Love is God, God is love
By Paromita Vohra
As my friend and I share our sadness at the Peshawar attacks, he asks me, “How will you write your column on love today? How to speak of such things now?”
But it is precisely of such things we must also speak now and offer our children a world whose terms are not set by monoculturalists and monomaniacs. It’s tempting to fall into polarities of God vs. No God, Religions vs. No Religion. But our culture also offers us so many other versions and interpretations of religion all embodied in the idea that God is Love or Love is God. What is the proposition they make when they say this?
Other traditions provide more allusive understandings. In Hindu texts Krishna commonly represents the idea of divine love, as in Jaidev’s Geeta Govind - “How that Love -- the mighty Master/Lord of all the stars that cluster/In the sky, swiftest and slowest/Lord of highest, Lord of lowest/Manifests Himself to mortals/Winning them towards the portals/Of his secret house, the gates/Of that bright paradise which waits/ The wise in love. Ah, human creatures!/Even your fantasies are teachers.”
What might our fantasies of love teach us?
The Sufis would say, Fanaah is something Amir Khan can feel for Kajol in a movie, or what the devotee can feel for God, because, in the words of Rumi, “Love is the attribute of God, who has no need of anyone/ To be in love with other than Him is metaphorical love.”
At times love - metaphorical or temporal - is very difficult, as we see in the poems of Meerabai, Mahadevi Akka or the Alvar poets who say “o clouds, spread like blue cloth across the vast sky/ Has Tirumal my beautiful lord/ of Venkatam/ where cool streams leap -- come with you?/ My tears gather/and spill between my breasts like waterfalls/ He has destroyed my womanhood. How does this bring him pride?”
The irrationality of earthly love where someone waits for a lover who sends constant messages, but never arrives; where the lover is alluring but bewildering, becomes a metaphor for living by a set of beliefs which do not have the neat and literal mathematics of an eye for an eye, but rather, the more difficult equation of a truth for a truth.
The Beloved is different from us, not the same, hence difficult to understand - how to do so?
The Baul poet Lallon Fokir asks, “I have not seen him even once/ my neighbor/ who lives in a city of mirrors /near my house/ His village is surrounded/by deep boundless waters/ and I have no boat/ to cross over./I long to see him, but how can I reach /his village?”
To love those who are different we are told, does not come easy, it requires a journey within, but is worth striving for because love, is the game changer of hardened templates and set beliefs, the challenge to sameness which cannot contemplate change.
You may find love of human beings through love of God or you may find god through love of human beings. These roads meet in the same centre and lead to each other. We too have the choice of these journeys of love in our tradition, and not only the choice of mirroring someone’s hate.
As my friend and I share our sadness at the Peshawar attacks, he asks me, “How will you write your column on love today? How to speak of such things now?”
But it is precisely of such things we must also speak now and offer our children a world whose terms are not set by monoculturalists and monomaniacs. It’s tempting to fall into polarities of God vs. No God, Religions vs. No Religion. But our culture also offers us so many other versions and interpretations of religion all embodied in the idea that God is Love or Love is God. What is the proposition they make when they say this?
The Bible states simply that God is Love (1 John 4:8) and “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not selfseeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-8a).
Other traditions provide more allusive understandings. In Hindu texts Krishna commonly represents the idea of divine love, as in Jaidev’s Geeta Govind - “How that Love -- the mighty Master/Lord of all the stars that cluster/In the sky, swiftest and slowest/Lord of highest, Lord of lowest/Manifests Himself to mortals/Winning them towards the portals/Of his secret house, the gates/Of that bright paradise which waits/ The wise in love. Ah, human creatures!/Even your fantasies are teachers.”
What might our fantasies of love teach us?
The Sufis would say, Fanaah is something Amir Khan can feel for Kajol in a movie, or what the devotee can feel for God, because, in the words of Rumi, “Love is the attribute of God, who has no need of anyone/ To be in love with other than Him is metaphorical love.”
At times love - metaphorical or temporal - is very difficult, as we see in the poems of Meerabai, Mahadevi Akka or the Alvar poets who say “o clouds, spread like blue cloth across the vast sky/ Has Tirumal my beautiful lord/ of Venkatam/ where cool streams leap -- come with you?/ My tears gather/and spill between my breasts like waterfalls/ He has destroyed my womanhood. How does this bring him pride?”
The irrationality of earthly love where someone waits for a lover who sends constant messages, but never arrives; where the lover is alluring but bewildering, becomes a metaphor for living by a set of beliefs which do not have the neat and literal mathematics of an eye for an eye, but rather, the more difficult equation of a truth for a truth.
The Beloved is different from us, not the same, hence difficult to understand - how to do so?
The Baul poet Lallon Fokir asks, “I have not seen him even once/ my neighbor/ who lives in a city of mirrors /near my house/ His village is surrounded/by deep boundless waters/ and I have no boat/ to cross over./I long to see him, but how can I reach /his village?”
To love those who are different we are told, does not come easy, it requires a journey within, but is worth striving for because love, is the game changer of hardened templates and set beliefs, the challenge to sameness which cannot contemplate change.
You may find love of human beings through love of God or you may find god through love of human beings. These roads meet in the same centre and lead to each other. We too have the choice of these journeys of love in our tradition, and not only the choice of mirroring someone’s hate.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own. The opinions and facts expressed here do not reflect the views of Mirror and Mirror does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
