Nama and Love are Like Twins
The average man has a tendency to live for sensual pleasures. Gratification of the senses gives immediate pleasure, which is what he seeks, and he gets so deeply absorbed therein that he thinks despisingly of the world. The poor fellow overlooks the fact that the end result of the pleasure is pain; for no one has ever been able to find abiding pleasure and contentment therein. The only way for obtaining these is to keep the mind steady at the feet of God. It should be thoroughly integrated with God, instead of being attached to worldly pleasures or sense-perceived things. This is what saints have all along dinned into our ears. To repeat nama is, in effect, to reverse the trend of the mind, from dwelling on palpable things to contemplation of the impalpable Elemental Reality. Prapancha should not be an involvement but a duty, an agential performance. Everyone should ponder whether he takes at least as much care of nama as he does of his prapancha. One should do one's duty very conscientiously, and with perfect contentment accept the result, remaining absorbed in nama.
Nama and love are attached to each other like twins. Today we have settled our love on numerous mundane things, individuals, wealth, knowledge, public esteem, the physical body, and sundry other things. The path of love for God is therefore not open to us, as it was in the case of the gopis. We must therefore choose the other way, namely, acquire love for God through the means of nama. We develop affection even for the house we live in; will association not similarly develop love for nama?
Our universe abounds in things which are uncomprehended yet by the fertile, versatile human brain. To understand who I am is still beyond human ken. The Ultimate Reality defies human imagination, reason, and logic. This Reality can be revealed if we remove the veil which conceals it. A truth is not created, but it can be masked. We mask the Reality by fear, fancy, etc.
We can stand on a bridge across a river, and enjoy the fun of the water flowing underneath, even without wetting the feet; similarly, one who has seen the truth, that is, God, may live in the midst of the palpable world and look on it and its lures with amused detachment.
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