by Swami Radhanandaji

One of the greatest challenge of our time, whether in the field of education, politics, science and technology, art, music and dance, social, economics or religions at large, is to be able to distinguish between "indulgence" and "Real love." The worldly often conceive self indulgence as Love and confuse the very nature of existence. It is this inability to separate the chaff from wheat, or water from milk, that causes us the pain of egoism, pride, arrogance, lust, greed and the desire to be famous.

Arjuna himself admits that though he thought himself to be one of the outstanding leaders of his time, he could not distinguish between self-love (self-indulgence) and Pure-Love (2:7). This reveals the puny nature of man. If we truly wish to enjoy eternal, dependable, imperishable, unchanging, ever existing, unconditional love, we must dive deep into Mother Gitaji or our own Self. The foremost need of Arjuna in his time of tests was to know the difference between the body and Atman as Shree Krishna explains at the beginning of his message of True Love (2:11-25).

All our anxieties, fear, care and concerns, dealings and involvement are due to our limited understanding of ourselves. The body and all that is associated with it, such as organs, senses, prana (energy), mind, intellect, ego and jiva are the manifestations of self-indulgence or self-love, while True Love, Joy or Self-Love is free from all these and unassociated with all our conceptions, conscious or even unconscious.

Shree Krishna says that all of creation is blinded by the darkness of ignorance (18:40, 9:33) and only a rare soul (7:3) will see the light of True Love as manifested through Lovers of God such as Shree Krishna, Lord Buddha, Jesus, Mirabai, Shree Ramkrishna and Mahatma Gandhi, only to name a few. The more conscious we are of Self-Love, the less conscious will we be of self-love or self-indulgence. Bodies create bodies, self indulgence creates more self indulgence; ignorance nurtures ignorance even in the name of knowledge as we see in our own time.

At no time in the past, was there was so much arrogance towards Truth as we see today, particularly in times of such"unlimited talent" in science and technology. No where is ignorance more visual than in the field of religious rituals (2:42-44; 9:20-21) where the "Gurus" or leaders of various faith propagate their self-love in teaching a god of name and form, limiting its potential to their own beliefs, traditions, understanding and faith. This self love is seen in the narrowness, selfishness and self indulgence of temples, ashrams, institutions, sampradayas, societies, missions, denominations that propagate the "mine and yours" attitude of the blind Dhritarashtra (1:1), the ultimate cause of destruction.

Everything created out of self-indulgence is naturally self-indulgence, is nurtured by self-indulgence and is sustained by self-love only to end in delusion and death. Self Love is neither created nor needs nurturing or sustaining, nor does it ever end (2:16,17) since it has no beginning. It is Love and our very nature.

Let us listen to Lord Buddha:

"Wherever you look, there is a rushing and a struggling and an eager pursuit of pleasure. There is a panic flight from pain and death and hot are the flames of burning desire. The world is Vanity Fair, full of changes and transformations. All is Samsara, the turning wheel of Existence.The existing chain of self-indulgence or self love is Freedom everlasting, the annihilation of self-love, is the condition of Enlightenment, the blotting out of self-love is Nirvana.

Happy is he who has ceased to live for pleasure and rests in the Truth, in Self-Love. Truly his composure and tranquillity of mind are the highest bliss.

Yet you love self-indulgence and will not abandon self-love. So be it, but then you should learn to distinguish between the false self and the True Self. The ego with all its egoism is the false self. It is an unreal illusion and a perishable combination. Only he who identifies his self with Truth will attain Nirvana; he has acquired the highest good, he has became Eternal and Immortal."

Here we see the echoes of the lives and teachings of all genuine prophets of all times and places. Let us pray that this wisdom will prevail in us to love creation without indulgence, without self love whether hidden or obvious. Let us not spread self-love in the name of religions, God or Truth. Truth requires no spreading (2:16). It is self-existent.

Let us then spend our short life in loving the True Self in All and not promote self-indulgence through ignorance. Gitaji teaches us this unique path of Abhyasyoga through which we become lovers of mankind and all creation. This is our true nature indeed. Let love prevail in our hearts, It will, whether we succeed or fail because of Its self-existent nature.