Do you love God? You probably think you do; most people in this world think they do. But are you sure it is true love? How do you find out? Swami Vivekananda used to say that divine love is a triangle. Each of its three angles represents a characteristic without which love is not possible, just as there can be no triangle without three angles. The first angle of divine love is that it knows no bargaining. If we seek something in return for loving God, then it is bargaining, not real love. A true devotee loves God because He is most worthy of love and has no other motive. Begging for any kind of reward is not the language of love. Even asking God for liberation is begging. True love is only for love’s sake.
The second angle of the triangle is that love knows no fear. Swami Vivekananda gave the example of a young mother. Suppose she were walking down a street and a dog barked at her. She might run away in fear and hide in the nearest house. Suppose, the next day, she were walking down the street with her baby when a lion attacked the child. Where would the mother be? Certainly, standing in front of the lion to save her baby. She would no longer be afraid because her love for the baby had overcome her fear. Some people worship God out of fear of punishment. They think of God as a mighty being with a whip in His hand, doling out punishment to those who do not worship Him. They fear that they will be whipped if they disobey Him. Love and fear are incompatible. Those who love God can never fear Him.
The third angle of the triangle is that love knows no rival because it embodies the lover’s highest ideal. When a person loves another, they imagine that person to be an ideal human being. Only then is true love possible. God is the highest ideal for every human being, whether saint or sinner, man or woman, educated or uneducated, ignorant or wise. Love for another person may be misdirected or misplaced. One may see one’s ideal in the worst or the best of human beings. But love for God is always true because He is the synthesis of our highest ideals. We are all constantly struggling to realise our inner ideal in our practical lives. The movements we see in society are caused by the various ideals in different souls striving to be realised in this world. As we mature spiritually, we give up trying to project our ideals onto this world and instead begin to love God, the highest ideal, which includes all lower ideals.