Love - Affirmations For Self-Healing

Welcome friends to our discussion from Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda and our topic for discussion is Love.

Sounds very simple but it is very profound once we dive deep into it.

So let's see what Swamiji says about love.

He writes,

One finds love not by being loved but by loving.

We can never know love if we try to draw others to ourselves,

Nor we can find it by centering our love in them.

For love is infinite.

It is never ours to create.

We can only channel it from its source in infinity to all whom we meet.

The more we forget ourselves in giving to others,

The better we can understand what love really is.

And the more we love as channels for God's love,

The more we can understand that His is the one love in all the universe.

Swamiji has shared many deep thoughts with us.

So let us see if we can explore them in our short time together.

The first statement itself is revolutionary because we think that we find love through others.

We find love by being loved.

We find love by having others in our lives who love us and that is what we think.

But what Swamiji says and what all the great ones say is that love is found in loving not in receiving.

That is why Jesus Christ said in the Bible,

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

And that is why we have so much conflict in our relationships,

In our lives because we are expecting other people to love us without first perfecting our love for them.

And even that is not enough.

Even if we keep loving people,

Swamiji goes on to say that we can never know love if we try to draw others to ourselves or by centering our love in them,

Which is to say that as long as you feel that I love so and so person or I love you,

There is separation.

There is a separate identity,

Right?

And as long as there is separation,

There is duality,

There is delusion.

So true love,

As Swamiji says,

Can only be channeled from its source in infinity,

Which is God.

So in all our relationships,

The way to make them more loving,

More joyful,

More compassionate is first to find love within ourselves by connecting to the divine in the depths of our own heart.

How can we do that?

Through meditation,

Through prayer,

Through chanting,

Through practicing the presence of God.

And whenever,

As soon as we feel that loving presence,

Then we feel a tremendous joy within us and then we start to become channels of that love and joy to everyone whom we meet.

And then we find that the source of love in God is infinite.

As Swamiji says,

We channel it from its source in infinity,

Which is to say that love is infinite.

There is no set amount of love that you can channel.

The only limitation on your ability to channel love is your own self.

If you block yourself from the flow of divine love,

You cannot channel love perfectly through others.

But if you channel that love to others,

Then you find that you really experience what true love is.

Many mothers,

Especially when their children are newly born or in the first few years of their lives,

The children are completely dependent on the parents.

And perhaps this is more so true for mothers,

But it can be equally true for fathers also.

The parents feel unconditional love for the child.

The child may cry,

The child may wake them up,

The child may disrupt their whole lifestyle,

But they do not see it as a disruption.

There is no thought of it being a botherance in their life because they don't see themselves as separate from the child.

Their love for the child is unconditional.

And the saints tell us to similarly develop that sort of impersonal love toward other people.

Now when we say impersonal love,

We think of it as very dry,

But don't let the word confuse you because impersonal means unconditional also.

Impersonal means removing your own self,

Your little egoic self out of the picture and allowing divine love to flow through you.

You see,

A lot of our relationships,

Our human love,

For most of us,

For all of us,

Is conditional.

You know,

Our family,

Our friends,

Our spouse,

Our children,

We can love them,

But what if they were to turn against you?

What if they hurt you?

What if they hate you?

Can we still love them?

Can we still be loving,

Caring and compassionate?

And that is the question we have to ask ourselves.

And if the answer is yes in every circumstance,

Then we have found true impersonal love,

True unconditional love.

In the life of Paramahansa Yogananda,

When he was training under his guru,

Swami Sri Yukteswar in India,

He had this desire to go to the Himalayas and he thought that he would go there to meet saints and he would have more and more time for meditation and he would not be bothered by ashram duties.

So he went to the Himalayas despite his guru telling him the opposite.

And Sri Yukteswar never forced his opinions on anyone,

Let alone his disciple.

And so Yogananda ji went to the Himalayas and after a year,

He came back and the whole story is beautifully narrated in the autobiography of a yogi.

Then he comes back to the ashram of Sri Yukteswar and without a hesitation,

Sri Yukteswar acts as if no time had passed,

As if nothing had happened and he simply tells him to resume his life at the ashram.

And Yogananda ji is so touched by this and he tells his guru that,

Sir,

We hear of unconditional love in books,

In stories,

But never before have I felt such great love which has no thought of one's own self.

And Sri Yukteswar ji says very simply that my expectations,

That basically he has no expectations of others,

So his desires can never be in opposition to that of other people.

And that is what we mean by impersonal love,

Is that you don't have anything that you are seeking for yourself in that relationship.

You don't have anything that you want from that relationship except for the happiness of the other person.

And that is the essence of impersonal love.

And that is the love that the saints give us,

The love that God gives us and the love that we also have to give to God.

I remember the story of a saint of the Muslim Sufi tradition and I think her name was Rabia and she was with some of her disciples and the disciples were discussing about true love and what it means to be a lover of God.

And so one disciple said that he is no true lover of God who isn't willing to suffer.

And the saint said,

Well,

That is not quite all right.

So another disciple tried and he said he is no true lover of God who isn't happy to suffer.

And she said,

Well,

This also is not quite right.

So then the disciples asked her,

Please tell us what is right and what describes a true lover of God.

And she said,

He is no true lover of God who doesn't forget his suffering in the thought of his beloved.

He is no true lover of God who does not forget his suffering in the thought of his beloved.

And so you see,

True love helps you transcend your little egoic self,

Your preoccupations,

Your likes and dislikes,

And it helps you to just be a pure open channel of divine love to all souls that you meet.

In the life of Swami Kriyananda,

He was persecuted greatly by his fellow disciples,

By many other people to the point of bankruptcy,

To the point of bringing to ruins everything that he had done for his Guru.

And when someone asked him,

Swamiji,

How do you feel about the people who are persecuting you?

And he said that I can feel only love for them.

I choose to love them because by loving them,

I feel more joyful.

And so that is like a mantra for all of us.

We choose to love others,

Even if they hate us,

Even if they do us harm,

We choose to love them because loving gives us joy.

Loving helps us to be connected with the infinite source,

With the divine within ourselves.

There are so many stories in the lives of saints of how they were persecuted,

Of Jesus Christ who was on the cross,

Who was dying.

And when the soldiers were piercing him,

He asked God and he said,

Father,

Forgive them for they know not what they do.

Even till his dying breath,

He was praying for his persecutors because he had no thought of himself.

We think that,

Oh,

The love of Christ is so great,

He was suffering so much,

But in his own consciousness,

There is no space,

There is no separate identity.

And so he is not feeling the pain as we are thinking that he is feeling.

He is able to transcend it because his consciousness is one with the infinite.

I would like to read a short excerpt from Swamiji.

He writes in his book,

Living Wisely,

Living Well.

He says,

Love all men,

If not for themselves,

Because many human traits after all are in themselves not lovable,

Then for the pure joy of giving love.

Everyone is seeking,

Whether blindly or with clear sight,

Final fulfillment in God.

And Swamiji would often say that,

That is the thought we must hold in our minds,

Is no matter how deluded a person is,

He is also seeking happiness and his journey,

Like all of us,

Will end in final fulfillment in God.

So let us remember that,

Friends.

Let us try to introspect and see in our relationships how we can bring divine love,

How we can bring more love into the relationship and not be thinking about how much love we receive or don't receive.

And then once that flow of love is started,

It cannot help but attract more love from God,

From others,

From the universe.

And it's a whole great divine romance,

As Yoganandaji would say.

So let us practice this affirmation for love that Swamiji has given us.

Let's sit up straight,

Close our eyes and focus at the spiritual eye.

And with great concentration and energy,

Repeat these words after me.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

Now in a softer voice.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

And now in a whisper.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

And finally,

Take these words mentally at your spiritual eye and repeat them as I say these words out loud,

Only mentally.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

I will love others as extensions of my own self and of the love I feel from God.

Silently offer this prayer with me,

Friends.

O Infinite One,

Make me a channel for Thy love.

Through me,

Reach out to sow seeds of love in barren hearts everywhere.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Thank you for joining,

Friends.

May you find that perfect divine love in the depths of your meditation,

In your connection with the divine,

And may you act as channels for that love to everyone around you.

Joy to you.