(Excerpt from The Intimate Note for a sincere seeker by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar)
Love is so enormous. And for ages, people have tried to express their love and finally they felt they cannot. Even the great sage Narada said, 'Anirvachaniyam prema swarupam'. You cannot express it. The nature of true love is that it is beyond expression. Love with wisdom is bliss. Love without knowledge or wisdom is pain. It is not love which is giving you pain. If it is just purely love, that means you just care for someone, you want the best for them, and then there is no pain. But when you want something in return from them or you have demands from them, then there is pain. Jealousy, hatred, greed, arrogance and attachment are all love’s distortions. Love by itself doesn’t bring misery. That is why knowledge and centered-ness are so important. If you are centered, you can handle all these distortions, they come for a while and they disappear. Feelings are like clouds. They are like the waves on the surface of the ocean. They arise, they come and they go. Love is a gift. You can't force anyone to feel love. Your wanting to feel love becomes a hindrance to feel love. Just relax. When you want love, that want itself is turning or delaying love from manifesting. So all that you need to do is to let go and relax. You will see that your nature is love. Love is always there. It will manifest when it should. Like the sun is always there but it comes at its own time. In the same way, all the beautiful feelings in your life are there with you all the time. You can’t forcefully manifest them. They will manifest at different times in life. And that’s why be more relaxed and take them as they come. You ARE Love. You cannot make an effort to love, either yourself or anybody. You simply have to relax and realize that you are in love. Love is the shadow of the Self. The bigger the Self, the bigger the shadow, and the bigger the love. When love is cast over the entire creation, then you are the Big Self. That is Lordship. When Lordship dawns on the Self, there is perennial celebration.
