What is the difference between love and lust for God?

[An online spiritual discussion was conducted on February 06, 2021, in which several devotees participated. Some of the questions of devotees answered by Swāmi are given below.]

[Kum. Laxmi Thrylokya asked: What is the difference between having prema (love) for God and having moha (fascination) for God? I believe that lust is different from the above two words?]

Swāmi replied: Love is called prema and lust is called moha. The word love is used in the context of worldly bonds, whereas, devotion is the word used in the context of the bond with God. As such, there is not the slightest difference between love and devotion. Both are one and the same in all respects. Worldly bonds are different like the bonds with parents, brother, sister, son, daughter, husband, wife, darling, friend etc. All these worldly bonds can also be extended to God. Thus, one can love God considering Him to be any of the above relatives, as per one’s liking. The bond with one’s darling is called sweet devotion or madhura bhakti. The Gopikās and more recently, Mīrā, chose to have this bond with God. As per the ethics of worldly life (pravṛtti), this bond is illegitimate. But through this very madhura bhakti, the Gopikās reached the highest specially-created world called Goloka. This apparent contradiction is explained in the Bhāgavatam. The married Gopikās loved God Kṛṣṇa as their lover. This might appear to be illegitimate love based on worldly ethics (pravṛtti). But the deeper truth was that Kṛṣṇa, who was God-in-human-form, was testing whether the Gopikās’ love for Kṛṣṇa exceeded their love for their legitimate married life-partners. The Gopikās were sages in millions of their previous births and had prayed to attain the climax of devotion for God, exceeding any other worldly bond.

Devotion to God must be total, like a single lump; without even a trace of it diverted towards any worldly bond (Eka bhaktiḥ viśiṣyate—Gītā). There is nothing and no soul that is even equal to God, let alone anything or anybody greater than God (Natat samaścābhyadhikaśca—Veda). The test conducted by Kṛṣṇa for the Gopikās was the most delicate test of God. A soul has three strong worldly bonds, which are the bonds with money, with one’s issues and with one’s life-partner. The bond with one’s life partner is one of these three strong worldly bonds. Kṛṣṇa tested the Gopikās to ensure that their love for God (Kṛṣṇa) exceeded all these three bonds.

This direct approach of God in testing devotees is very difficult to understand correctly. Hence, Kṛṣṇa’s actions were misunderstood by several people in the time of Kṛṣṇa. Even now, His actions are misunderstood, especially by the followers of other religions, who like to point fingers at Hinduism. Due to this difficulty in understanding Kṛṣṇa’s actions, it is said that a scholar in spiritual knowledge is to be tested in his ability to understand the Bhāgavatam (Vidyāvatāṃ bhāgavate parīkṣā). Mīrā suffered a lot since she considered Kṛṣṇa to be her lover. She was even given poison by her husband! God Kṛṣṇa should not be misunderstood because after testing the Gopikās, He neither returned to the Gopikās nor did He repeat that kind of test elsewhere in His entire life. Based on these points, it should be properly understood that those incidents were tests of God in which the Gopikās had to prove that their bond with God was stronger than any of their strong worldly bonds. Only upon passing that test could it be declared that their bond with God was really the strongest bond. The truth is always harsh, but the truth alone always remains the truth.

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