Without God is without love; without love is without life;“without love, where would we be now?”- The Doobie Brothers,  



“When poverty knocks on the door, love flies out of the window”. I was still so young when I first heard this precept; but in spite of that, even by then something within me reacted and whispered that what I am hearing is wrong. Even at that time for a moment I stopped and think, I searched within, and asked my heart whether the saying is factual or not. But finding no clear answer, I looked around and somehow consulted the impoverishment of the poor people around me. Afraid of what I saw, and without considering the power that binds the relationships of the poor people, I concluded that maybe the truism was true. But by then of course, I knew nothing about love; as practically I know nothing about God.

This aphorism insinuates that poverty, lack of material needs, is stronger than love; that poverty and love does not go hand and hand; that love is weak and it is afraid of indigence. But does poverty, which causes dishonor, hunger, and even death, is indeed stronger than love? “Amor Vincit Omnia”, Love Conquers All. Nothing is more powerful than love. Materialism, lust, is very powerful, but it has no power against love. As what has been proven by the Gospel of Christ, when the most feared death has no sting against the loving son’s love for his Father. There is enough proof that love is powerful, but the issue of love’s power sometimes boils down to the question of whether love is real or not. Definitely, love is real; but a so-called love that is not love but lust made people think that love is not real. But love is real, and even lust is also real.

“No money no honey” and “Money can’t buy love”. She is not a honey for she is not sweet and all she cares about is money? As strength is gauged by its trials, Love is not love without proof. Real love sticks through thick and thin, so why mind losing someone whose only concern is her/his own self. Love is trialed by our own desires based on ignorance; and by lust born out of envy. “How deep is our love?” Everyday, everyhour, everysecond, we are tempted by our minds to do things which will lead us away from love. We must withstand the waves of illusion by Invoking the mercy of The Supreme Lovable Person through prayers and service so that we can dive deeper into love.

“Love”, according to a popular song, “is sometimes just ain’t enough”. Clearly but sadly, the songwriter has no real knowledge about the real meaning of love. And most probably, he is in-lust and not in-love. Love is courageous and not afraid of anything. Physically, the worst thing that poverty can do is to make a person hungry or die. Death is a common occurrence of this world, so why be so afraid of it. In one of the songs by the "Eagles", it states, “When we’re hungry love will keep us alive.” We are told not to be too concern about our food and shelter, because the All-Compassionate Lord will provide those things for us. We should be more concern about loving the Supreme Lover; because only by doing so, we will learn the real meaning of love. And if we are indeed in-love, The God of Love will specially take care of us.

“The Truth shall set us free”. God is Absolute Truth. As children of the Supreme Spirit, we are also spirit; we are also eternal and deathless. A real lover is full of knowledge; and with knowledge we can overcome all kinds of fear, including the ultimate fear, which is the fear of death. Some preachers are telling us that we should be afraid of God; this teaching is nonsense, because God, The God of Love, our Father is a loving father. Why should we be afraid of Him? Personally, I am most afraid of only two things: losing God’s love and be totally away from Him.

The phrase “making love” in the song “Making Love Out of nothing at All” is not right, since no one can actually make love. Nevertheless, the song is a testimony that some people are capable of making love a priority rather than just an option. The writer, despite of his awesome power, was fascinated by the attitude and ways of an authentic lover. Furthermore, let me add that the song is about the feeling of being in love rather than having sex, which is the moronic contemporary meaning of this stupid phrase (making love). Moreover, in the coda of the song, it was mentioned: “I have got to follow it, because everything I do is nothing till I gave it to you.”

The power of love is soft and gentle; 

but like water, it can melt a heart of stone.

People endeavor hard for material things for wanting to be happy; sadly, even striving spiritualists fall down because of this trap of illusion. Instead of striving to love the Supreme Lover, they utilized their resources, energy, and precious time to chase the temporary material things; seemingly so convinced that happiness is there. By their action we can conclude that they end up not happier than they were before; definitely not wiser; seemingly more hard-hearted, and most probably emptier. We are told to use a spiritual barometer; if we would, our emptiness can be determine by the amount of nonsense in our minds, by our anger, by our insecurities and fears, by our endless materialistic desires. A wise friend once told me, “show me a rich man who is happy and I will endeavor to become rich”. Maybe this is the reason why he remain poor, because so far, he had not seen such kind of a rich man.

Indeed the illusion personified Maya is so cunning and powerful. No doubt, she is a cruel adversary who will not give up anything to an opponent without gain. The whole material creation is a big prison cell under her care. Her job is not to let anyone escape, and one way to do it is to let no one understand the real meaning of love. To truly understand love is to hear it from the bonafide representatives of The Supreme Lover. When a person truly understands love, he is free; the shackles of illusion and materialistic desires have no power to bind him. His vision is clear; he sees everything as it is. Our desire is the root of our weakness; and we can only be tempted if we feel that we are lack of something and in need. We are stronger when we have enough and complete. We should have God, for God is more than enough and complete; God is love, and like God, love is also more than enough and complete.

Knowing one’s real identity is the beginning of wisdom. We are spirit soul in essence, as our material body need material food, we need spiritual food. Ours are spiritual inner cravings, which cannot be appeased by any kind and no amount of material things. This is the reason why we can never have enough and there is no such thing as enough, which means an adequate and sufficient amount to meet a need or satisfy a desire. As spirit soul, we are eternal; but without spiritual food we will be spiritualy dead. “Our daily bread” intake of spiritual food is the only thing that will keep us truly alive.

Materialism, like sex, is an itch; the more you scratch, the more you itch. Given a chance, a person can consume the whole world and still will not be satisfied because he is an ignorant person, a spirit soul, who is foolishly trying so hard to find happiness in material things. 4-22-2013