Radha: The Power of Divine Love

It is funademental to Eastern philosophy that Love and Compassion are active forces in herent within humanity. Whether it is the search for the Divine Beloved in meditation or the demonstration of dynamic compassion in humanitarian actions in the world at large, it is our capacity for Love and Compassion that gives evidence of our human divinity. Buddhism emphasizes compassion in all of its branches and teaching. In Buddhism, the final goal of spiritual liberation is itself subordinated to a goal of helping every other sentient being attain its spiritual destiny as its birthright. This is love in action. If one does not have love, everything else is nothing, like tinkling brass. Charity as a natural outgrowth of love, a form of love in action of which Buddhiss highly approve.

Yet given that the idea of love is widely supported, the greater part of humanity lives in misery. Avoiding the political and economic discussions that usually accompany such a statement, I offer to you that the state of happiness wrought by love has nothing to do with economic status. There are beggars who have found so much joy in their devotions that they have chosen to no longer engage in the workaday world. There are humble people living simple lives brimming with loving vitality in the face of every hardship that confronts them. Obviously, it is possible to know love as an internal state that persists under any and all conditions.

Love is the unifying and propagating principle of the cosmos. It shows us our oneness, binds and entwines us inextricably in one another's lives. Manifesting both physically and spiritually, it is the meeting of hearts, of minds, bodies, and souls. It is the highest and it is also the reward for such acts.

In the Hindu scriptures, there is none who so nearly epitomizes the many faces of love as the eighth avatar of the compassionate Vishnu: Krishna and his power, Radha.

---

Return to Hare Krishna

---