Berea College; Berea, Kentucky, USA

Baird Lounge
21 February 1974

God loves us. He loves us constantly and unconditionally. No matter what we
have done, what we are doing or what we shall do, He will always love us. God
loves us much more than He loves Himself. If we use our thinking and doubting
minds, this may seem hard to believe. But if we use our loving and surrendering
hearts, then we are bound to feel that God loves us infinitely more than He loves
Himself. Why does He love us so much? He loves us because He feels that His
Dream remains unfulfilled without us, His Reality remains unmanifested without
us; without us he is incomplete. Right now we feel that it is only we who really
love ourselves. Then there may come a time when we think that God, too, loves
us. But for us to believe that God loves us infinitely more than we love ourselves
seems sheer impossibility.
There have been many, many times in our lives when we have felt miserable
because we told a lie or deceived someone or became jealous of others. After we
do something wrong or undivine, our inner consciousness comes to the fore and
we feel miserable. We curse ourselves and try to punish ourselves. But God’s Love
for us remains exactly the same. We hate ourselves for our mistakes, but God still
loves us and will always continue to love us. Our justice-power condemns us, but
God’s Compassion-Power forgives us, illumines us and transforms our weakness
into strength with its adamantine will-power. God gets satisfaction when, with
His blessingful Smile, He gives us His Compassion-flood, His Concern-sky and
His Love-sea so that we can grow into His very Image.
God loves us and, in return, He wants us to smile, to love and to transcend.
The moment we offer Him a soulful smile, God is pleased with us. The moment
we offer Him an iota of our love, God is pleased with us. The moment we want
to transcend our earth-bound consciousness, God is pleased with us.
Our human love constantly tries to separate and divide, but the divine Love
we receive from God always adds and multiplies. God used His Delight-Power
when He created the world, and now He uses His Love-Power to protect the
world and bring perfection to earth, His Creation.
Here on earth we have everything save and except one thing: satisfaction. It
is only by loving God that we will get true satisfaction. God is our own highest,
most illumined Reality. “United we stand, divided we fall”: this is the motto of
the State of Kentucky. In the inner life also, when we become consciously one
with God, we feel a real sense of satisfaction. But when we are separated from
God, when we are divided into two, we feel incomplete, unfulfilled and dissatisfied.
If we are not seekers, we love God once in a blue moon; but if we are seekers
of the highest Truth, then we try to love God soulfully and constantly. There is
an easy way to love God soulfully and constantly. When we separate darkness
from light, the transient from the eternal, and outer knowledge from inner
wisdom, then it becomes extremely easy for us to love God soulfully and
constantly. After we love God soulfully and constantly, we can go one step ahead
and love God unconditionally by giving Him what we have and what we are.
What we have within is inner aspiration to grow into the vast Beyond. What we
are without is a sea of ignorance.
God also gives us what He has and what He is. What He has is infinite Peace,
Light and Bliss, and what He is is constant Concern, Concern for our liberation
from the meshes of ignorance and Concern for our perfection.
God loves us. We love God. By loving God, we gain victory over our age-old
ignorance. By loving us, God makes us consciously feel that we are eternal
players, divine players in His Cosmic Game.
The great pioneer, Daniel Boone, called Kentucky a second paradise. In the
spiritual life, every day we can have a sense of paradise. Paradise means infinite
Peace, Light and Bliss. When the seeker prays and meditates, he enters into
paradise. When his mind is calm and quiet, when his mind is tranquillity’s flood,
his heart becomes all-giving and his life becomes Divinity’s Reality. Paradise is
not a place; it is a state of consciousness. When we free our mind from the meshes
of ignorance, when we liberate our existence from the mire of earth, we see, feel
and grow into paradise.