Essentials for Permanent Love

Six principles are essential in the Path of Love:

1) There should be no selfish motive in our dealings with the Beloved. Do not ask from Him anything except devotion to Him. Love should be selfless. To desire or to ask for comforts, wealth, children, etc., is selfish love.

2) Love should be reserved only for the Lord or for the Master. If you are attached to others, your love is naturally scattered and its intensity is decreased. When our love is thus scattered, we cannot meet God nor can love remain alive. You should live in this world without becoming entangled in it.

Naam Dev was once asked:

He replied:

When I am able to detach myself from all relations and friends. He comes only then.

3) Love should be constant. It must be constantly centred on the Lotus Feet of the Beloved. A lover’s mind, intellect and soul should all be dedicated to the Beloved. The mind should think of the Beloved, and He should always be in the lover’s thoughts. By means of the intellect one should think about Him, and a longing for His Darshan should constantly rankle within the soul. One should not become engrossed in worldly activities, which dissipate the attention fixed in the Lord.

4) Love for the Lord should neither decrease nor break in its continuity. One should keep oneself engaged in observances and should have associates, through whom He will continue at all times to get food for love. The knocks of love should be constantly received, so that the longing for God and the attraction for Him may be always on the increase.

5) A lover should observe the practice of good conduct. Just as medicine is a remedy for an ailment, but along with it abstinence from undesirable food is also essential, similarly, the remedy for ailments of the soul is love, and good conduct in life is comparable to abstinence from intake of undesirable food.

6) What is good conduct? First, one should always speak the truth and should avoid telling lies. To describe anything correctly is to speak the truth. Whatever one has in his mind and whatever one feels should be spoken out. In other words, the heart, the brain and the tongue should all combine into one truth.

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