Can we experience real love through relationships in this world?
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Question, what is the spiritual perspective, Krishna Patshah's perspective on relationships? The Bhagavatam has a verse which reminds us that we should not live on a bodily platform, that relationships are temporary and that our goal is to focus on the supreme and not get entangled. Example, Bharat Maharaj's life. Does that mean that we look at all our relationships as entangling? I heard one devotee say that the prema that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu talks about is not accessible to us in our conditioned state and all prema in relationships is dubious.
If this is true, then how can Vaishnavas have meaningful loving exchanges? As relationships with others lie at the heart of a capability to experience love in this world, this seems to be a pretty bleak concept. Please comment. Answer, within the Vedic culture, Vedic worldview, karma, jnana and bhakti have different perspectives towards relationships.
In karma, worldly relationships are seen as the fruit of the worship of God. That means to have a good spouse, to have a good child. People worship God for that and when they get that then they consider that to be the success of their worship of God.
So, the relationships are the ends, worldly relationships are the ends and God is the means to that end. In the path of jnana, worldly relationships are considered to be an obstacle on the way to God. So, God is the end and worldly relationships are stumbling blocks.
They have to be given up so that one can focus on God. In bhakti, the primary focus is on connection. So, worldly relationships are also used to connect us deeper with Krishna and all our relationships are primarily expressions of our need for Krishna and our relationship with Krishna.
Krishna is an ocean of love and drops of that love are taken up by different people who are around us, who may be offering some love to us. Because our need for love is so great and the absence of love makes life so bleak that even the drop of love seems extraordinarily great and for that drop of love people are ready to sometimes sacrifice their lives. Now, by saying that the love of this world is just a drop, it is not necessary to mean that it is false.
It is not implied that it is false or valueless. We experience different degrees of intimacy in our relationship with different people. With some people we just can't tolerate them, with some people we get along officially, with some people we can share a lot of things and with some we can have a very close bonding.
So, this indicates that we can't treat all worldly relationships even in the devotional path with the same dismissive attitude that they are just obstacles or distractions. So, there are certain relationships which can be very fulfilling even in this world but they are temporary and the fulfilling relationships at the material level if they are not connected with Krishna then they can be most entangling and that's why they are in a sense most dangerous. So, when the movies or the novels talk about romance and a man and a woman falling in love with each other, now in some cases there is greater compatibility, in some cases there is no compatibility at all and in some cases there is a very intimate compatibility.
But no matter how much there is compatibility, actually there is ultimately the reality that life in this world is temporary and to the extent we get joy in a relationship in this world, to that extent we will suffer when that relationship is ruptured and that's how attachments lead to suffering. But still the point is that the love that we experience in this world is ultimately a drop of, a small small drop of the ocean of love that Krishna himself offers to all of us. So, when we connect our worldly relationship with Krishna then they are actually very valuable in the path of devotional service.
So, in fact the difference between a Kanishka and a Madhyam Adhikari is the capacity to perceive Krishna and relationship with Krishna. In this world a Kanishka Adhikari thinks that there is a relationship is only with Krishna, this comes from the deity in the temple, worships and leaves. But a Madhyam Adhikari understands that his or her relationship with Krishna depends not only on the relationship with Krishna directly but also with the relationship with those with others depending on how they relate with Krishna.
That's why So, Ishwara, Krishna is definitely the object of prema for us but the devotees are the object of maitri, friendship and the innocent are the object of kripa and the envious are the object of neglect. This indicates that our worldly relationships will form a spectrum from friendship to neglect where and all these three are actually means of developing a relationship with Krishna. So, that means certainly when we are talking, when the scriptures are recommending friendship with devotees, that friendship is also an expression of love.
There are different kinds of love and friendship is one kind of love. So, certainly we can experience Krishna's love through his devotees in a way that enables us to move closer towards Krishna. When we experience Krishna's love through our worldly relatives, actually it is Krishna's love but we don't experience it to be Krishna's love because we don't see their connection with Krishna and that's why that love often entangles us.
So, depending on our relatives attitude towards Krishna, if our relatives are devotees of Krishna and then the friendship with them will actually deepen our relationship with Krishna and the love that we experience in those relationships can actually take us closer to Krishna and if our relatives are, say, not knowing about Krishna consciousness but are innocent in the sense that they are ready to know, then by connecting with them also we are deepening our relationship with Krishna, we are spiritualizing that relationship and helping them to develop the relationship also and for those who are envious then it's best to keep away from them because yes they may have some affection for us and we may also have some affection for them but because their because their attitude towards Krishna is inimical and envious, whatever, they are also reflecting a drop of Krishna's love for us. But through that drop, through that love, actually not only are we kept away from Krishna but we are taken further away from Krishna. So, actually it is not that we can't experience love in this world because the idea that we can't experience love in this world is a Jnani idea because in the concept of Jnan there is no love at all either in this world or the next world and the love of Krishna for his devotees and for all the souls who are ultimately his devotees can be experienced even in this world but certainly not to anywhere near the degree to which it is experienced in the spiritual world.
So, in that sense it is true that the prema that Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu talks about is very very lofty and it's very difficult for us to experience it but at the same time we can surely experience some degree of Krishna's love for us and some degree of reciprocation with Krishna even in the sadhaka stage through our relationships in this world also. In fact, if we look at Shri Chaitanya Charita Amrit, the whole Chaitanya Charita Amrit, especially the Madhya Leela and the Anta Leela, they are the initial chapters of the Anta Leela, they are all centered on relationships, on how devotees deal with each other in a loving way that enhances their mutual love for Krishna. So, now we may say that neither we nor the devotees around us are that advanced devotees.
That is okay, that may be true but that doesn't mean that those principles don't apply to us. They are models and we have to try to emulate them to the extent that we can in our life and basing our understanding of relationships in Krishna's connection with us and Krishna's connection with everyone around us makes us spiritualize those relationships in an appropriate way. So, certainly our goal is ultimately to experience love for Krishna and offer our love to him and we try to do that through our sadhana, through our svadhyaya.
We try to develop the conviction and the experience of Krishna consciousness. At the same time, the relationship with devotees and the devotional minded are also very important for us to get glimpses of Krishna's love. In fact, without reciprocating with the devotees, the concept of love for Krishna can often remain very ethereal, very artificial, very just merely theoretical.
So, when we have worldly relationships which have been very important and very satisfying for us at some level, then it's not that just because we are devotees we immediately dismiss all that love as false. That will be extremely insensitive from our side and it will be very hurting from others. Now, in the Chitra Ketu pastime, we see that Chitra Ketu was very strongly chastised for his attachment to his son.
At the same time, that was because he was lamenting and he was forgetting dharma. But if a parent has a son, the showing affection for the son and helping the son grow up to become a responsible human being and devotee requires having some love. And that is also a part of dharma.
So, the point of the chastisement of Chitra Ketu is not that all worldly relationships are false, but that obsession with worldly relationships and forgetfulness of higher spiritual truths is what is unworthy of a person of Chitra Ketu Maharaj's caliber. Therefore, when we experience some joy, some satisfaction in worldly relationships, we shouldn't consider that to be false. It is that person has some love for us and that person is reflecting Krishna's love for us to some small degree and we are grateful for whoever has done whatever for us and we try to reciprocate in whatever best way we can.
So, only when that love starts obstructing our relationship with Krishna and even endangering that relationship, then we have to not necessarily reject that love as false, but understand that this is pratikul and therefore deal with that in an appropriate way so that we don't lose the opportunity for Krishna consciousness that we have got because of that love. So, certainly we can experience love in this world and even in worldly relationships there is some level of love which is, which can be especially when there is compatibility and when there is proper mutual understanding, there can be happiness in that relationship, but it is temporary and to the extent we get happiness in that, to that extent we will get frustration when that relationship ends. So, therefore also, so firstly there is in the long run there will be frustration through that relationship and secondly to the extent that relationship is unconnected with Krishna, to that extent it can distract us from Krishna because it makes us suspect to the, subject to the illusion that we can be happy through loving relationships in this world alone and we don't need Krishna at all.
But when we understand that all relationships are ultimately offering us drops of Krishna's love for us as Dhromaraj's mother tells him, Sunithi tells him that whatever love I am offering you, millions of times of that love, Lord Narayan will offer you. Now, what does she mean? It means that she is offering love to her son and her love for her son is genuine. If something is just false then millions of times a false thing is also false to me.
So, her love for Dhromaraj is genuine and she's saying Lord Narayan's love will be much, much more. So, to the extent we understand this principle and then you and take all loving relationships and loving experiences in this world as pointers, as reminders, as directors, not directors in the movie director sense, directors in the sense of direction providers for us to focus on our loving relationship with Krishna then they are all beneficial and we can spiritualize those relationships accordingly.