Srimad-Bhagavatam states that love of God must be ahaituki, free of selfish motivation. Not that we say, "My dear God, I love You because You supply me my daily bread." Whether in the church, temple, or mosque, people generally offer the same kind of prayer: "O God, give me my daily bread." In India people generally go to a temple and pray, "My dear Krishna, I am in difficulty. Please get me out of it," or "I am in need of some money. Kindly give me a million dollars." This is not love of God. Of course, this kind of religion is far better than atheism. As Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad-gita, chatur-vidha bhajante mam janah sukritino 'rjuna [Bg. 7.16]. Anyone who goes to God and asks for some benediction is a pious man. But he's not a devotee. He may be counted among pious men because he recognizes the supremacy of God, but he has not developed the highest principle of religion, love of God.

Lord Sri Chaitanya describes love of God in His Shikshashtaka (7):

yugayitam nimeshena chakshusha pravrishayitam
shunyayitam jagat sarvam govinda-virahena me

"O my dear Govinda! Because I cannot see You, every moment seems like twelve years to Me." Everyone has some experience of this feeling. If you love someone and you expect your beloved to come at any moment, you will feel as if every second were a full day. Then, because Lord Chaitanya cannot see Krishna, He says, chakshusha pravrishayitam: "Tears are pouring from My eyes like torrents of rain," and shunyayitam jagat sarvam: "I see the whole world as vacant." And all on account of separation from Govinda, or Krishna: govinda-virahena me. When you cannot tolerate separation from Govinda, that is pure, causeless love of God.

The next word used in the Srimad-Bhagavatam to describe pure love of God is apratihata, which means "without being hampered for any reason." Sometimes people say, "I cannot love Krishna because I am a very poor man," or "I cannot love Krishna because I have no education — I cannot study Vedanta philosophy." No. To love Krishna you don't require any material acquisition. You can begin developing your love of Krishna simply by bringing some fruit or a flower to the temple and offering it to the Deity form of Krishna. That is one of the six signs of love Rupa Gosvami describes in his Upadeshamrita (4):

dadati pratigrihnati guhyam akhyati pricchati
bhunkte bhojayate chaiva shad-vidham priti-lakshanam

First, you must give something to your beloved and accept something from your beloved. If you simply go on accepting but you do not give anything, then there is no love. Then guhyam akhyati pricchati: You should not keep anything secret within your mind, and your beloved should not keep anything secret within his or her mind. And bhunkte bhojayate chaiva: One should give the beloved eatables and accept eatables from him or her. When we cultivate these six kinds of loving exchanges with Krishna, we develop pure love of God. And that love should be without any material motivation and without impediment. If you can develop such love for God, you will feel su-prasidati, complete satisfaction. No more anxiety, no more dissatisfaction. You will feel that the whole world is full of pleasure (vishvam purna-sukhayate).

So the best religion is that which teaches one how to become a lover of God, and the best welfare work is to distribute this knowledge. These are the purposes of the Krishna consciousness movement. Krishna consciousness is such a beautiful thing. It does not depend on any material acquisition, nor can it be checked by any impediment. In any part of the world, at home or away from home, you can chant the Hare Krishna mantra in ecstasy and attain love of God very quickly.

Identifying and Addressing the Most Basic Needs: not material, but spiritual

Mother Teresa spent her life ministering to India's needy, providing food, shelter, training to enable them to find a livelihood, but her intimate letters to confessors suggest she did not find fulfillment.

By rendering devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, one immediately acquires causeless knowledge and detachment from the world. — Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.7

Those who consider devotional service to the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna to be something like material emotional affairs may argue that in the revealed scriptures, sacrifice, charity, austerity, knowledge, mystic powers, and similar other processes of transcendental realization are recommended. According to them, bhakti, or the devotional service of the Lord, is meant for those who cannot perform the high-grade activities. Generally it is said that the bhakti cult is meant for the shudras, vaishyas, and the less intelligent woman class. But that is not the actual fact. The bhakti cult is the topmost of all transcendental activities, and therefore it is simultaneously sublime and easy. It is sublime for the pure devotees who are serious about getting in contact with the Supreme Lord, and it is easy for the neophytes who are just on the threshold of the house of bhakti. To achieve the contact of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna is a great science, and it is open for all living beings, including the shudras, vaishyas, women, and even those lower than the lowborn shudras, so what to speak of the high-class men like the qualified brahmanas and the great self-realized kings. The other high-grade activities designated as sacrifice, charity, austerity, etc., are all corollary factors following the process of pure and scientific bhakti.

The principles of knowledge and detachment are two important factors on the path of transcendental realization. The whole spiritual process leads to perfect knowledge of everything material and spiritual, and the results of such perfect knowledge are that one becomes detached from material affection and becomes attached to spiritual activities. Becoming detached from material things does not mean becoming inert altogether, as men with a poor fund of knowledge think. Naishkarmya means not undertaking activities that will produce good or bad effects. Negation does not mean negation of the positive. Negation of the nonessentials does not mean negation of the essential. Similarly, detachment from material forms does not mean nullifying the positive form. The bhakti cult is meant for realization of the positive form. When the positive form is realized, the negative forms are automatically eliminated. Therefore, with the development of the bhakti cult, with the application of positive service to the positive form, one naturally becomes detached from inferior things, and he becomes attached to superior things. Similarly, the bhakti cult, being the supermost occupation of the living being, leads him out of material sense enjoyment. That is the sign of a pure devotee. He is not a fool, nor is he engaged in the inferior energies, nor does he have material values. This is not possible by dry reasoning. It actually happens by the grace of the Almighty. In conclusion, one who is a pure devotee has all other good qualities, namely knowledge, detachment, etc., but one who has only knowledge or detachment is not necessarily well acquainted with the principles of the bhakti cult. Bhakti is the supermost occupation of the human being.

The knowledge that comes from practicing bhakti enables us to answer the question "What am I?" In the conditioned stage of life we pass our days not in knowledge but in ignorance, just like the animals. The animals have no self-knowledge. They are always absorbed in the bodily concept of life. The dog thinks, "I am a dog. I am this body." Of course, he does not know whether he is a dog or a cat. We have given him the name "dog." He simply knows, "I am this body, and I must meet the needs of this body somehow or other." That is his only business. The whole day and night he is simply working to meet the needs of his body. This is ignorance.

When we are no longer cats and dogs but are human beings, we can understand, "I am not this body; I am a spirit soul." Therefore the Vedanta-sutra says, athato brahma jijñasa: "Having achieved the human form of life, one should inquire into the Absolute Truth." The human body is achieved after transmigrating for many, many years through up to 8,000,000 lower forms of life. Therefore this life should not be spoiled by living like cats and dogs — simply eating, sleeping, defending, and engaging in sexual intercourse. These bodily demands are common to both animals and human beings. But what is the special facility of human life? The human being is eligible to understand what is the value of life, what are the problems of life, and how to make a solution to those problems. That is human life, not simply passing our days like cats and dogs, working very hard to satisfy our bodily demands. Again and again the scriptures warn against this kind of degraded life. Lord Rishabhadeva says (Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.1), nayam deho deha-bhajam nriloke kashtan kaman arhate vid-bhujam ye: "This human form of life is not meant for satisfying the senses with great difficulty, like the stool-eating hogs." Eating is necessary, of course, but a village hog eats the most abominable thing, stool, searching it out the whole day and night. And if human beings create a so-called civilization in which one simply has to work hard day and night to get food, then the lives of the human beings in that civilization are no better than the hog's life. That is not human life. Human life should be peaceful. One should be able to acquire food easily, eat nicely, and save time for cultivating Krishna consciousness. That is human life. But if we create a civilization of cats, dogs, and hogs, then Krishna will give us the chance to work day and night simply for eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. And that is the position now because people want it.

Actually, there is no scarcity of food. Krishna is so kind that he is providing food for everyone (eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman). He is feeding millions and trillions of living entities. Throughout the world there are billions of birds. Who is feeding them? Krishna is feeding them. So the real problems in the world are not overpopulation or a scarcity of food. The problem is a scarcity of God consciousness. That is why people are suffering. That is not to say that the needs of the body should be neglected; they must be met. But we should not be busy simply for satisfying the needs of the body. We are spirit souls, and the spirit soul has its own needs. We must meet those needs. Then we will be happy.

These needs can be met when we follow the instructions of this verse and attain jñana and vairagya, knowledge and detachment. Detachment cannot be achieved without knowledge. Real knowledge means to understand, "I am not this body." As soon as we understand that we are not the body, we can also understand that sense gratification is not required. And that understanding is detachment, or vairagya. But without jñana, we think we must satisfy the senses. Absorbed in the bodily concept of life, which is ajñana, or ignorance, we think our only business is to satisfy our senses.

The whole world is moving on the basis of sense gratification. When a young man and a young woman meet, the desire for sense gratification becomes very strong. As the Srimad-Bhagavatam (5.5.8) says,

pumsah striya mithuni-bhavam etam
tayor mitho hridaya-granthim ahuh
ato griha-kshetra-sutapta-vittair
janasya moho 'yam aham mameti

A man is attracted to a woman, and a woman is attracted to man, and as soon as they are united sexually, that mutual attraction becomes very strong. Then they are married and require a house or apartment (griha) and a job for earning money or some land for cultivating food (kshetra). Then come children (suta), a widening circle of friends and relatives (apta), and wealth (vittaih). In this way the living entity becomes entangled in a network of illusion and thinks, "I am this body, and this family and property are mine."

Actually, nothing belongs to him. As soon as death comes, he has to change his body, and as soon as he changes his body, everything is finished. His property, his wife, his children, his country, his society — everything is lost. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita (10.4), mrityuh sarva-harash chaham: "As death, I take away everything." For His devotees Krishna appears as Himself — as beautiful Sri Krishna playing a flute — but for the nondevotees Krishna comes as death. Then they can see God. The atheists simply defy God, challenging "Where is your Krishna? Where is God?" and in the end they also see Him, as death.

So the atheists and the theists both see Krishna, but whereas the atheists see Him only at the end of their lives, as all-devouring death, the theists see Krishna Himself in their hearts at every moment because they have developed love for Him (premañjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilochanena santah sadaiva hridayeshu vilokayanti [Brahma-samhita 5.38]). The previous verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.2.6) has described the culture of this love of God as the supreme dharma for human beings: sa vai pumsam paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokshaje. That culture is required. You may belong to any type of religion — Hindu, Muslim, Christian — but the test of how religious you are is how much you have developed love of Godhead. Without such development, your religious process is useless.

Sri Guru and Gauranga