If you do not know love at all, you cannot understand it at all. You have to know love, and when you know it, then you can understand what bhakti is. And there is not one creature on this planet that doesn’t know what love is.
So how do you get to the goal? One needs to go to a saint, and one such saint was Narada. In ancient times Narada was known to be a troublemaker. The name Narada means he is here, he is there also, he is on both sides. He is with this party, he is with the other party, also. He says something here, something there also and bridges them both. Even today in India, if someone is playing both sides you say “Oh you are like Narada.” You are here, you are there, you are everywhere. But he always ends up doing good for both parties. That was the skill of Narada. It means that two parties, which appear to be completely opposite, are both comfortable with Narada. And he somehow bridges them both. In the Puranas there are ample number of stories about Narada and his mischief. Nara-da, the word itself means “the one who joins the centre and the circumference, who is the spoke.”
See, when you are in love, you are not centred, you are out there. You are so spaced out. When you are centred, you don’t seem to be so light and joyful. You are very serious. But Narada makes you different. He makes you centred and, at the same time, makes you light and expanded. A centre without a circumference is no centre at all. What is it centre of? And a circumference without a centre simply cannot exist. Yet, though they are so apart, Narada bridges them both. He makes love so practical in life, yet love is the most abstract thing in this universe. There is nothing as abstract as love, yet there is nothing as concrete as love.
And Narada makes it evident. He wrote these eighty-four sutras which came to be known as the Bhakti Sutras, the Aphorisms on Love.
The first sutra begins :
Athato bhaktim vyakhya syamah
“ I will explain what is devotion, the true love, Divine love is.” Athato and then now, he starts. When now? After what? After you have searched for love here there, here there and you are tired. And also after you have known what love is, then I can tell you about Divine love.
Love has many manifestations such as affection that you have for those who are younger than you. With children you have affection. With those who are of your age, you have friendship. With those elder to you, you have respect, honour. Similarly, you have love for objects, love for animals, love for trees, love for food and music, love for people and love for yourself. To some extent you may know all this. Your likes and dislikes are also based on love. When you become even a little bit aware of these tendencies in your life and there is a quest for something higher, the ultimate goal of your life, then Narada comes into the picture.
A Master cannot give to you unless you want it. So that desire, that innate desire in you to want to know, is the seed that can sprout further.
Sa tvasmin param premrupa - now I will enunciate what Divine love is. A person who cannot see, cannot be shown what light is. A person who cannot hear, cannot be made to understand what sound is. You can only make one understand with what one already knows.
Some may not be able to see, some may not be able to hear, but everyone can feel love. That is why he starts Athato ‘and then now’. Even stones can feel love. Trees can feel love. Dogs can feel love. Animals can feel love. You know cats, if you really love cats, they come near you and they purr. Dogs express their love. They run around you wagging their tail.
They jump all over the place. If you are away for a couple of days and come home they go mad, they go crazy.
Just looking at you they don’t know what to do. They run all over you.
‘Waves of Beauty’ series - Saundarya Lahiri by Shri Nimishananda. Visit www.shrinimishamba.org