Many of us look for love on a daily basis. We crave it from friends and relatives; from colleagues and strangers. Our understanding of love is limited to acts: expressions of appreciation, intimacy, kindness, connection…anything that makes us feel special. In our mind, these acts must be reciprocal in order to be binding. Furthermore, real world experiences suggest that bonds on the basis of these acts are fleeting. Thus, we tend to associate love with conditional affection. However, the true essence of love is far more sweeping and magical.

Love is an inner state of unbridled devotion for the universe. When we’re in this state, we experience an irresistible feeling to merge with the One. As this sensation floods our being, we feel compelled to share it with everybody and everything – irrespective of our prior association with that person, creature or object. In the state of love, we express our feelings for all beings with equal intensity.

We show affection to both our companion and to a water bottle with equal fervour. We hold our friend’s hands and a stranger’s with similar passion. We cuddle our baby and an elephant’s with even affection. Thus, love transcends all barriers of race, species, time, geography etc. Love is pure, eternal and universal. Here’s an example of the purity of love.

Ma Meera was a mystic poet and saint from Rajasthan who lived in the sixteenth centuty. She was born in a royal family. Intensely spiritual from birth, she became an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna. Her love for the God of Tenderness knew no bounds. She even sacrificed her wealth and social status so that she could devote her life to him. Ma Meera expressed her feelings for Krishna through songs and poems. Since her death, the hymns have become the bulwark of devotional music in India. It’s said that when she died, her energy fused with that of her beloved Krishna idol…and her body disappeared. The Philosophy of Oneness provides an explanation for this apparently miraculous phenomenon. Ma Meera’s love for Krishna was so deep that when she died; her energy fused with her Guru Tatwa’s – melding the two into a composite entity that merged with the One.

Apart from being pure, love is also enduring and universal. This means that it isn’t restricted to three dimensional exchanges between physical bodies. This means that it doesn’t stop where life, space or time ends. Here’s an example that demonstrates the timelessness of love.

In the movie, Interstellar (2014), an astronaout named Cooper abandons his daughter, Murphy, for a space mission to save humanity from extinction. He gets lost in a black hole in the distant future – an ethereal place from where he sees her life unfold. Cooper knows that he’s already dead in his daughter’s world and that it’s practically impossible for him to see her again. Even if he were to return to Earth, she’d probably be dead. However, his love for her is so strong that his heart brims with hope. So, he sends her morse code messages from the black hole. These messages contain data on how to build an escape shuttle. At the same time, Murphy’s love for her father burns in secret within her – compelling her to believe that he’d return someday. Her belief factor enables her to discard conventional scientific logic; accept the other-dimensional messages and decode the formula therein to build the spacecraft. Eventually, Cooper’s ejected from the black hole. He returns to the earth of the future; where he’s reunited with Murphy – an old lady by now.

Therefore, love is transcendental and extends beyond action, space and time. To experience this state of being, you don’t have to rush to the store and buy a bouquet of flowers or a gift. What do you have to do? Be in the moment and embrace the universe with passion. You’ll feel as if you’re in the midst of a celebration without end.