what is love a page from deivathin kural

Kanchi Paramacharya
Love from Hindu Dharma

What is called love may be divided into three categories. We love great
men for their high qualities, I mean distinguished men, men of truth,
philanthropists, jnanins, men of grace. We mix with our friends and
relatives intimately and affection develops between them and us. Then we
love people- love them ostensibly for a specific purpose, for the reason
that we stand to gain from them. For instance, we may seem to love a rich
man hoping that he would help us in our business or some other enterprise.
We may love our employer because he pays us our wages.
These three types of love are neither true nor everlasting. If our
employer sacks us we will cease to have either respect or affection for
him. If people with whom we have had close contacts leave for a distant
place or die or if we lose touch with them, we are likely in due course to
forget them. All the sorrow we felt in the beginning because of being
separated from them will eventually be forgotten. Were it true love the
grief also should be enduring. Even our love for a great man is not
lasting. If there happens to be a diminution in his qualities- or if he
seems to us not as great as we thought he was- we will love him in
correspondingly lesser measure.
All three categories of love have some reason [or motive] behind them.
That is why they are not everlasting. We love great men because they
possess certain qualities: there is an element of selfish interest in our
feelings for them: because we think they will be helpful in our
advancement.
True love knows neither reason nor motive. When do we love a man truly?
When our affection for him is unchanging and unwavering- we love him even
if he does not apparently move closely with us or does not seem to possess
inward qualities or the capacity to bless us; we love him even when we do
not have any selfish interest to be served by him. Does anyone possess
such love? Yes, only One. It is Isvara- he alone has such love.
God loves us for no reason. If he needed a reason he would not give us
even a morsel of food. It is Paramesvara who forgives all our misdeeds and
protects us- and he is all love. It is his love that is manifested in the
three categories mentioned earlier.
We must learn to have such love as is revealed through Paramesvara; that
is love that is universal, love that is not based on any reason or
interest. Why should we dislike a man because we think he is guilty of
certain wrongs? Are we not similarly guilty ourselves? Do we then discard
ourselves? We must have the same attitude towards others as we have
towards ourselves. There is nothing remarkable about our love for a great
man; the remarkable thing is to love a sinner also. If you ask me, you
must have greater concern and affection for him. "He commits wrongs like
us," we must tell ourselves. "His mind goads him into doing them. We must
have sympathy for him and try to correct him". There may be a few whom
Isvara, out of his compassion, has given the gift of blessing others. Such
men must take it upon themselves the task of freeing others from sinful
actions.
We must, to start with, learn to have disinterested love for an
individual, that is love that is not tainted by self-interest. Eventually,
this love will permeate us, inspire our inner being, and we will then be
able to enlarge it to embrace all. It is the teaching of the wise that we
must have such love for our guru, love without any consideration of the
fruits thereof. We must not look for any reason to love our preceptor. If
we constantly "practise" to have such love for our guru we will be the
recipients of his blessings. Our love for him will eventually grow into
love that will encompass all. If our love is manifested in this manner
there will be fullness, tranquility and bliss.

Hi Sunkan,

That was a good post. But can you just tell me in which part ie in which book it has come so that I can read the tamil version.

Thanks in advance

wow sunkan,
very nice post,how gr8 our periava,well said,really a nice thought,so iam now iam thinking iam i truly love my hubby,yes ofcourse,but as periava said,if he is not supporting for some reasons,iam getting angry & affection will reduce that time,after reading this,i'll try to change my mind,not be selfish,show the maxi' love,affections,to my hubby. hope i'll change soon
thanx for sharing this.

Originally Posted by rajmiarun

Hi Sunkan,

That was a good post. But can you just tell me in which part ie in which book it has come so that I can read the tamil version.

Thanks in advance

dear rajmi,
i have posted as it came, it is a english version...
regards sunkan

Thanks Sunkan,
I will just try to find it out. Bec we have all the volumes of Deivathin Kural

Dear Sundari,
I had missed reading this earlier.....wow a great post , loved reading it and now trying to analyse all my relationships based on this thought....and i hope i will be able to love every one equally one day.... ....but good one .....keep it up!

Dear Sunkan,

Thanks for the article. Incidentally, I was carrying the Part 1 of Deivathin Kural today to read on my way to office ( i travel 1.30 hours each way every day). And will read the tamil version fully on my way back.

Rajmi, This article is titled Anbu in the first book.

Thank You so much for this post. The following lines affected me deeply. I am not a very spiritual person nor do I understand philosophy. In that article I did not understand much. But these lines made so much sense.

"True love knows neither reason nor motive. When do we love a man truly?
When our affection for him is unchanging and unwavering- we love him even
if he does not apparently move closely with us or does not seem to possess
inward qualities or the capacity to bless us; we love him even when we do
not have any selfish interest to be served by him."

That described so well the love I have for my hubby. He is a good man. But in the course of our marriage we have faced so many problems and I was surprised that no matter what he says or does I still loved him ( and he loves me ). I feel blessed.

Love

Dear Sunkan,

A truly inspiring article, thanks for sharing with us.

L, Kamla

PS, What is the book called in English??

Originally Posted by Shanthi

Thank You so much for this post. The following lines affected me deeply. I am not a very spiritual person nor do I understand philosophy. In that article I did not understand much. But these lines made so much sense.

"True love knows neither reason nor motive. When do we love a man truly?
When our affection for him is unchanging and unwavering- we love him even
if he does not apparently move closely with us or does not seem to possess
inward qualities or the capacity to bless us; we love him even when we do
not have any selfish interest to be served by him."

That described so well the love I have for my hubby. He is a good man. But in the course of our marriage we have faced so many problems and I was surprised that no matter what he says or does I still loved him ( and he loves me ). I feel blessed.

Love

dear shanthi,
i practise this in my life, let go what u love if it comes back it is urs otherwise u can continue loving if u do still love so....sunkan