11 Feb 2021
[Śrī Anil said: This question is related to the following preaching of Paul from the Bible (1 Corinthians 13) 1If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love, I would be nothing. 3If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love, I would have gained nothing. 4Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 8Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. 11When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 13Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.]
Swami replied: Love for God alone is permanent and the love between souls is not only temporary, but also unreal. Śaṅkara says that that which is temporary, must also be unreal, in all the three periods of time (Yadanityam tat kṛtakam hi loke). The temporary bond of husband and wife between the hero and the heroine in a movie is unreal before the shooting, during the shooting and even after the shooting. Hence, temporary worldly love is always unreal in the past, present and future. Hence, whenever a word is uttered, it stands for its meaning or the item it represents. That item represented by the word must be real and not something unreal. Therefore, the word ‘love’ mentioned by the saint only means the love for God, which alone is permanent and real.
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