True Love
In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Amin. May all praise and all responsibility be given to that One God who is limitless grace and incomparable love. Amin. May all the responsibilities in our life, the splendors, the highs and the lows, may they all be given to that One God, our Father who is goodness, love, and compassionate beneficence. Amin.
My very precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, children born with me as the life within my life, the love within my heart, all my loving children who are the love within my love, who are mingled with my love, who dwell within my love, who are the wisdom within my wisdom, may God Himself protect us with His grace, bless us, and grant us an exalted life of excellence, good qualities, and good deeds. Amin.
My very precious children, I give you my love. My very precious children who are the life within my life, we have come to this world from our Father who is God. During the period when we existed as a soul composed of light, we knew our Father. When we were nothing other than light, that light perceived the Light; it prayed and bowed down in reverential obeisance. That light form still exists within us as a mysterious secret, a mysterious, secret light body, an atom, a ray, the soul. It is the treasure of wisdom which can be seen in the state of God's love. This soul, this light form is God's mystery, and its life is God's life. Its actions are God's actions, and its love is undiminishing, endless, and indivisible.
When we came to this world, we brought that form with us along with its actions, its behavior, its qualities, and its compassion. That is our mysterious secret. It is that love which makes us instinctively show compassion to others, makes us aware, and prompts us to soothe and comfort others. This quality of compassion is just one aspect of that light form. My precious children, we must realize that this compassionate love is a ray of God's infinite love, and we possess that quality of compassionate love, that resplendent light. The act of showing compassion toward others, that ray of light, the life which is the soul, that grace and wisdom are within us. God is within us and the secret story of the kingdom of God is within us. We must understand this.
My very precious children, what do we call love? The love we usually manifest is selfish. We might love a tree, but for selfish reasons. We raise a cow and love it. Why? For selfish reasons. We breed a horse, but what kind of love do we have for it? Selfish love, because it is our property. We keep a dog, and because it is our dog, we love it. We may look after a garden, grow a tree, keep a cat, or raise goldfish. No matter what we have or nurture, our love for it is selfish. If we have a friend, we have a motive for having that friend. Whether it is a friend, a house, whatever it may be, the love we manifest is selfish. No matter what we love, if we examine that love accurately we will find a selfish reason for it; we expect something in return. Even when we cling to a religion, a doctrine, racial prejudice, anything, if we examine our feelings carefully, we will always find that there is a reason behind those feeling--selfishness. All the different kinds of love we offer or observe have to be understood in this way.
Now, does this kind of love benefit us? No, it does not. The only love that is beneficial is selfless love. Whatever we raise or touch--cattle, goats, donkeys, horses, dogs, cats, rats, house, property, possessions, learnings, titles, fame, political status, or even wisdom--whatever it is we love, if our love is directed toward something and remains fixed on that thing, it is a love which can be lost, which can die. That love is not an intrinsically inner love like the fragrance in union with a flower.
Suppose we spread gravel on a roadway, level it, cover it with tar, and roll it perfectly flat and smooth. In the course of time, rain and snow will fall, trucks will drive over it, floods will overrun it, and eventually the road will crack and potholes will appear. The road stays perfectly level for a short while, but as the seasons change, potholes will appear. And if the wheel of a car falls into a pothole, the alignment may be ruined, the tire may be damaged, the axle might break, or something else could give way; there may even be an accident. Similarly, selfish love is subject to the changing seasons and tends to break down just as a road does. My very precious children, this is exactly how any kind of love that we foster within ourselves with selfish motives will end; it will break down sooner or later. Unless love is connected to God, unless it is connected to truth, to compassion, to justice, and to grace, it is possible for it to break down.
My very precious children, all the love manifested by the human race is exactly like this. If we pursue God, worship Him, ask Him for favors, for property, money, possessions, a baby, great titles, a kingdom, or even for heaven, if we love God with interested motives, with selfish love, that love will break down. It is a broken love. But God is limitless grace and incomparable love. His love has no selfish interests. His compassion, His actions, His conduct, His goodness, His love, and His compassionate qualities are shown equally to all living things. His love pervades everything, and He lives within all lives. Knowing each heart, He does His duty; knowing the qualities of each life, He serves it; knowing the behavior of each life, He protects it.
My very precious children, this love which is God's love must take form within us. God's love must take shape within the human race. His love must be formed in our hearts. That state must begin to grow as a small embryo in our hearts. Before we give our love to anything, we must slice it open, examine it carefully, and change it into a love that is complete, unchanging, and offered properly without faults, shortcomings, or deceit. Our love must correspond point by point with His love. The love between one human being and another and the love between man and God must be a love in unity. Love and love must merge, grace and grace must merge, qualities and qualities must coincide, actions and actions must be identical. The grace here and the grace there must unite as one, this fragrance and that fragrance must merge. Just as the flower and its fragrance are one, two hearts must mingle as one. That alone can be called love. Only that kind of love has this delightful fragrance.
Every child must attain this state. Because man is the prince of God, when we place our faith in God, when we do our duty to others, to the human race, we must do it without attachment, without selfishness, in the proper way, expecting no reward. We must serve others with the firm belief that we are one family, that all human beings are our brothers and sisters, feeling the suffering of others as our own suffering, the sadness of others as our own sadness, the sorrow of others as our own sorrow, the illness of others as our own illness, the pain of others as our own pain, the hunger of others as our own hunger, the lives of others as our own life, and the happiness of others as our own happiness. My very precious children, love that pours forth like this is true love.
If we were to have the same kind of love for a man that we have for a tree, what good would that be? We might cultivate a teak tree with great love, but what happens when the price of teak goes up? We cut it down, don't we? We raise a beautiful horse, but if someone offers us a good price, we sell it. We raise a cow and consider it to be as precious as our own life, but if someone offers a high enough price, we sell it. We are capable of selling anything we love selfishly to get something in return.
We must reflect on the love we give each and every thing. Let us look at the condition of the human race today. If a man marries a beautiful woman or a woman marries a handsome man, if they have a beautiful child and do many things together lovingly, that certainly is looked upon as love by most people. Their two bodies joined and their two hearts merged and became one for awhile. But what is that love? It is physical love. It is selfish love and illusion. After a while, if the wife should fall ill, her husband will not take care of her. That same husband who promised so much love, saying they had one heart even though they had two bodies, now asks for a divorce. He does not want to look after her when she is ill, and his wife would probably also want a divorce in a similar situation. Is that love? No it is not. In true love, life must be shared. Illness, wealth, bodily suffering, happiness, joy, and sorrow must all be shared. Whenever there is love in which the husband and wife do not share everything equally, that love is born of selfishness. Only when everything is shared can it be called true love.
So, my very precious children, when you fall in love, analyze the state of that love. Cut it open, examine it carefully, and look for the love which is intermingled with love, the love born of wisdom, the love born of good qualities, the love born of good actions, the love born of good behavior, the love emanating from clarity. That is true love. Any other love is merely selfish, merely the love of physical beauty, of beautiful possessions or beautiful learning. When we give our selfish love to these things, that beauty will soon fade and our love will end. This love is like our love for cows and goats. When a man gives up one woman and takes another, or a woman gives up one man and takes another, that love was never, never true love.
My very precious children, just as the fragrance is inseparable from the flower, in true love two minds are joined together as one. This love must be brought into our conduct, our actions, our qualities, our tranquillity, and our wisdom, so that two can become one. Only when these qualities come together will true love flourish. We do not need selfish love. One life must mingle with another; one love must mingle with another. We have to trust and live in that state of love.
What is the point of loving God the same way we love a dog or a cat? When you sell the dog, you will have to sell God too. Can you transfer the love you have for a horse to God? If so, then when you sell the horse, you are selling God too. Is this not strange? Therefore, we have to learn the true meaning of love and put it into action. We have to learn what kind of love we must offer to God, what kind of love we must have in our lives, and what kind of love two people should have for each other. Their love must be like the flower and its inseparable fragrance. And what should our love for God be like? Our love of God must be a love of surrender, like one light surrendering to a stronger light. Love must surrender to love, wisdom must surrender to wisdom, grace must surrender to grace, our qualities must surrender to God's qualities, our actions must surrender to His actions, our duties must surrender to His duties, our life must surrender to His life, and radiance must surrender to radiance. This means that man must become God, that God must surrender to God. Only the love which surrenders is true love. This is what true love really is.
When we speak of love, we speak as though we really had that love for all creations. We love the earth, we love the sky, we love the sun, the moon, fire, our bodies, cows, cats, trees, and flowers we love everything. What is there we don't love? But this is all selfish love which we must transcend to learn what true love for God is in our lives. We must experience that unity and know what form of love should exist between a man and a woman. We must love each other as one race, one family. We must know that we are truly one community. This is the love we must discover. Life is to manifest that love in the same way that perfume emanates from a flower.
God's love transcends all these other so called loves. His love is His conduct, His patience, His tolerance, His qualities, His actions, His peacefulness, His compassion. True love is His sabur or inner patience, His shukur or absolute contentment, His tawwakul or surrender, and giving all praises to God, saying, "Al-hamdulillah! " God's love is His qualities of sympathy, generosity, mercy, the feeling that all lives are as precious as His own and that the hunger of all is His own hunger. His love permeates everything. We must have that kind of love. We must let that love take shape within us and surrender it to Him.
My very precious children, until that love exists within us, until that wisdom grows within us, until God's compassion is formed within us, until His actions grow within us, our love is a broken love. In this state, the love we offer God is like our love for dogs and cats. Our love of race, religion, doctrines, philosophies, possessions, money, wealth, and color is selfishly motivated. This love cannot be connected to God because it is broken love, a love which falls apart here and there.
Precious children, we have to understand what really constitutes love in our lives, and we have to understand the love we must have for God. That love knows neither comparison nor equal. We must have God's love for God and give His actions and His grace to Him. We must have God's compassion and attribute it to Him. We must have His conduct and attribute it to Him. We must show His qualities to Him, reach that state, and give Him that love. That is surrender.
Just as the fragrance and the flower are one, the soul and His mystery mingling together is love. The ray of our soul's light falling into His light is love. My very precious children, devotion to God is the surrender of our wisdom to His. Then we can learn. Only if our qualities surrender to His can we learn His qualities. Only if we surrender our life to Him, can we study His life, and only if we surrender our eyes and our intentions to Him, can we study His eyes and His intentions.
My very precious children, we must let His love and His actions work inside us this way. As long as we have prejudices, colors, religions, races, wealth, philosophies, books, and scriptures, and as long as we say, "I am the best! Mine! My possessions, my things, my relatives," as long as we hang on to these things, we cannot have that love which merges with God. Our love will be broken, like our love for dogs and cats. We may love a dog very much, yet we lead it around on a leash. We love a horse, yet we throw a saddle on it and ride it. We love a mule, yet we load it with bundles and ride it. What about our love for a cow? We take a big pail and milk it. And what love do we have for a tree? We carry a sack to pick its fruit. Selfish love always has a motive, and so we offer a different kind of love to each thing. This divided, selfish love vanishes once we no longer need that thing. If it doesn't have what we are looking for, our love disappears. This is a love that breaks and sees separations. Yet we keep saying there is love in our life, love of this and love of that. What kind of love are we talking about?
My very precious children, we must split open the love we have for each thing in our life and examine what is inside. We must open each tree, fruit, flower, our lives, our sexual pleasures, gold, our wealth, our houses, everything we look at with our eyes and our minds. If we dissect them all and look inside, we will eventually realize that there is only one kind of love, and that it is not something we see externally. When we truly perceive that wonder we will exclaim, "My God!" That love is 'my God', that wonder. That love which is at the core of everything we see is God. As we dissect everything what we ultimately see is 'my God'. This is love. Whatever it may be that we want to study or examine, if we cut it open, what we ultimately experience is the fragrance and the light which is 'my God'.
When we split open everything seen in life, finally we recognize that one thing which permeates all lives--God who appears as a ray, as the point at the center of everything. That point is love. And when we perceive that love present within all lives, we have to love that love. We exclaim, "Oh, my God, this is Your creation, how wonderful! This is Your food, how wonderful!" When we dissect anything, we see only His wonder inside. When we look at love, we see only His love; when we examine wisdom, we see only His wisdom; when we study beauty, we see His beauty; when we analyze compassion, we see His compassion; when we observe any actions, we see His actions; when we see a miracle, we see Him as the miracle; when we perceive radiance, it is His radiance.
The love we should have is the love which looks at everything through Him. We must discover that love inside each and every thing we see. If we can find this and make it our own, then everyone will be a brother or sister born with us. This is the only kind of love in which God is present, the only love which is lasting. This is grace, this is wisdom and light. This love is the shining beauty of our face, the beauty of our heart, our wealth, our life. This is what makes our soul beautiful. This is what makes the house of our life beautiful. My very precious children, this beauty is love. May we each reflect on that love, may we open our hearts, look inside with understanding, and see that love. We must open our qalbs, our innermost hearts, and look within. We must dissect everything we understand, we must investigate everything we eat, we must examine our sleep, we must inspect the inside of everything we look at. Then we will see God's wonders and miracles. Then we will see this love which lives in all lives, which showers compassion on all lives, and we will say, "My God, how wonderful!"
My very precious children, each child must understand this, take this love into his heart, and use it in his life. We must all imbibe these qualities and these actions and put them to use in our lives. We must imbibe that duty and reveal it in our actions. We must draw that grace and that treasure within us. This love is true love, the love born of faith and trust, the love born of brotherly unity, the love that comes from being one family, the love that comes from prayer, the love that comes from merging with God, the love which has no limit. This love will never break or fail. It will never diminish or be destroyed no matter what storms or gales or destruction befall us. This unselfish, true love will never change or decrease.
My very precious children, we must dissect every thought we think, every wise thing we learn, every realization we receive, all the feelings we become aware of, all the clarity we experience, all the prayers we pray, all the scenes we look at, all the dreams we dream and our conduct by day and by night. We must dissect all this, look at it, and understand. Then from all this, we must extract love, truth, justice, integrity, honesty, and the laws of righteousness. We must discover these truths within that love and conduct our lives accordingly.
My very precious children, my children born with me, you must find the state of love which never perishes, which is God's love and His actions. My very precious children, you must realize this love in your faith, in your certitude, in your determination, in your wisdom, and in your clarity. Realize it as the clarity within clarity, as the wisdom within wisdom, as the divine wisdom within divine wisdom, as the grace within grace, as God within God. The love which mingles with God's love is true love, the actions are acts of love.
My very precious children, with what must we mingle, in what must we lose ourselves and to what must we connect ourselves? We must develop the love which mingles with God. My very precious children, may we develop that kind of love which will merge with Him. But how do we realize this love and faith, how do we act with God's actions and behavior, how do we perform our duty, how should we pray and worship?
If we want some light, though we may have oil and a wick, we still need a flame to light it. Unless we have a lighted match, the oil will remain oil and the wick will remain a wick. Only after we apply the match will the oil, the wick, and the flame become radiant light. My very precious children, our faith must be united with our wisdom. Only when they are one and God's light ignites them will we have light. My very precious children, we must have the oil called faith and the wick called wisdom, and we must bring God's light to ignite this wick. This is the light which will dispel the darkness and reveal His grace. May we reflect on this.
If each of you will open your heart, your actions, your wisdom, and your conduct and look within, you will see that every face is your face, every nerve is your nerve, each drop of blood is your blood, every sickness is your sickness, all hunger is your hunger, all poverty is your poverty, all sorrow is your sorrow, all lives are your life. You will experience all this in your nerves, in your body and in what you see. When that state develops inside you, that is God's love. That is God's true love because all suffering is His suffering, all sorrow is His sorrow, all hunger is His, all poverty is His, and all grief is His. Every torment is inside Him. This is how God does His duty. Therefore, if you develop that love, you will do your duty in the same way. If that love develops you will not hurt any other living thing, you will not cause pain, you will not reject any life, and you will not torture any other life, because if you hurt anyone it will hurt you.
My very precious children, look at a tree. It may have a thousand branches and a million leaves and flowers. If you cut any one of those flowers, leaves, or branches, the tree feels the pain, doesn't it? The leaves droop immediately, don't they? They wilt immediately because of the pain. See how the leaves wilt in the sun. If the leaves wither, the tree withers. If a branch falls, the tree feels the pain, isn't that so? A branch cannot fall without the tree being aware of it. The leaves don't wither or wilt without the tree being aware of it, because the tree holds on to them with a gluey substance. My very precious children, even though a tree has millions and millions of leaves and flowers, it feels the pain caused to each one by the rain, sun, and snow. In the same way, my precious children, when you realize who you are, when you develop those qualities yourself, all mankind will be like leaves glued to your body, all lives will be like your bark or covering, all suffering will be yours. The blood of others, the illness of others, the hunger of others will all be linked to you. Once you have God's love, God's qualities, and God's actions, everyone is connected to you, and therefore you will feel the suffering no matter whose it is. When you develop that fullness you will feel all the suffering there is.
If a good man can be like a tree, he will be a tree in the world of the soul, in this world and in the next. He will experience the suffering of the whole world, because it will all flow into him. All the illness, all the grief, all the hunger will be experienced by him. He will feel everything felt by every nerve, every tissue, and every muscle of everyone in the world. God sent every prophet in that state. He sent every prophet to assume the suffering of others, to relieve the suffering and illness of the world, to accept the karma of the world, to preach wisely, to make grace complete, and to dispel the darkness.
And so, my very precious children, when we reach that state, we will experience all the pain, the suffering, and the illness that exist. In that state everyone will be a brother or a sister, and we will feel every illness inside ourselves. My very precious children, you must realize what God's love is, what man's love is, what the meaning of love is, what the meaning of devotion is, what wisdom is, what the love we have for God is, and what is the love we are now experiencing. We must understand the differences between them. If we can identify and discover true love we will become representatives of God and live as the lights of God, as light intermingled with God. When that time comes, we will feel all the sorrows of the world within us.
My very precious children, each child, please think about this. We must realize our love, God's love, love of all people, brotherly love, love of justice, love of truth, love of honesty this is what we must be aware of. May we reflect on this, my very precious children, jeweled lights of my eyes, may each child reflect on this, understand what wisdom is, and acquire that love. Conduct yourself as God conducts Himself. Show God's compassion to everyone. Have God's love for everyone. May we bring that love into practice. Amin. Amin.
My
love to all my children, my love to all my precious
children. Please forgive me if there is anything wrong
in what I have said. I give you my love.
