If you observe carefully, you will find that even the person who loves you the most may have some selfish motive. Only Krishna’s love is selfless devoid of all selfish motives.
Our heart has an innate longing to love and be loved. Just as fish cannot live without water, similarly we cannot live without being loved. A lonely heart is a miserable heart. But loving relationship with fellow human beings of this world almost always gives frustration. Either the person whom we love does not reciprocate with our love or even if we experience love it has to end when we have to leave this world.
Love between parents & children is also not perfect
Parents have great attachment for their children (own children) because they feel that their children belong to them. So, they do everything for their children. But when the children grow up, they develop attachment for someone else – to their spouse or to their own children.
Generally, it is seen that children’s love for their parents is not as strong as parents love for their children. It is also seen that in spiritually uncultured society, children throw their parents to old age homes considering them to be a burden.
Does husband & wife love each other selflessly?
A man and woman get attracted to each other and develop strong bonding with each other. But the attraction and attachment are not selfless. A man is attracted to woman’s beauty and woman is attracted to man’s money-making ability. So, if a woman loses her beauty which happens for sure as time passes by, the man may start looking for beauty somewhere else. And if the man’s bank balance starts depleting, woman’s love for man too starts decreasing, she may begin looking for some wealthy paramour.
In India a husband and wife may not leave each other for someone else because family culture and values are still intact to some extent here. But in western countries, it does happen. However as the influence of western or atheistic culture is growing, we see that divorce rate is also increasing in India especially in big cities.
But even if husband and wife do not separate, they start losing affinity for each other if their needs or desires are not taken care by each other. And in their mind, they fret marrying a wrong person. If God would have given us the power to read other’s mind, then almost everyone in this world would be heartbroken! But, the Lord, knew our heart, so did not gift us this ability.
Read: Whom do you love more – Krishna or your husband?
We see that some people become so frustrated because of betrayal by their partners that they keep dogs in their house as life partners. They share their joys and sorrows with their four-legged partner. But as human beings, we need other human beings to take care of our emotional needs.
Any relationship ultimately frustrate in this world
None of the relationship in this world is perfect and purely selfless. Each one looks what is in it for me. No one wants to sacrifice for others’ happiness, but everyone wants others to sacrifice for their happiness.
And suppose that we are extremely fortunate that we get a partner who loves us a lot, is ready to sacrifice everything for us but still the destructive time takes that special one away from us. And then we are terribly lonely.
Relationship in this world ultimately frustrates us, and this is the reason that in this world every soul eventually suffers.
This is why Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita that this world is temporary and miserable. It is not just that this world gets destroyed, so it is temporary, but the relationship also ends abruptly here. The world is miserable because it does not just give us physical pain but most of the time it gives us emotional pain and makes us heartbroken.
Our great longing to love and be loved can never be satisfied by the lesser mortals of this world. Those who understand this and realize this start looking for that love, which is selfless, fulfilling, everlasting and exists even after we die.
Pure selfless love is possible only with Krishna
That pure selfless love is possible only with Krishna. The fortunate souls who have thoroughly understood this reality give up all pain giving relationship of this world and work hard to develop strong relationship with Krishna, the Lord of our heart. Since Krishna is supremely pure, so our love for him does not manifest completely unless we become completely pure. But even if in our impure state we start developing love for Krishna, Krishna starts reciprocating. Those who try this will agree with me.
Scriptures say that Krishna always loves us whether we love him or not. This is the reason that as Paramatma or Supersoul, he always lives with us in our heart. Uddhava puts it beautifully, “He [Supersoul] is present in the hearts of all living beings, just as fire lies dormant in wood.
Krishna does not leave us even for a moment. He is even there in the heart of an atheists who hates him. His love for you and me is not based on any selfish motive, it is purely selfless.
In this world we see that parents love their children because they expect that their children will take care of them when they are old. A wife loves her husband because he provides her financial security. And a husband loves his wife because she fulfills his physical needs.
But Krishna does not expect anything from us. He has no ulterior motives. In spite of our shortcomings and imperfections, he loves us without any expectation. But we the unfortunate souls look for love from someone else who love themselves and not us. And so, we suffer again and again.
Hearts longing to love & be loved is satisfied only by Krishna
When we go through the pages of Bhagavad Gita, we come to know what is there in Krishna’s heart. In this epic transcendental treatise, Krishna, who is celebrated as the Supreme Lord by all the authorized Vedic scriptures, tirelessly tries hard to tell us that do not suffer in this world but come to me, I will fill your life with love and happiness.
“After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.” Bhagavad Gita 8.15
Great spiritual personalities rejected all so-called flickering material relationship and only focused on developing loving relationship with Krishna. They attained complete perfection and their heart’s longing to love and be loved completely got satisfied. When love for Krishna completely manifests in the heart, the soul joyful floats in the ocean of transcendental bliss.
