Day 17
Without that love, without that respect, the love is worth nothing. It is like the love of prostitutes. A prostitute is not interested in giving pleasure to the person, is not happy when the other person is happy, but is only worried about her income, what she will get out of it.
If love comes with a bargain, “What will I get out of it, what do I get being devoted to God, what I get by doing this” then, it is like the love of a prostitute. Yes, he has used a very strong word.
The Gopis said that we are here for your pleasure, we have come here because you would like to see us-not because we want to see you. There was no demand of any sort there, there was no complaint. “All that we want is your comfort, what is it that you want? We are here for you.”
That is the love of the Gopis. “Our only intention is to make you comfortable and whatever it takes, we are ready. We are here for that.” Rejoicing in this, in the comfort of the beloved is the sign of love.
If you examine, if you keenly look into the experience of love that you all have had, you will find all these characteristics hiding here and there. It is all there, it only needs a little watering, a little enrichment.
Love cannot be devoid of these characteristics. You do have them, you only need to nurture them a little. And that is why these threads. For a kite to go high, it needs a little thread. This knowledge, this wisdom is such thread.
In Karnataka, in the south of India, in the months of October/November there is a festival ‘Aida Pooja’ when people worship everything- shoes, instruments, buses, cycles, cars, scooters and trucks-they feel grateful for all these inanimate objects.
See, these are the things that make our lives comfortable, so they are grateful for them. They will put flowers on the buses, and they will prostrate in front of the bus. They worship all the instruments, knives and stoves. I remember my grandmother in the night she would clean the stove.
The stove used to be an earthen stove in the village. She would clean the stove and the next morning she would make some designs on it and then worship the stove first, then ignite fire and worship the fire. And then keep a pot on it with water and worship the pot.
You go to collect the water from the well, first you worship the well and then take the water from it, so practically everything becomes worshipful. You know as kids we used to make so much fun -“She is prostrating before the stove which she has not even ignited".
If you cannot see God in everything in this universe, you are not going to see him anywhere else. That divinity needs to be recognised. A guest is honoured and worshipped, buses and trucks, cycles and scooters are all cleaned and decorated with flowers.
Sometimes they decorate the windshield with so many flowers, the driver cannot even see what is in front. But, trust in God you know (laughter) and drive. Here in America, we trust in God in the dollar bill, but there the trust in God Is in people’s mind.
The divine is present everywhere. When the divine is present everywhere, what is wrong in adoring anything?
