Love is the sum of all the spiritual laws. Pure love is a state of Being. 'Agape' love of mankind, is what Gurudeva calls universal love. Love is the heart of the mind. Love is the outgoing force of the soul in action. It doesn't require a second person. Spontaneous acts of benevolence and selflessness repeated over periods of time get us in touch with the universal love resident in the soul. As Gurudeva says: "If you want to attain happiness, make others happy." It takes study of the mind and a degree of humility to know where we are in consciousness. All experiences are good as long as we learn the lesson from them.

Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva, Lessons 120, 121.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

We are continuing with "Merging with Siva" going through the lessons in chronological order and we are up to "Love is the Sum of the Law." Talk given in 1960.

Interesting, it's an interesting compilation here. "The Index of Inspired Talks" gives this description: "Compiled from a pamphlet by the same name published in the early 1960s, along with "The Yoga Called Bhakti," published in "Lotus of the Heart," 1972, concluding with excerpts from "Bhakti Yoga," a talk given in the late '50s." Strong on three different sources.

And we have a little history from 1960, "Guru Chronicles:"

"For four years, the monks recorded Sri Subramuniya's talks on a secondhand Wollensack reel-to-reel tape recorder--over 1,100 talks and interviews in all. (That's quite a few).

"In 1960, Gurudeva began a special series to be aired on the radio, focusing on yoga in the West, positive attitudes and practices for the inner man. Time was purchased from KBCO FM 105.3; and the talks, called "Temple of the Air," were broadcast each Sunday at 10 am. Gurudeva's persistent outreach efforts made the Hindu temple on Sacramento Street well known throughout the Bay Area."

We're going to have a lesson.

"Love is the Sum of the Law, Lesson 120, What is Pure Love?

"Love is the sum of all the spiritual laws. We may say that love is the heart of the mind. Anything that comes before you in life can be conquered through universal love, a force which is a demonstration of the soul. (It's an important phrase-'demonstration of the soul.') Universal love has nothing to do with emotional infatuation, attachment or lust. It flows freely through the person whose mind is unclouded by resentment, malice, greed and anger. But in persons whose minds are partially out of control and under the control of another, the force of the soul ends up as infatuation or attachment.

"Pure love is a state of Being. Whereas everyone is running around trying to get love, it is found in giving. When a person begins to lose the idea of his own personality through concern for others, he will attract a like response to himself. The outgoing force of the soul in action brings freedom to the lower states of mind. The instinctive person is ordinarily so preoccupied with his own self, so wrapped up in his own self, that he cannot give a thought to the welfare of another. He cannot give anything of himself. Such a person usually feels sorry for himself and finds other people unloving and unresponsive. He is still far from any realization of the Self within."

So my commentary goes, looking on Wikipedia, searching for various types of love. Gurudeva's using the term universal love and I wanted to see what terms other people used. So there's many different categorizations of love, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine types of love, but the most common is four. Four categories of love are common to all the entries. And this has the Greek word first and then the English definition.

Eros: erotic, passionate love.
Philia: love of friends and equals,
Storge: love of parents for children.
Agape: love of mankind.

So the last one, love of mankind is what Gurudeva's calling universal love. And Gurudeva's presenting the mystical point of view regarding love. Meaning it's within us. If we ask the question: How does a person experience love? The popular answer is that it develops between individuals. Gurudeva is stating that it is resident in the soul, specifically that it is the outgoing force of the soul in action. It doesn't require a second person. Outgoing force of the soul in action.

And, back to the text:

"The unfortunate person who is burdened by resentment, for instance, feels that the world owes him more kindness than he is receiving. When he loses his resentment for the world simply by becoming interested in people, the world will once again reflect back the expression of this soul force, known as universal love. You may visualize this pure state of love as a force of light flooding out from the center of your Being. If you place sheets of paper too close to a light source, you temporarily block the light and scorch the paper. People are always scorching themselves by holding up against their own 'inner-light paper' qualities such as resentment, malice and greed. Spontaneous acts of benevolence and selflessness, prompted by a will to perfection, lift the striving soul in feeling and begin slowly to remove the coverings from the light which is the soul. You can't expect immediate action, of course, because you may still carry the seeds of destructive qualities within you, and it is these seeds which continue to hold man in lower states of consciousness."

So my commentary:

Gurudeva is giving the key for a person not yet in touch with the universal love resident in his soul to experience it which is spontaneous acts of benevolence and selflessness. So, by repeating those for a period of time we get touch with the universal love resident in the soul. So I thought it was interesting, there were two examples of 'agape' on Wikipedia which say the same thing:

"For people who donate to charity out of the goodness of their hearts, agape-love is at play. Doing something for another person, whether you know them personally or not, is a shining example of this particular kind of love."

And we're up to lesson 121:

"Love Conquers Selfishness

"The action and reaction of the self-centered state of mind creates tension and discord in mind and body. Often when the diaphragm is tight, the muscles are tense, breathing is difficult and your whole disposition is on edge. A person attains relaxation and peace through a benevolent act in which he loses himself in another's happiness. The cycles of tension and release, tension and release--which are constantly given birth to in the instinctive and intellectual state of mind--are only broken as the unfolding soul expresses itself in devotion, breaking up the crust of personal concern and hurt feelings."

So that idea of losing himself in another's happiness reminded me of a quote from Gurudeva. "If you want to attain happiness, (What did Gurudeva say?) make others happy." That's the idea.

"Love may also be thought of as the full expression of the intuitive mind, a continuing flow from the source of Being. Most people would not be able to withstand the reaction to this force were it to be fully released within them. To suddenly relieve a person of all tension would be like making a poor man rich overnight. The instinctive mind feels lost and insecure under the impact of any sudden change in evolution. As the soul, the superconscious mind, or the light of God, begins to shine through the rest of the mind, the mind will either become reactionary or cooperative. Some people have a terrible fight within themselves as the soul begins to shine forth, and yet their only lasting satisfaction in life is in the outpouring of their individual soul qualities."

Comment:

Gurudeva is pointing out that in moving from our current state of consciousness to that of a consciousness of universal love, for some people there will be some unpleasant experiences along the way. If that is the case for you, don't give up.

Back to the text:

"Sometimes students of Inner Being are able to control their actions or their speech when they become disturbed, but the thought force projected by their suppressed sulking is just as negatively effective. Seeking to understand the condition that has upset you will give control of the negative force and eventually lift you into the state of love which conquers all things.

"Of course, the practice of understanding must begin at home. You must train yourself to know where you are in consciousness at all times. When you can become fully aware of the states of consciousness through which you pass, there will be no one whom you cannot understand, no one with whom you could not communicate through the medium of love. Until you learn the operation of this law as the sum of all laws, you will continue to harbor contention, to prefer argument and to walk the path of difference. Through bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, the combative mind becomes erased, absorbed into the consciousness of the One Self--the Being permeating all beings."

So, commentary:

This is pointing out that we need to understand the condition that upset us. And that doing so will enable us to move out of it quickly. One way I phrase this idea is: All experiences are good as long as you learn the lesson from them.

Knowing where we are in consciousness sounds self-evident but many individuals are not able to objectively see the state of consciousness they are in. It takes study of the mind and a degree of humility to be able to do so.

Have a wonderful day.