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The Religion of Love

By Swami Chetanananda

It can be said that there are two kinds of religion-the religion of the law and the religion of love. The religion of the law tells us what to do and what not to do. The assumption is that there is some kind of penalty for not doing. The religion of the law requires an enforcer and punishment if we do not go along with it.

The religion of love, on the other hand, is not about condemnation. It is about constant encouragement to live in harmony first with ourself, and then from that harmony with ourself, to live in harmony with the earth, the sky, everything with which we share this planet. The religion of love is about being in harmony with all the cycles of life and death that are the creative expression of earth and sky, and everything in between.

In India initially, the religion of the Vedas was the religion of love. It was a religion that honored the earth, the creative spirit within people, and the whole of the life process of individual human beings and of humanity. This early religion of love encompassed within it an understanding of the nature of ultimate reality as well as of the needs of individual people, and this religion wanted to respond to those needs. As a result, a ritual process arose, and for several thousand years, the technology of Indian culture was a ritual technology-how to do rituals that had an effect, that worked.

In the quest for rituals that had some power, rules came up because the person who did the ritual was supposed to be in the proper state to make the ritual work. This meant defining the proper state, which was determined to be a state of purity that excluded certain forms of behavior. In this way, a set of rules came about, and eventually those rules grew as various traditions sought to demonstrate that their rituals were more powerful than others.

A kind of spiritual athleticism developed: "This tradition is more powerful because the people in it live a more stringent life." At that point much of the love went out of this religion, because the focus was on rules, on power. Backbiting occurred over who was living the rules and who was not.
Through the quest for power, then, the religion of the law emerged and became crystallized. It was a way in which people could have some assurances about other people. Today, there are some religious communities that even have rules about trust and love. But how can trust be legislated? How can love be legislated?

The religion of the law seeks to assure people of the authenticity of the product: "This is a real product because all the proper preparation has gone into it." But the religion of love is not about mass anything. The religion of love recognizes the uniqueness of every human being. We are all people, and so in this case uniqueness is not about difference. It is about unique genealogies, unique stresses and strains that we bring to the moment when we awaken to the fact that there has to be more to life than stress and strain. And in that moment of awakening-in that contemplation-the religion of the law begins to look unsatisfactory, because it is not helpful in responding to the question: "What more is there to life than strain, and how can I get past the strain to be loving in my life?"

For example, I used to be a strict vegetarian until I went to my parents' house for dinner one evening and told my mother I could not eat a dish, because it was not vegetarian, that she had lovingly prepared for me. She broke down in tears. The law of purity I was following was failing me in an important moment when my mother was trying to do something to express her caring.
Caring is more important than any rule. An honest interchange dissolves any other consideration. Better to deal with confusing and difficult interpersonal experiences, if there are honesty and caring in them-an authentic sharing-than to run from the upset and disturbance that come with interpersonal dynamics. How can we understand people and have compassion for them if we are running from human interaction?

Energy can be wasted in the process of interpersonal experience. Such experience, while full of caring, may also be full of chaos and clutter. Many religious rules, such as celibacy, are established to save us from that clutter. But as people who are growing and are concerned to be compassionate toward and understanding of everyone's experience, we establish a connection, we maintain that connection, and we whittle away at everything that exists that is not supportive of pure, honest interchange between us and anybody.

There is an Indian text that talks about the "light of the way of the renunciate." The book lists rules to protect the renunciate from human experience. At the deepest level, these rules are intended to support, through the promotion of a simple life, the renunciate's effort to come to an understanding whereby the interconnectedness of all human beings is recognized. This understanding is of the highest. And yet, instead of shedding light, the rules in the book build walls that block understanding.

In a world of which we are intimately a part-and we are all intimately a part of the world-how can we renounce anything anyway? What renunciation is there? If we are unique individuals, then there is no rule that is going to fit anyone.

At first in a creative endeavor, there can be a place for guidelines. When a person learns to play the piano, there is a proper way to begin to touch the keys. But as an artist grows, the rules usually get in the way of creative expression. So there are advisories that are appropriate for us to listen to, but instead of having a head full of rules, it is better to be considerate people-considerate of the diversity and uniqueness that exist around us, considerate of the fact that there are no rules that can encompass all that diversity. The religion of love is about the nourishment it takes for people to awaken to the possibilities that exist within them.

The religion of love calls us to accept our humanity. Only when we accept ourselves can we begin to accept other people and respect the uniqueness of every human being. Conversely, if the law conditions us to close our minds and hearts to anybody for any reason, how will we ever come to a complete understanding and acceptance of ourselves?

We are all interconnected. We are unique and interconnected at the same time. The interconnectedness of human beings is interconnected to the environment of the planet, which is interconnected to the environment of the universe, which is interconnected to...there is no boundary. It is all one. The problem with rules is that they make us think that there is reality to duality, that this over here is the right thing to do but that over there is not. The rules tell us that there is a separate "this," a separate "that," when the reality is that this and that are completely interconnected.

When we have the capacity to focus on the essential energy that is underneath every kind of confusion, then we come to recognize the whole world as a curtain of light. The confusion is because we keep trying to make solid something that never was and never will be solid. We try to put something that is fluid and in motion into a box, and it will not stay in the box. We keep trying to put energy-love-in a box.

I am deeply grateful to my parents, who are Catholic, for my learning at an early age that the key is to love God. As a child, I tried to love God with all my heart, and in wondering what I was loving, I discovered that the love itself was God. We can go within ourself and open our heart and find love there, and we can allow that love to rise up within us, and we can deeply feel that God is in our life. We come to know that the love in us, at the center of our heart, is the Life in us, and that this is God. It occurred to me as a child that if God were my Father, there could not be much, if anything, I could do to close His heart to me forever.

Through our spiritual practice, we become clear about the love within us. That love clarifies our understanding about our interconnectedness with all the diverse manifestations of that love-with everyone and everything around us. There really are no rules that can help us to do that. Our spiritual practice is what we can do at any moment to refer to that loving, sweet, fine, rich, and profoundly fulfilling place inside us. The connection to that place is the source of all peace and happiness. It is the source of every kind of knowledge and understanding, enlightenment and liberation.

The inspiration that rises up inside us, when we begin to refer to the love in us, is not going to be in any way mundane. A creative life makes available a dimension of understanding of each other and a capacity for sharing that are not a usual experience. In the midst of that sharing, of that interconnectedness, every one of us also has a unique life process that makes us in some sense deeply alone. Our process is never like anybody else's. And we have to take responsibility for that and accept it and appreciate it, so that we can rise within ourself to a level of understanding whereby we respect, and have compassion and love for, other human beings. We have a place we can always go where peace exists, where there is relief from the pain and struggle of confusion. We can always go there, to that place inside us, where some happiness and a great deal of light can be found.

Going to that place within again and again dissolves every molecule of confusion. We become one with, we merge into, that love that exists within us, as it grows, becomes powerful, and transforms us into the truest thing we can be.

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