We must first under-stand what ‘Real Love’ means. Selfish motives, even in what people call love, often deceive them and they mistake selfish feelings for love. I will make the point clear with an example – a person talking of love will say, ‘I love my beloved. I want my beloved to be with me’, and so on. But in all these expressions of love, the ‘I’ and ‘my’ are predominant. Another example – suppose you find your child running about in tattered clothes and feeling unhappy about it. You will readily feel for it and do all in your power to get good clothes and make the child happy. But, if you see another child in the street in similar conditions, would you feel the same and act as readily as you did in the case of your own child? If not, it shows how your attitude towards your own child is merely a result of your selfish feeling. Your feelings could be called the outcome of True Love if your attitude towards the unknown child of a stranger in the street were the same as towards your own child, under the same conditions.

Complete absence of selfishness is therefore the true characteristic and real test of Pure Love. How can this Pure or Divine Love be experienced? It is not something that can be forced upon a person or snatched away from another. It is attained after the aspirant has succeeded in overcoming selfishness and when the ‘I’ ceases to exist. This selfless stage, it might be said, is difficult to attain and at the same time it could also be stated that the stage is easy to reach. Paradoxical as these statements might seem, they are nevertheless true. It is difficult to attain the stage of selflessness so long as the aspirant has not resolved to reach it. In the absence of firm determination, the external attachments connected with the lower self prove too strong to be overcome, with the result that the aspirant is unable to attain his goal. However, if the aspirant with a strong will decides to achieve his aim at any cost, he finds his task easy.

Self-renunciation is necessary for experiencing Pure Love. ‘Renunciation’ does not imply giving up on all worldly connections and affairs and going off into the jungles. It means remaining in the world and discharging one’s own duties faithfully, yet keeping aloof from all attachment. The only renunciation is that which abandons, even in the midst of worldly duties, all selfish thoughts and desires. This is not an unattainable ideal, but a practical goal which can be attained with ease, provided the aspirant sincerely and boldly resolves to reach it. Just as a man, when he is hungry, longs for food, similarly when an aspirant desires to experience Pure Love, he feels the longing for it, and at the proper time, he gets the necessary directions and help from a Master to attain to the goal of desirelessness and is able to finally enjoy the bliss of Divine Love.

Avatar Meher Baba – Bombay Centre:
www.avatarmeherbaba.in