Children, the human birth is for being born into love, to live in love and to merge into love. It is love that sustains the universe. The purest form of love that the ordinary man knows is the love between a mother and child. But the highest form of love is love for God. If we are able to attain that, our life can be considered fulfilled.
All your dharma and karma should be infused with the sweetness of love. Else, your karma will be reduced to mere toil. When pure love fills the heart with innocence and faith, karma will become worship. This is real devotion. This love is also our true nature. But today we live in complete forgetfulness of our true nature. The reason for this is that our understanding about ourselves is wrong.
When an individual named Nandan walks by, people who know him will say, “There goes Nandan”. But will anyone say that when Nandan dies and is being carried to the cemetery? No. All they will say is, “There goes Nandan’s body.” This is because the consciousness, which gave life to the body, has left it. First, we believe that we are the body. Then we build up our life and lifestyle based on that belief. In this way, we forget our true nature.
A man approached a well-known designer to get a coat tailored. After taking his measurements, the designer asked the man to come the following week. When the man got his coat the next week and tried it on, he found that the right sleeve was shorter by a few inches. When he complained to the designer, he replied, “This coat is a piece of creative art. So what if one of the sleeves is shorter? Why don’t you try to hold up your right shoulder a little? Then both sleeves will look equal.”
That is when the man noticed a ball of crumpled cloth behind the collar. When he complained to the designer about that, the designer said, “I will decide how my creations should be. This is my masterpiece. I am not willing to change anything. If there is a little crumpled cloth at the back, just bend down a little when you walk. That should solve it.”
The man thought to himself, “I am lucky to get a coat made by such a famous designer. What he says must be true.” Thinking this, he set out of the shop with a lurched shoulder and a hunched back. He kept looking around to see if anyone noticed his expensive tailored coat. Finally, a passerby stopped him and said, “Beautiful! I know who designed this coat. He is a very clever designer, isn’t he?” Happy, the man asked, “How did you know it was him?” The passerby replied, “There is only one designer in this country who designs clothes for the handicapped.”
Due to his blind attachment to a coat, the man forgot his own body. He gave more importance to his coat and with that, everything became disfigured. Similarly, when we become bound to the lower impulses of the mind, we forget our inner self. Our life becomes disfigured. The writer is a world-renowned spiritual leader