6. Sri M.S.Balachander

Pursuit of man is to realize God as He is. It is to comprehend Reality not through the aesthetic approach as religion beholds, not even through the intellectual approach as philosophy dictates, not through externalization or rationalization as commonly conceived, but through intuitive awareness, inner awakening and vision. The western philosopher Socrates holds a view that love is the hunger of human soul for divine beauty. Babuji places an emphasis on love as the efficacious instrument for the inner awakening of reality.

It is an expression of love of the Divine to share His delight with humanity that manifests in the classic Upanishadic statement of ‘Ekoham Bahusyam’; It is His enormous compassion that expresses itself when the center is yawning towards circumference. The great saint Thiruvalluvar says that love knows no bounds and it cannot be fettered. Love transcends the levels of social etiquette, rigid steal-frame –like orderliness and conformity with conventional patterns. as could be seen from the behavioral style of the great saint Sabari in her offerings to Lord Rama contravening all the accepted cannons of ‘athithi seva’. It is not the pomp of offering but the mental make-up of offering that is what is the crux of Athmanivedana. As Dr.KCV puts it, more often the words killeth the spirit, and the habit killeth the subtleness and freedom.

Love at the higher plane turns into Bakthi while at the operative level speaks of fraternity. We love others not because of what he or she is but because of the immanence of the transcendent within expressing in them and through them. Each one of us is an expression of Divine. The commonness of the origin brings in a natural bondage, an inherent love for the fellow human being which manifests through the concept of fraternity. We love all because He manifests in all beings. It does not just stop with love for other man alone as man per se has no value. There is inner awakening to love Him who loves all, love Him who present permanently, eternally, immanently and transcendentally. This is the origin of Bhakti.

To suit the psychology of man, love has expressed itself in various shades and colors –mythri, daya, karuna, mathurya, prema, vathsalya and stretches itself from Prema Bakthi, to Para Bakthi to Parama Bakthi. One of the accepted bhavas of Bakthi is that of Nayaki Bhava where we think ourselves to be the lover and God as the beloved and as the Bakthi matures there is an ‘invertendo’ of the roles whereby God becomes the lover and we as the beloved synchronizing with the traditional school where the Lord alone is the Purusha and all others as Gopikas. But this Prema Bakthi presupposes the presence of duality and as Kabir puts it, “the love lane is very narrow and cannot contain two- I and Thou-“Here we find the supremacy of iakyatva or the laya with the transcendent, with a serious conviction that He is the doer and we are just his tools enjoying no individuality and naturally indicating our preparedness to be at His service and oriented in all our planes –Physical, mental, intellectual- for His task. This intense love for the Para reinforces our lowliness, His greatness as ‘mahato mahiyan’ and compels us to seek refuge in Him forsaking all Dharmas and brings in better intuitive awareness, vision and enlightenment and a natural frame of mind to deeply love and live in God, live with God, live for God and live by God.