Why Does Beauty Make You Close Your Eyes

“Love is a happening. Love is a gift to you. Do not go out seeking love. Simply relax and be at ease”   — Gurudev

Love addresses the deepest human loneliness. The purpose of companionship is to rejoice and share life. It is to have someone you can truly depend on

Think of the last time something totally made you stop in your tracks. It may have been music, a fragrance, or a texture. Something so great, so wonderful, and so beautiful that it automatically shut your eyes, and you sank into that ocean of beauty.

This is not something small or incidental. It is through the five senses that you experience something beyond the five senses. Deep inside you, what gets created in that moment is a wave of beauty. And when that wave arrives, you are not in form any more. You dissolve into the formless and come back to your nature.

The senses brought you to the door and then stepped aside. The power, the energy inside you, starts moving in a new direction. Like in meditation, there is a feeling of elevation that gives you more energy and long-lasting joy and bliss. Like in spring, the entire creation just comes alive. The birds sing, the trees blossom, and when energy is kindled in you, it creates awe. You spring out of dullness and routine, and new life springs up in you.

Behind every love, there is something greater, something total. We tend to think beauty is decoration and love is emotion. But what if both are pointing at something much larger than we have imagined? Behind every love, every small beauty and joy, there is the Divine. This is a revolutionary thought, a revolutionary idea.

Love, when it is genuine and full of energy, is total and complete. And this completeness expresses itself in stages, each one deeper than the last.

The first sign that love has arrived is that you cannot stop talking about it. Have you noticed when someone is crazy about something? They talk about it and talk about it, and it never tires them. No amount of praise feels sufficient. Just a mild interest cannot evoke such depth of expression. That is the first sign of divine love. One would go on praising continuously and still feel, “Oh, it’s not sufficient. I have to do it more, more, and more.”

The second sign is to express love in all forms. Although there is no form of divinity, the Divine loves to express itself in forms, and that is why millions and millions of forms are present in this creation. You deal with forms all your life, whether in the waking state or the dreaming state. Except for deep sleep and meditation, forms appear in your mind. And so, even while knowing that divinity is formless, a form makes it more interesting. The form kindles love in your heart.

Then love wants to honour and offer itself to whatever has kindled it. Whatever you appreciate or adore, you feel the urge to worship it. And worshipping is just the opposite of wanting to possess. When you try to possess something beautiful, you actually bring ugliness to it. Worship is offering yourself instead of reaching out to possess. A sense of giving, or offering oneself, is one of the truest expressions of love.

Then comes something subtler still, and that is memory. It is not that you make any effort to remember. As soon as you wake up, the first thought that comes is of the loved one, of the Divine. You do not make any effort to think about that person. But the thought constantly comes, and you find yourself remembering. You go deeper and deeper into the silence within you. That very remembrance becomes meditation.

And then love deepens into something that most people find surprising. One form of the expression of love is great humility and service as one’s very nature. There is not even a thought of, “I am doing some service.” You cannot help but serve. Even if one tries to abstain from it, it does not happen. One finds oneself back in it. Love gets expressed as service.

Here is where something remarkable happens. Do you know what actually brings authority? A caretaker, a servant, has full authority in the home. If the master is away, he acts as the master. A perfect servant or disciple has total authority and total responsibility. A servant is one in whom the master has bestowed his trust. Being a servant means acknowledging that the Divine has given you this task and that it belongs to you.

Love expresses itself as friendship. Towards someone who is your superior, you may have a lot of respect. But there may not be any love. You may honour them, but your heart may not start speaking. In such cases, the Master will say, “Come on, what is it? What is the matter? How are you doing? What is happening?” That is love expressed in the form of a friend, where wisdom is shared not in a serious manner but in a playful one.

Love addresses the deepest human loneliness. The purpose of companionship is to rejoice and share life. It is to have someone you can truly depend on. But human relationships keep changing. The Divine is the only truly dependable relationship, never changing and total. When the Divine becomes the companion you turn to, you become more centred. Otherwise, you keep hanging on to whoever happens to be near. Love at this depth becomes your anchor.

And then there is the supreme form, and that is longing. Not the frustration of longing, but the strange beauty that longing carries. Longing gives you the power to bless. The very longing in you is itself a form of love. As the longing grows more and more intense, it flips over. It becomes bliss, and you become totally immersed. Many have experienced intense longing and reached that turning point. At some point, that longing itself becomes a joy.

The fire of love creates a sense of longing in the beginning. But it moves on to the blossoming of bliss and fullness. This longing should never end. If longing ends, love also ends. That is why longing and love are infinite.

Love is a happening. Love is a gift to you. Do not go out seeking love. Simply relax and be at ease. Only when you are free from tension, free from confusion, can you truly experience love.

Behind every love, there is something greater, something total. We tend to think beauty is decoration and love is emotion. But what if both are pointing at something much larger than we have imagined? Behind every love, every small beauty and joy, there is the Divine. This is a revolutionary thought, a revolutionary idea