What are we going to do about it? We can’t not have love. It’s like the man in the desert – he needs water. You can just give him all kinds of philosophy, “Oh, you don’t need water. Don’t worry about this. Think positive. It’s only been five days since you had a drink. Do you remember how good the water was before? Don’t worry!” But The guy needs water, he says, “Get out of my life, man! I need water!” So, we can come up to people and say, “Oh, don’t worry about love. You don’t need it. You can do without it. I mean, you had love one time, remember? Long time ago. Mom loved you a little bit. You know, there were some sweet moments, remember those?” You go on the bright side. And you say, “But I need it! I need it!”
So, we’re not going to give up, we’re not going to give up. Maybe after so many disappointments, one relationship, another relationship, we want to give up, “I quit! No more, finished! Forget it,” and we go and get a dog.
And love a dog, or a cat, or a bird, you see. I knew one girl who had a big snake, “I love my snake.” Big one, a boa. He gave her such good hugs that she almost died, “Aaah, I love you…” That was her object of love. I couldn’t get it. But, anyway, we’re not going to quit, don’t think, “I quit.” We’ll try to find that love somewhere.
But the intelligent person wants to know where real love can be found. You see, “These cheap imitations of lust – I’m over it!” You see, lust is like this: it’s so sweet in the beginning, it’s like nectar, “Oh, this is it! Finally! I found it!” And our little hearts jump, “Trrrr”, we have all these palpitations and goose bumps. “I can’t sleep at night!” So sweet. The symbol of love is the heart, and better yet it’s a candy box like a heart with chocolate inside, so sweet. Valentine’s Day. Do you have Valentine’s Day here in Russia?
-I love you!
-I love you too!
And the next day… (slap sounds), “This is the way I am loving you! Believe me!” Strange love. It’s not love. But the heart is just expressing itself in this perverted condition.
Why the heart? This is another good point. Worldwide the heart is the symbol of love. I remember one of the first times I came to Russia. I don’t speak Russian and the letters aren’t something I can relate to; it looks like Greek. So, I see some graffiti, some writing on the wall); there’s something I don’t know at all, and then a heart, and then something else. But I understand what it means: Anya loves Sergey. I get the message. Or, I go across a bridge and here’s all these locks on the bridge sealing their relationship, their love, “Oh, we’re locked together in love.” A short time later that guy’s there with a hacksaw cutting the lock off,
throws it in the river. But we don’t give up.
So, what do we do about it? How do we solve this problem? And believe me, it’s a problem. This lifetime, next lifetime, all lifetimes – it’s the same. What’re we going to do about it? We have to actually go to the world, to the realm, of real love, not imitation, fake love. And that’s on the spiritual level. The spiritual world is the world of real love. In the spiritual world the one emotion that dominates is love. In the material world the one emotion that dominates is lust. So, we can learn how to change lust into love.
If we came together with another person, say, we have a husband or a wife, whatever our relationship is; it could be parents and children – the same thing applies). You see, there are different kinds of relationships which are based on “love.” There’s the servant and master relationship. Not servitude, but the servant: he’s loving and serving the master. Then there is the friendship relationship, the love of friendship. Then there is parental love, parents and children loving each other, parental love. And then there is conjugal love, paramours, two people loving each other (a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, whatever), paramour love. It’s all love, or, in the material world – it’s basically all lust. And it’s not that we have to only have one, (we can have friends, we can have parents, and children, and lovers, and servant-master relationship), and that one relationship will make a complete life. And we know that. Intuitively in our hearts we know, “This is what is missing in my life.” So, in the process of bhakti yoga we learn how to achieve this.
And the one object of love is the Supreme Person. And this is the message from all the perfect teachers that have ever come amongst the human race: “Develop your love for the Supreme Lord FIRST.” It doesn’t say that’s the only love, but the first. That’s what we must do.
The Supreme Lord is the reservoir of love. What does love come from? The reservoir. We as a spirit soul have a little bit of love, and with this little bit of love we try to satisfy another person. And, in the best cases, they also try to satisfy us with their little drop of love. It’s a wonderful attempt, but it’s just like a drop. It’s like… let’s use the guy in the desert again. He’s dying of thirst, and you come up and give him a drop of water. And that tastes great, wonderful. But it’s not enough. It’s not enough. But if you take him to the oasis, the reservoir of water, he can satisfy his need for water unlimitedly, and so can every other thirsty person.
So, the Supreme Lord is the reservoir of love. When we develop a loving relationship with Him we are connected with the source. So, our need for love is completely satisfied, our hearts are filled with love. But our hearts overrun and we have love now to give unlimitedly, to not only the husband or the wife, the children or our friends, but to all living entities, all living entities. So, the lover of God loves everybody unlimitedly. So, in our little worlds, we are so limited in what we can do that we can’t really do much. Again, a few glasses of water don’t satisfy many people in the desert. So, that is why if we want to be happy… And, again, the only way to be happy is the happiness of love, the only way; this is the only thing that makes the soul happy.
So, if we connect in this loving relationship with the Supreme Lord, we become truly happy. Not the happiness of this world which is so temporary, so fleeting, comes and goes like this, “I am happy today, I am distressed tomorrow.” We can’t hang on to the happiness. We can’t hang on to the love. The world’s designed like that.