Hankering for Love or Lust
– by Shrila Bhakti Swarup Tirtha Maharaj

Man or woman, everyone wants to love and be loved. This is the natural tendency for all human beings to get into a relationship that springs from our hankering for love. There is always a burning desire in our hearts to love someone to our total satisfaction, to give up ourselves completely.

We also try very hard to find someone who can give us love. This quest for a loving exchange is the basic reason for our urge to get into relationships. Therefore, no amount of dishonour and discomfiture has ever discouraged any one in the relentless pursuit of the object of love, a person always wants to achieve.

This goes back to the very beginning of this cosmic creation. Since then, all human beings have always felt the instinctive need to forge relationships. This innate nature has culminated in development of class, community, race and nation.

People try to derive great pleasure from various kinds of relationships because these relationships apparently forged unity among the related ones (as a class or a community, as a race or a nation) and provided a sense of security. On the strength of such relationships, many dynasties thrived, empires built, civilizations grew, cultures spread and traditions developed.

However, close individual relationships like conjugal, paternal and fraternal ties have invariably provided ecstatic experience resulting in unforgettable sentiments due to the intimacy involved, as compared to group relationships.

At the same time, we learn from history that many dynasties were destroyed, empires crumbled down, civilizations wiped away, cultures became polluted and traditions collapsed totally due to soured relationships. Personal relationships are also often subjected to dissatisfaction, failures, disappointments, frustrations, envy, enmity, jealousy and belligerence.

When viewed with a philosophical approach or through pragmatic observation, these relationships are meaningless in the ultimate issue. All physical relationships are fake, hypocritical and contrived bonding.

Due to this deep rooted desire to relate, we become desperately attached to our parents, wife, children, other family members and friends. Little do we realise that our connection with family members and friends is actually as superficial as our associations with strangers whom we sometimes chance to meet at restaurants, hotels, highway motels and tourist spots.

The togetherness with our family members is therefore called ‘pantha sangamah’, association with travellers. Such relationships in this world are temporary because the sudden death of any one person will sever all connections with the rest for ever. It is just as we get into our cars and leave the tourist spot, we simply do not bother any more to remember who we met and chatted with.

No relationship in this world is permanent no matter how valuable or intimate it may be. The so-called pleasure experienced in physical relationships is illusory. One should therefore not become attached thinking these are eternal ‘anitye nitya buddhyah’ as indicated in Shrimad Bhagavatam (9-18-41), seeing a sense of permanency in things that are temporary.

Therefore the Shrimad Bhagavatam (11-17-54) directs, ‘griheshu atithivat vasan’, one should stay at one’s own home merely as a guest and not unnecessarily entangle in domestic affairs. With the death of our present body, all our relationships will instantly come to an end.

Love, which every living being is searching for, in life after life, is true but the medium through which one wants to attain it is false. A conditioned soul cannot taste love in the physical conception of life.

Love belongs to the spiritual realm. Since the bodily covering is only a superficial imposition on the eternal soul, in the conditional state, what underlie all dealings in physical relations are different degrees of lust and not love.

Lust arises from selfishness while love is generated from selflessness. So, it is not love but lust at first sight.

As long as the body is the medium of transactions between two persons, the influence of selfishness is inevitable. Hence, Love is ruled out in all bodily connections.

Emotional attachment should never be misconstrued for loving feelings. Although we think otherwise, relationships are not founded on love or affection.

All relationships with our family members and friends are need based and lack substance. Hence, every relationship based on the physical conception of life is irritating and disappointing at the end. No relationship, however intimate it may be, gives one genuine satisfaction or pleasure.

Therefore true loving exchanges are possible only on spiritual platform of Krishna consciousness. When one realises one’s true identity and eternal relationship with the Supreme Lord Krishna by transcendental knowledge, pure love blossoms in his heart.

A conditioned soul cannot on its own effort revive its knowledge of eternal relationship with Lord Krishna. This can be achieved only through ‘sadhu sanga’ the association of saintly personalities, pure devotees of the Supreme Lord.

Even great philosophers of the impersonal school, who have come to understand with thorough conviction that they are not bodies but spirit souls, cannot understand the loving feeling that exists on the transcendental platform.

Their knowledge of abstract Brahman and their own position as mere atomic consciousness deprive them of this understanding. Only pure devotees are blessed to experience this. If one succeeds in re-establishing one’s relationship with the Supreme Lord, one will constantly float on the boundless ocean of joy and relish the true loving sentiments for the highest object of love.

Nothing else will then matter to him as confirmed in the Gita, ‘yam labdhva chaparam labham’ (6-22). This cannot be experienced by an empirical approach or any speculative means. A devotee is beyond the jurisdiction of all material conceptions. No one can understand the supernatural position of Lord Krishna through mental theories.

Shrimad Bhagavatam (5-3-10) affirms that ‘nija purusha ikshana vishaya’.  He can be seen only by His pure devotees. This is also stated in the Gita (7-25) ‘naham prakashah sarvasya’, I do not reveal Myself to one and all.

Fully surrendered devotees of Lord Krishna see Him all the time in their hearts through ‘premanjana chhurita bhakti vilochanena’, devotional eyes anointed with the pulp of love.

Despite repeated let-downs in various relationships, we desperately crave for favourable response each time when we get into a new relationship.

We are often disappointed despite careful cultivation, sensible handling and tactful behaviour. We are, at times, haunted by a deep sense of betrayal when confronted and exposed in our many attempts to achieve meaningful relationships because sense satisfaction is the basis of all symbiotic links.

Even the most outstanding enthusiasts of pleasure games in this world are ultimately left high and dry. Only those who are mature enough to see through this sham become averse to all sorts of hypocritical and pretentious relationships aimed at fulfilment of gross physical and subtle mental cravings.

A relationship-gone-sour often serves as an impetus or acts as a catalyst in some cases to motivate one to the spiritual path as it enables the loser for a serious introspection. Lord Rishabha deva, an incarnation of Lord Vasudeva says in the Shrimad Bhagvatam (5-5-1):

Nayam deho deha-bhajam nrloke
Kastan Kaman arhate vid-bhujam ye
Tapo divyam putraka yena sattvam
Suddhyed yasmad brahma-saukhyam tv anantam

My dear boys, of all the living entities who have accepted material bodies in this world, one who has been awarded this human form should not work hard day and night simply for sense gratification, which is available even for dogs and pigs that eat stool.  One should engage in penance and austerity to attain the divine position of devotional service.  By such activity, one’s heart is purified, and when one attains this position, one attains eternal, blissful life, which is transcendental to material happiness and which continues forever.

Human beings should not engage their bodies in activities like the pigs do.  Pigs have only two tasks: eating and mating.  Why?  They have no other ideas.  This is their goal of life, enjoyment through physical relationships.  For human beings, the Lord recommends tapah, penances. 

Penance means voluntarily accepting physical discomforts for higher purposes.  Why should we practice penances? Because   Yena sattvam shuddhyet, they purify our existence.

Right now, our minds (subtle body which accompanies the spirit soul during transmigration from one gross body to another) are impure because of our past habits in past lives in the bodies of animals and birds.  Due to habit, our minds continue to be polluted by demanding the same type of enjoyments we experienced in those bodies.

Now we have the chance to start the decontamination process.  Why should we do it?  Yasmat Brahma saukhyam tu anantam, because we can taste unending spiritual bliss.  This is the result of becoming free from all fake, hypocritical contrived bonding of all physical relations of this world. 

Only a purified mind has the capacity to understand spiritual subjects.  The Supreme Lord of gods, Krishna says in the Gita (18/65)

Man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
Mad-yaji mam namaskuru
Mam evaisyasi satyam te
Pratijane priyo si me

Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me.  Thus you will come to Me without fail.  I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.

Why does the Lord command like this?  Because we are related to Him eternally.  This spiritual relationship is based on pure love.  Lord Krishna is our saviour, our protector. 

Our relationship with Him is the only true relationship because it is based on love.  This love for Krishna is dormant in all living entities.  Unfortunately, due to contact with matter, this loving propensity has become degraded to material sense enjoyment.  It is just like rain water which is so pure when it falls from the sky but becomes dirty as it comes in contact with the earth.

We think that we are suffering here due to various reasons.  Ostensibly yes, but the real fact is that the suffering is like the lovers’ pain due to separation.  Our estrangement from Lord Krishna is the root cause of all sufferings. Lord Chaitanya who is Lord Krishna Himself in the form of a devotee expresses it as:

aslisya va pada-ratam pinastu mam
adarsanan marma-hatam karotu va
yatha tatha va vidadhatu lampato
mat-prana-nathas tu sa eva naparah

I know no one but Krishna as my Lord, and He shall remain so even if He handles me roughly by His embrace or makes me broken hearted by not being present before me.  He is completely free to do anything and everything, for He is always worshipful Lord unconditionally.

This is the true sign of the realization of our true relationship with Lord Krishna.  On reviving this spiritual relationship, the living being becomes purified and starts enjoying an ecstatic state of experience forever. This happens because it has regained a firm footing or everlasting loving connection with the supreme object of love, Lord Krishna.