Sadhguru: An emotion is always about something or someone. There is no emotion without an object. Your object may be your husband, wife, son, daughter, house, business, or parents. This will lead to bondages. If you love a person, you will get entangled. Even if you grow out of it, the other person may not grow out of it. Both people growing together would be most wonderful, but that rarely happens. So the next step people take is to love what we call God.
When you love God, one advantage is that he cannot cause any problem. You can leave him when you want. Shifting love to God breaks many bondages because the other party is always willing to release you. The disadvantage is that there are no demands from God’s side – you can fix it according to your own convenience, but that will not nurture love.
So, the great plus point is that God is willing to release you, but the disadvantage is that he has no demands. In this context, a Guru-shishya[1] relationship is significant. A Guru is someone whom you get deeply involved with, but who is willing to release you when it is needed. But unlike God, a Guru is also demanding.
Making the Mind a Reflection of Divinity
There is a reason why we shift our love to God or something that we hold high in our minds. The mind is fluid. I can think of anything I want. I can make my mind like a tiger or like a Yogi. I can make it peaceful or aggressive. The mind can become like whatever I think about. It is fluid and will fit into a pot of any shape. The highest values that we hold in our lives are enshrined in what we call God. When you start thinking about and loving God, then your mind gradually becomes like that.
If your mind becomes divine, it is not divinity – only a reflection of divinity. But a reflection is good. If you can see God in a mirror, it is as good as seeing him. The sunrays can come straight to you, or they can come to you through the Moon as a reflection. Maybe it is not as good as the Sun, but it is beautiful in its own way. Maybe it is not life-giving as the Sun is, maybe it does not transform the situation on Earth as the Sun does, but it is enchanting. If the mind becomes divine, though we cannot call that divinity, many things will begin to change. Unless your mind becomes like that, there is no possibility of your chemistry becoming like that.
If your mind becomes divine, it is not divinity – only a reflection of divinity. But a reflection is good. If you can see God in a mirror, it is as good as seeing him.
You can change the fundamental chemistry of your system with the right kind of sadhana. But when your sadhana is here and your mind is somewhere else, you will suffer because you are neither here nor there. Spiritual seekers suffer a lot because of that. If your thoughts and attitudes are pulling you in one direction but your chemistry is pulling you in another direction, it will bring much suffering. Only when mind and sadhana are in one direction, will it be a beautiful experience; otherwise it becomes a struggle.
If our whole focus is towards that direction, one can easily attain to godhood. Without the mind becoming godlike, attaining divinity is far away, unless something strikes you like a thunderbolt, which is rare – that would not happen unless there is past karma and past sadhana.
Becoming Love
Whether you love your spouse or your God, it is still an emotion. When the emotion transcends the object, then there is no more emotion – there is simply love. Normally, love means an urge for two beings to come together. That is one step towards love. If you have an urge to do something, the urge alone does not mean you have completed what you wanted to do. Similarly, you want to become love, but it has not happened.
When it is yet to happen, it is an urge and there is a pulling. It is such a hankering and pain because what you want to become has not yet happened. Only when the two beings become one, can you call it love. If you have really started experiencing everything as a part of you, now you have become love – it is no more on emotion but a way of being.
Only when the two beings become one, can you call it love.
Emotion alloys you with something else. Emotion is a vehicle for you to reach somewhere. It has no purpose of its own. If two beings merge and become one, then this emotion is useful. If you go through emotion all your life and never become one, then it is of no use. It drains your life in so many ways. It just remains a longing. Let us say I want to go to Coimbatore, so I get on a bus. If it keeps going but never reaches Coimbatore, then there is really no point in getting into this bus. It is meaningless and frustrating.
When emotion is the way, there is hope and expectation of fulfillment, but the pain and fear of not being fulfilled takes its toll. If love is an emotion, you want to become that, but you have not yet become that. If you do become that, then you are love but no more an emotion.
