Baba says, ‘If you do not love the Father, you cannot become detached’. Then, there will be attachment.

Love is the highest human experience, it is what we seek. Without love, life is dry and meaningless. There are three sources of love available to us- from the self, from friends and family and from God. At this time in the cycle, the soul has very little love for itself having performed wrong actions for half a cycle due to body consciousness. I come to Baba with near zero self-respect. In place of love, there is usually a rather negative chatter going on in the mind.

At this time, the whole world is body conscious, Baba reminds me. And so my friends and family are struggling too. They may be really well-intentioned people but where there is body consciousness, there is always a mixture, there are filters of past karma that people look through, there is conditioning, there’s…baggage. This is why most relationships are dysfunctional.

The only pure, unadulterated love comes from God. This is the love I have been seeking for half a cycle. Therefore, the first gift from God, the Father, is love. When I experience His love, my thirst is quenched, my heart is full of eternal attainment and I feel fulfilled. There is nothing more I want or need.

But often, I am more in love with the concept of God as the Ocean of Love, but I don’t really connect with His love itself, I don’t really taste it. It’s as if I know of it, I think about it but I don’t really feel it. I respect God deeply but do I really, deeply love God?

Baba says, ‘if you do not love the Father, you cannot become detached- there will be attachment‘.

When the soul is deprived of God’s love, it reverts back to seeking it from limited sources. This is when I go back to seeking recognition, appreciation, approval, praise, respect and all that other stuff that makes me a beggar, makes my stage constantly fluctuate and makes me feel empty inside. There is deep discontentment and so all the past limited desires re-emerge in Brahmin life. Because I am so unfulfilled, it comes out as hopelessness, and anger and blame – I point a finger at the center, the instrument, the service companions, etc., but really it reflects a deep lack of attainment of God’s love.

I cannot love that which is not lovable. If I simply remember or think of Baba as a concept, or on the basis of knowledge – as a point of light, as an incorporeal being that is all powerful, somewhere up there…then, it is hard to love Him. He is a living being, a soul just like me Whom I can access. He is my Father, Teacher, Satguru, Friend, Companion…do I relate to Him in this way? When I do, I experience Him in those relationships, I experience fulfillment. During Amritvela, do I think of myself as a body and God as a point of light? Or do I meet Him as I really am, and as He really is?

The quality of that meeting is based on the quality of my entire day- if I become careless and allow myself to see/hear/think wasteful, negative or even ordinary things, if I do things in the influence of body consciousness, i.e. go against Shrimat I will not be able to connect with Baba. My mind will instead be flooded with scenes of the day and I will spend time processing my feelings rather than connect with God. Sometimes, it’s not the day but my mind goes looking for something that happened years ago and I feel shame, guilt and regret. I am unable to rise above.

Only God’s love is the alchemy that can penetrate the soul and heal. It is what transforms. It is what enables me to get to know and once again become the real me, and respect myself again. If I am unable to connect with Baba, I have to check what it is that is getting in the way. That is what this spiritual study is about really- identifying what is getting in between me and my Father, me and my Beloved and root it out. Because if I cannot experience Baba’s love, His innocence, His honesty, His selflessness, I will not be able to deeply love Him. I will continue to think of Him as a concept. And unless I love Baba and form that deep bond with Him, I will keep getting pulled to the corporeal and consequently, away from my destiny.

You have the pen to draw your own fortune, says Baba, draw as long a line as you want. This, is God’s love. But I won’t engage if I am caught up in the limited, in the corporeal. I have to release myself, I have to connect with God.

For this, I have to be honest. I have to be myself- not my role, not my labels, titles or position. Sometimes, I hear Baba talk about how I have to be sweet, kind, generous, etc., but when I am body conscious, I try to look the part rather than be the part. I put on my white clothes and badge, I wear a smile and try to look calm even though my inside world is in upheaval, there is emptiness, there is yearning for appreciation. Let me be honest, let me strip away all these masks, these facades and approach the Father as I really am. Let me allow myself to simply be in front of Him and give myself complete permission to be loved by Him- despite all the flaws, the imperfections. Let me allow Him to heal me rather than pretend that I am okay.

I cannot receive such selfless love from any soul except the Father. His love is the canopy of protection. When you experience God’s love, you become an easy yogi and fly, says Baba. Those who fly can never be attracted by the pull of the earth. The string of God’s love pulls you close from far away. This love is so blissful that when you become completely lost in it, within a second, you are able to forget all types of sorrow and continue to swing constantly in the swing of happiness.

This Godly love has so much importance! It allows me to detach from all that is false and limited. There is unlimited disinterest because I am truly content. And so God says, ‘Love Me’.