LOVE

I would like to begin by quoting a line from the movie “Letters to Juliet”, Dear Claire, "What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if? I don't know how your story ended but if what you felt then was true love, then it's never too late. If it was true then, why wouldn't it be true now? You need only the courage to follow your heart. I don't know what a love like Juliet's feels like - love to leave loved ones for, love to cross oceans for but I'd like to believe if I ever were to feel it, that I will have the courage to seize it. And, Claire, if you didn't, I hope one day that you will. All my love, Juliet”



How many times have we pondered upon these two words? What if? What if I was in love with her? What if I married her? What if I hadn’t stopped them? I many not understand what true love is or what implications society has on them but it would be a crime not to seize it when we find true love.




I spend so many days searching for what Bhagwad Gita has said about love. Whether it is a crime to fall in love or whether we should give in to marrying a complete stranger. What I don’t understand is how is falling in love is a crime and marrying a stranger and sharing a bed with him the very next day, acceptable in our society. Why do we worship Radha-Krishna then? Most people would argue that the fact that they did not get married proves that love marriage was not accepted by the Gods. However to all my dear friends I would like to say that Krishna only wanted to prove that Love and Marriage are two different things....love is a selfless emotion and marriage is an agreement or an arrangement. He wanted to teach us the essence of unconditional and eternal love, which is not bound by the material rules of the society.


I found some beautiful explanation by Mr. Varja Kishore, who writes "To understand Radha correctly, you need to somewhat understand the mysteries of "rasa" and "prema" – the ecstatic experience of spiritual love. Krishna and Radharani playfully married once, as children sometimes do. They did not really marry, however, because their love is more primal, profound, and unbounded than what wedded love facilitates. Wedded love is a very elevated type of divine union, yet in marriage, the intimacy and spontaneity is not limitless. Some limitation is imposed by the sense of 'duty' that husband and wife naturally acquire towards one another. This sense of duty is beautiful, but the highest type of love is even more beautiful. It is so profound that it requires no sense of duty – and flows absolutely spontaneously – breaking all things that stand in its path. Thus, the pure transcendental love that Radha and Krishna enjoy on the highest level of bliss (paramānanda), expresses itself in the form of being paramours, not husband and wife...”


Although many of us take pride in knowing what our religion teaches us, we fail to receive the message it is designed to give us. We are so entwined in the material life that we forget to taste the essence of the divinity that God imparts through all the spiritual scriptures.

Radha and Krishna Walk in a Flowering Grove. 18th century