Love: Man’s True Nature

by George Arnsby Jones, Litt.D., Ph.D.

Man is not the animal self. His physical body is a transient vehicle for his Eternal Soul. God is Love Eternal, and the soul is a spark of Love Eternal. The qualities of God are thus the qualities of man, who is not the mortal body, but the immortal soul. If a man focuses his love aspect constantly downwards into the manifold attributes of the world, he becomes identified with matter. But if he focuses his love aspect constantly upwards into the Being of God, he eventually becomes merged within the All-embracing Love of the Supreme Lord. Love and life are inseparable; without the creative attractive element of Love, life would be non-existent. The soul of Love has taken many forms before becoming human.

We live in this universe, and in various births we wear different garbs,

said Shamas-i-Tabrez.

Sometimes we come into one species and sometimes into another; but we are all part of the Creator.

Love is an inherent quality of the human heart; and it is through Love that the sublime truths of all creation are apprehended and understood. Love also takes its place within the mind of every human being, but it is often perverted into a constant desire for worldly things. Some people also focus their love aspect upon abstract goals and nebulous ideations, claiming that they have transcended the lusts of the flesh; but they are also caught in a snare and a delusion, for it is the lover of the Supreme Lord and of His Living Embodiment Who is the True Lover. Desire for material things is transient and unrewarding; desire for abstract goals is somewhat higher, but ultimately of little use, for the lover must progress along a tangible path of love. The purest and eternally rewarding desire is Love for the Supreme Lord.

He who lives love constantly is worthy of being called a human being. To the degree that his Love nature has been unfolded, to that degree he is a man. There is no other yardstick for humanity than this. An unregenerate man may love beautiful objects, and some of the most depraved and evil people on this earth have been ardent collectors of great art treasures. Thus an aesthetic love of art does not in itself prove the touchstone by which a man may be judged as a man. A True Man has Love and compassion for all humanity and all living things. Such a noble human being lives constantly with an attitude of humility and self-forgetfulness, and his heart is moved with deep sorrow when he sees or hears of the suffering of another – even that of a total stranger or a so-called enemy. A lover feels a fellowship and kinship with all life. He who has humility and Love, and who has surrendered himself to the Supreme Lord – he is truly a Great Soul and a noble Lover.

No amount of cultural and scholastic attainments can determine the depth of Spirituality of a man. Some of the Greatest Saints and Mystic Adepts have been humble artisans and labourers: Mohammed was a simple shepherd boy; Kabir was a weaver; Ravi Das, a Saint of northern India, was a cobbler; and many others of lowly origins in the world were emperors of Spirituality from the Highest Realms of spirit.

Knowledge may be born of book learning, but wisdom is born of Love. Rites and austerities are completely useless if there is no Love in the hearts of those who perform them.

Repetition, austerity, pleasures, comforts, honour, fame, power – all are worth sacrificing for one infinitesimal bit of Love,

said Guru Arjan.

He who prays loudly to the Lord, and who exhorts his congregation to repent of their sins, is a lamp without oil, or a flower without fragrance, if he has no Love in his heart. Professional preaching is shackled to the whims and fancies of the world; Love does not preach, it transforms and liberates!

Love is a fragrant infection. It can be caught from One Who is a True Lover. If we keep the companionship of such a lover, we will surely know love.

Bhai Gurdas, a Poet-Saint and contemporary of the fourth, fifth and sixth Sikh Gurus, has written:

A disciple becomes a Saint only in the company of Saints, just as water thrown in the Ganges loses its identity and becomes the same as the water of the Ganges. A river flows into the ocean and becomes the fathomless ocean itself. Similarly, the ocean-like company of a Saint makes His disciples become like Him. Just as the sweet fragrance of flowers gives serenity and peace to the mind, similarly the blessed sight (Darshan) of a Saint brings peace and calmness. Just as the Anahad Shabd (Unstruck Music) is the bestower of all gifts, similarly the company of the virtuous transforms even a man of utter ignorance into one of high Spiritual Consciousness.

Love springs from the fountain of all life, and as we turn our attention towards that fountain, the fragrant spray falls upon us. Even the rational mind may be conditioned by Simran or repetition practice to focus upon the Beloved. When such a love-infused mind controls the lower intellect, separation from the Beloved becomes unbearable and the mind yearns for companionship with Him. In this intense state of Love, the lover begins to lose awareness of his lower personality. He becomes fully conscious of his communion with the Beloved within. His Inner Vision captures the glance of the luminous form of the Beloved, and he is intoxicated by this sight. His entire being is merged into the Radiant Light of the Beloved. Blessed indeed is he who has gazed into the eyes of a God-intoxicated Saint, for this one glance may cause the currents of Love to enter irresistibly into the heart of the aspirant. This is the Path of Love which must be trod by all who would attain Union with the Supreme Lord; but few there are who realise this Truth.

In His Sar Bachan, Swami Ji has written:

Saints are merciful, but we do not heed Their advice. They reveal to us the secret of life and put us in contact with the Word. They take the human form and live in the world. Through Their Grace They help humanity to find the True Path. They even carry the load of karmas. Even then no one follows Them.

The Highest Form of Love is not determined by the degree of devotion for special circumstances connected with a person, for specific actions performed by a person, or for the qualities of a person. The attributes of any person are the result of his own nature, and they spring from past actions that may have little to do with Love. And so the Highest Form of Love does not depend on material circumstance, action or quality; it is not created by these attributes, and therefore does not disappear when these attributes themselves disappear. Spiritual Love is neither dependent on the quality or actions of its object, nor on its transient nature. As the soul transcends time and space, birth and death, so does the Highest Form of Love transcend all these things.

Many people profess to love the Supreme Lord because they are enamoured of the beauties of His creation. Such devotion is satisfactory up to a point, but the Mystic Adepts and Saints love God for His sake alone, and this Love goes far beyond that of the average pious devotee. It is easy to love God for the sake of His limitless blessings and in favourable circumstances; but the Great Saints are unwavering in Their Love for God, even when They are in circumstances of great privation, hardship and torture.

In the ‘Bhagavad Gita,’ Lord Krishna sets forth the formula for selfless Love:

Oh Arjuna, renounce all self-interest and consider reward and punishment alike. Engage yourself in Spiritual Practices and then perform the action.

True Love is complete in itself.

Man’s True Nature is Love. The human soul’s own being is Love; but the soul is enfolded in outer sheaths or covers. Spiritual Liberation means freeing the soul from these various sheaths or covers.

These are the physical, astral and causal bodies, and the three gunas or states of mental activity, which in the terminology of the Mystic Adepts are:

• rajogun – restless activity –,
• tamogun – inertia or lethargy –, and
• satogun – peace or tranquillity.

Man also possesses what are known as the 25 prakritis, the inclinations or temperaments which determine the individual’s life-pattern and tendencies. When all these sheaths are removed, the soul blazes forth in its own self-effulgent radiance, and it is thus said to be liberated, even though it may still be dwelling in a physical body. The soul realises the nature of its True Home in the Realm of Love, even though the body’s temporary dwelling place is on earth.

Oh soul! Your abode is in heaven,

sang Maulana Rurni;

You are an inhabitant of that place. Unfortunately, you have become a prisoner in this pot of clay.

And Swami Ji, in His ‘Sar Bachan,’ has affirmed:

Your abode is there, where the physical body does not exist. Why are you then tied down to this physical body?

And Hafiz stated:

Oh man! so long as you do not go out of the body, how can you ever tread the Path of Spirituality?

If the Spiritual Aspirant earns his Inner Advancement by meditating in accordance with the instructions of the Mystic Adept, his soul will ascend the planes of consciousness within. He will eventually attain the final stage of meditation, which is sehaj – absolute bliss –, and at this stage the soul goes through a transition from a state of ‘becoming’ to the actual process of at-one-ment with the Supreme Lord.

How wonderful it would be if you should take your soul out of your body,

said Shamas-i-Tabrez,

and on some night rise to higher realms after leaving the ‘tomb’ of your body. If your soul should do this, you would forever escape death’s sword. You would enter a garden that knows no autumn.

While it sojourns in the physical world, the soul has three states of being: wakefulness, dream, and slumber. However, the Third-Eye Centre of the soul in the body gives the soul ingress into the Spiritual Realms, and thus leads to a state of super-consciousness known at turiya, where the soul makes contact with the audible Life-Stream or the True Shabd. This experience is utterly beyond the comprehension of the average person unless he has had the Third Eye opened through the Grace of a Competent Mystic Adept. In normal everyday life, when the individual is awake, the soul occupies a position in the centre of the forehead behind and between the two eyes; in the dream state the soul is focused at a point in the throat; and in the state of slumber the soul descends to a centre at the navel. When the soul descends from its exalted centre in the forehead, the person’s dreams become vague and incomplete, and the lower the soul descends, the worse the situation becomes. The soul cannot function consciously below the Third-Eye Centre and its life experiences veer from the normal to the increasingly chaotic. On the mystical Path of Love, the soul must start its Inner Journey from the Third-Eye Centre; this is why the True Mystic Adepts sternly discourage yogic practices, which deal with lower centres in the body.

In order to attain liberation from bondage to mind and matter, the soul must ascend to the fifth major Spiritual Realm above the physical. This realm is known as Sach Khand – True Home – in the terminology of the Eastern mystic adepts. Sach Khand can only be reached under the guidance of a Competent Mystic Adept. All the regions below Sach Khand fall away during major and minor cosmic dissolutions, but the fifth Spiritual Region, as well as the inexpressibly beautiful Spiritual Regions above Sach Khand, are eternal and everlasting. Kal, the deity of the causal, astral, and physical universes, has cleverly created a reflection of the major focal-centres within each one of these universes in the universes below. Thus the six centres of the causal world are reflected in the six centres of the astral world, and the six centres of the astral world are reflected in the six centres of the physical world. Man himself possesses these centres – known as chakras – within his own organism. These reflected centres have been created for the purpose of misleading the soul and keeping it from reaching the fifth Spiritual Region, for Kal is the Lord of Birth and Death, and he does not want any soul to escape from his dominion.

Thus many mystical practitioners and yogic teachers are bewildered when they contact these reflected centres within their own consciousness. Many believe they have contacted the ultimate reality, when they have really only tapped a sub-plane of the astral universe. Even the most efficient yogic systems cannot take the soul beyond the astral plane, although a few yogishwars – yogis of a higher order – have ascended to the higher levels of the causal plane. Only the souls who accompany the Supreme Mystic Adepts can reach Sach Khand. Most of the world religions are absorbed in the lower centres of consciousness in the astral and physical realms; but the soul itself must ascend far higher in order to achieve liberation. The majority of yogic teachers mislead themselves and their followers into concentrating upon lower subtle nerve centres or chakras located in the body. These are the rectum centre, the sacral plexus, the navel centre, the heart centre, and the throat centre. However, the Divine Self in man, the soul, dwells in the Third-Eye Centre; and the Mystic Adepts of the higher order start the Spiritual Journey at this centre, ignoring the lower chakras.

The Path of Love is the True Spiritual Journey homewards for all created souls. The essence of this Inner Journey is experienced in the combination of the Spiritual Light and the Spiritual Sound, which is the Holy Shabd, the audible Life-Stream. The Shabd keeps the soul absorbed in its goal and pulls it upward, transporting it from region to region. It helps the soul overcome the hurdles and difficulties of lower and intermediate planes, until it reaches its Ultimate Destination. The mystical Path of Love, known in the East as the Surat Shabd Yoga or Yoga of the Sound Current, is not only the most perfect of all the Inner Sciences but it is also comparatively easy to practise, and it is accessible to all people. Love and devotion to the Supreme Lord and His Embodiment, the Mystic Adept, are the main prerequisites on this Highest Path. The aspirants who assiduously follow its Spiritual Disciplines not only reach their Ultimate Goal, but they do so with greater economy of effort than is possible by any other method.

Love impels the soul upon its way of return to the True Home; and the True Nature of man is Love. All the Mystic Adepts have taught that the human soul is of the essence of God, Who is Love. The soul in the human body is a priceless gem, and the maintenance of life and the functioning of the body are dependent upon its energy. The Mystic Adepts teach that such a jewel should find its complete fulfilment within the crown of the Supreme Lord, in blissful Union with God.

Kirpal Singh Ji Maharaj, the Great Mystic Adept of the twentieth century, has stated in one of His discourses:

If you wish to see the Lord, seek Him within your own house. Therefore, I would request you to gaze and gaze with longing in your heart, with silence in your soul, and with no thought of this world. The Grace of God will descend on you and the gaze will grow into a glimpse, and He will reveal Himself to you; and you will find, nay, see Him within yourself.

The one who would seek Inner Spiritual Mastery, and who would realise his own True Nature as Love, must seek the aid of One Who has Himself mastered the mystical Path. All the aspirant’s readings of scriptures, and all his thinking, can at best lead him to a single conclusion: the need of a living practitioner of the mystical way, a Competent Mystic Adept. Without such a practical wayshower, the aspirant cannot even understand the revelatory import enshrined within much of the world scriptures. The Mystic Adepts speak of experiences that are beyond the level of everyday human understanding. When the Mystic Adepts use human language to describe these experiences, They can only speak in metaphors and parables, for in this way only can Their discourses be made meaningful in the objective outer world.

Within the vast complex of creation, each individual soul is itself a unique spark of Love. Man himself has his sovereign pattern of individuality stamped upon him, and no one else in creation is quite like him; no one shares the totality of any personal attribute completely with him; no one is patterned on precisely the same physical, emotional and mental mould as him. He emerges as a single, separate personality living in a boundless universe of personalities. And yet, in the great and mysterious paradoxes of life, he is an integral part of that unified Kingdom of Love, known as humanity. He is a living soul of Love among living souls of Love.

Through the Spiritual Love-processes of life itself, all humanity is a Unity within the greater cosmic Unity of Love. The mighty forces and energies of the cosmic universe surge through the composite organisms of man, and are used creatively or destructively by him, according to his level of awareness. Man as a being of Love has illimitable powers for Love, bliss and joy within himself. Within him is that creative symphony of Love which links him in a fundamental relationship with the Supreme Lord of Love. Man must reassert his own True Nature and walk upon the pathway of Love, the way of return to his True Home.