The Gift of Divine Love
“Many people may doubt that finding God is the purpose of life; but everyone can accept the idea that the purpose of life is to find happiness. I say that God is Happiness. He is Bliss. He is Love. He is Joy that will never go away from your soul. So why shouldn’t you try to acquire that Happiness? No one else can give it to you. You must continuously cultivate it yourself.” ~Yogananda
The Biblical passage in 1 John 4:7-21 speaks of God's loving nature. ”God is love” (1 John 4:8) is a particularly quoted verse. 1 John 4:16 also contains the words, "God is love." Love is not merely an attribute of God; Love is God. God alone loves in the completeness and perfection of Love. The Love of God cannot be defined, for it passes all understanding. But the result of that Love, when it is in our souls, can be seen and felt in the distinct beauty and happiness, as Yogananda says. It doesn't matter what or who you are; Love can penetrate any obstacle and inform and unite souls in their common destiny. If you experience this, you are beginning to know compassion.
A profound example of compassion is Jesus being crucified on the cross between two criminals.
One of the criminals chides Jesus while the other says to him, ‘Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he [Jesus] said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’ (Luke 39-43)” When you know compassion, you may enter all dimensions and know all realities, including death, without fear.
As you surrender to the pathways of Love, you will rise to know yourself as the love that you are.
Prayer is a great means to receive the Love of God. As the convicted murderers on either side of Jesus showed us, it is clear that each person has free will to either accept or reject the Love of God. No living soul is ever forced to love God or to let God’s Love come into her heart or soul. The immense grace of God’s Love is one of the great lessons of the crucifixion of Jesus. The divine is always reaching out to humanity; divine grace is for everyone. Unlike human love, divine love does not discriminate—it goes everywhere. So, you can be immensely free when reaching out to God because you are not judged by the Source of your creation (in fact, you are created in God’s image).
One of the greatest attributes of compassion is that the divine hears all prayers. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” What does it mean to draw near to God? It means to have an intimate relationship with your divine. The Divine tells you, “You are precious to me; you are my sons and daughters, and I love you.” John says, “See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3:1)“
If we are truly and devoutly desirous of drawing near to God, one of our earliest considerations will naturally lead us to a serious examination of ourselves. We must draw near with integrity. Integrity is the desire to know and do God's will. We are to understand it as conveying a gracious promise of conscious communion with God. The commitment principally implies a life of prayer and devotedness to Love, contrasted with the careless indifference of a nominal life of existence.
This love relationship marks the importance of obeying this injunction to our final happiness and security.
The difficulty occurs when you “believe” that the divine is a harsh tyrant who strikes you down if you are authentic. But the truth is that your life will be transformed with the experience of divine love. Read 1 Corinthians 2:11, “For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” God is in you, you are in God, and you and God are one. God knows your thoughts; you are loved as a son or daughter.
Most of us must learn that the divine is our friend—not our enemy. God doesn’t want to crush you; he wants to fill you with eternal Love. It may seem odd for you to read these words, but at the foundation, you must often change your perception of the divine because it is not true. Many people don’t learn the truth about God because those teaching them don’t know God. Because of this, you may doubt that God listens to you and responds to EVERY prayer. So, through the doubt, you will discover the reality of grace pouring into your soul and experience a compassionate God.
For those of you who are parents, you can appreciate the story of a mother of an infant as a way to begin to grasp the reality of God’s compassion. It starts with a mother putting her baby to sleep. The swaddled child is held in loving arms while the mother sings a lullaby, soothing the child to rest. She then gently lays the child down, and the mother attends to her other responsibilities while the child sleeps. Even when performing important tasks, the mother focuses on the child and what he will need when he wakes up. As soon as the child cries, she immediately responds to its needs. She does not analyze the reason the baby is crying. So, as a mother responds as soon as she hears the baby’s cry,
God waits to hear from you so he can respond to your cries.
When an individual cries to the Lord from the depth of their heart, the Lord responds instantly and helps. God does not ask what path the devotee is adopting. He looks for the sincerity and authentic surrender the devotee has asked for help. People dream about a person who is only there for them. Know that only the divine can be such a friend for you. Everybody else will judge you; it is the nature of the divisive mind, but the divine does not judge. The divine is always caring for you; yes, even more than a mother for her child. God is thinking about you all of the time.
The real question is, “Do you have time to care about and think about the divine?”
When men come to the knowledge that they are children of the Mother/Father God and under Love’s care and protection, they will see that they must lead such lives as will fit them to be in union with the God that is Love and be able to partake of Love which makes them a part of this Love, that is God. All men possess the potential to become part of the Divine Essence (including men like Hilter and Gates). But, to partake of this Divinity, they must let the Love of God, in its highest nature, enter their souls and make them at one with Love.
The New Birth is the flowing of the Spirit of God into your soul and the disappearing of all that tends to turn your heart from the truth and Love of God. It comes by the workings of the Holy Spirit that conveys the grace of God. Grace is not a working of your will or power; it is the Love of God. You cannot change the corrupt workings of your heart, but you can pray, and the Holy Spirit will come into your soul, and then you will realize the Love is God.
In these messages, we are told that Divine Love is the essence of the Creator. It is not like the emotional, natural love we humans are familiar with. It is a real essence, something tangible like the smell of a turkey roasting on Thanksgiving. Grace can flow from the Creator into our souls; being a real essence, it can transform that soul. We need to ask for this divine love and ask often. It is not a one-time gift but a sustenance whose effects are cumulative.
There are many relationships in your life, but the divine only has eyes for you. The divine cares deeply for you; God waits patiently for you. Every day, the divine says, “I am always here for you.” (You have read this far, so I know the divine is calling you.) When you stop everything momentarily, God says, “Be still and know I am God.”
Mere belief in the Divine without this Love will never enable any man to become the possessor of this Love.
Hence the saying, “that all sins against me or even against God’s commandments may be forgiven men, but the sin against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven them, neither while on earth nor when in the spirit world.” This means that so long as a man rejects the influences of the Spirit, he sins against it, and such sin prevents him from receiving this Divine Love. Hence, in that state, he cannot possibly be forgiven and be permitted to enter into the Celestial Kingdom of the Mother/Father God.
You must not let the things of your earthly life keep you from the higher things that God has prepared to give you.
I know that the only things worth striving for are the things of this spiritual Love. Aspire to get this wisdom, and it will come to you in all its beauty and power, for then you will no longer doubt that God is a God of Love and not of judgment, anger, or retribution. Perhaps, like Yoganada, you will discover that “God is Happiness. He is Bliss. He is Love. He is Joy that will never go away from your soul.” The gift of Divine Love involves following the vision of your soul, which leads to discernment.
