The Beauty and Weakness of Human Love

Dear ___________:

You remarked that there can be nothing wrong in two people sharing. Surely you were right. But what of the kind of sharing that limits itself to two people, and does not expand freely to include all men? The beauty of human love is its power to expand the heart to include another human being in its sympathies. The weakness of human love is its exclusiveness of others outside this magic circle.

You have asked what my personal feelings were on the subject. Let me put it this way: There have been times when the thought of two people alone on a boat at sea suggested a kind of fulfillment. (This image from a beautiful book by Marie Corelli, The Life Everlasting.) But then I think, “Why this half-way station? If more than one person, then why not a joyous crowd of God-seekers? And if both people and God, why not God alone in meditation, and God everywhere in this world—not God trapped and limited in a single form?”

Love, to me, means consciousness reaching out to embrace the universe, not merely a human emotion that confines the heart to one or to a few human beings. The love that most inspires me is that which rushes outward in blissful self-forgetfulness to find Him, man’s only true Beloved, and to see Him alone reflected in the hearts of all. I do not want ever to say, “So much will I give of myself to God, and no more.” I know that even if I give myself wholly, it will not be enough—no, not nearly enough!

In this life I want to think not of my own personal pleasures. It is a life of joyous sacrifice for God.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda