Love is an existential imperative. But love is forbidden first by society and then by ego. What would one do then?
Enter God the omnipresent. I don't know whether God is a benign source of love but He surely has been the recipient of the deepest of human devotions. Since man is not allowed to love one another, and since he has to love something, he loves God. God is more accessible than the person sitting next to you. When you talk, He listens.
Society wouldn't have allowed Meera to love any living man with the intensity she loved Krishna. And our loving lady would have died of cardiac arrest if Krishna were not there for her. He might have had thousand maidens dancing around Him, but for each of the maidens there was no one else but Him. Men might see Krishna as a lucky lover, or as a Casanova, but women see Him not as a lover but as their beloved - their graceful beloved. In Him, they express the forbidden. With Him, they feel like women. With Him they play, and in him they redeem themselves.
Enter God the omnipresent. I don't know whether God is a benign source of love but He surely has been the recipient of the deepest of human devotions. Since man is not allowed to love one another, and since he has to love something, he loves God. God is more accessible than the person sitting next to you. When you talk, He listens.
Society wouldn't have allowed Meera to love any living man with the intensity she loved Krishna. And our loving lady would have died of cardiac arrest if Krishna were not there for her. He might have had thousand maidens dancing around Him, but for each of the maidens there was no one else but Him. Men might see Krishna as a lucky lover, or as a Casanova, but women see Him not as a lover but as their beloved - their graceful beloved. In Him, they express the forbidden. With Him, they feel like women. With Him they play, and in him they redeem themselves.
कान्हा काहे करत बरजोरी
Similarly, Tulsidas had to drown himself in Rāmacaritamānasa when his wife rebuked him for his earthly passions. She asked him to go to God, and so he did; and in Him he found solace. When the flame of love burns passionately, God is the only beloved who can stand the heat. Cleansed by the silent stream of tears, poetry becomes prayer. Like true love, true prayer is also unconditional. No other experience can match the experience of prayer, so what else can one ask for? Also, there is nothing called unrequited prayer. How can gratitude be unrequited?
हो गई किरपा राम की, तो बन गए तुलसीदास
There can be no moderation in love; it's free, and it's infinite. Only He can be loved freely, and infinitely. There is no ego, no fear, between a lover and his divine beloved.
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