226 - Universal Love Rooted in Love for Krishna (“Path of Perfection”, Chapter 6)

If you love your child and your child is away, you think of him when you see his shoe. You think, “Oh, this is my dear child’s shoe.” It is not that you love the shoe, but the child. The shoe, however, evokes that love. Similarly, as soon as we see Kṛṣṇa’s energy manifested in a living entity, we love that entity because we love Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, if we love Kṛṣṇa, universal love is accounted for. Otherwise “universal love” is nonsensical, because it is not possible to love everybody without loving Kṛṣṇa. If we love Kṛṣṇa, universal love is automatically there. Without being Kṛṣṇa conscious, a person may say, “Here is my American brother, and here is my Indian brother. Now let us eat this cow.” Such a person may look on other humans as brothers, but he looks on the cow as food. Is this universal love? A Kṛṣṇa conscious person, however, thinks, “Oh, here is a cow. Here is a dog. They are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, but somehow or other they have acquired different bodies. This does not mean that they are not my brothers. How can I kill and eat my brothers?” That is true universal love – rooted in love for Kṛṣṇa. Without such Kṛṣṇa consciousness, there is no question of love at all. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the stage beyond self-realization in which the devotee becomes one with Kṛṣṇa in the sense that Kṛṣṇa becomes everything for the devotee, and the devotee becomes full in loving Kṛṣṇa. An intimate relationship between the Lord and the devotee then exists. In that stage, the living entity attains his immortality. Nor is the Personality of Godhead ever out of sight of the devotee. ••• read with us: biglink.to/pathofperfection & check out our website for the catalogue of all the books and episodes so far www.sravanamdiaries.com