“A Love Letter” – an authentic perspective on Love

Paramahamsa Yogananda was described by his beloved disciple Rajarsi Janakananda as Premavatar, or “the incarnation of divine love”. In the following lines, written in 1936, Paramahamsaji speaks first of his own search for divine love, and then of his unity with“God present as Love”.

“I’ve sought love in many lives.
I shed bitter tears and suffered to know what love is.
I sacrificed everything, any attachment and deceit, to finally learn that I am in love with Love—only with God.

Then I drank from the love present in all my hearts. I have seen that He is the One Cosmic Lover, the Only Perfume that blooms and permserves the infinite variety of loves present in the garden of life.

Many souls wonder helplessly why love jumps from one heart to another; but awakened souls realize that the heart is not capricious and wants to love other hearts, but it is love that seeks the only God-Love present in all hearts.

God whispers to you eternally silently:
I’m Love. But to express the dedication and reception of love, I split into three: my lover, my lover and my love. My love is wonderful, beautiful, pure, eternally beatific; and I taste it in many ways, through many forms.
Father being, I drink from the reverential love that springs from the child’s heart.
As a Mother,I sip from the cup of the baby’s soul the nectar of his unconditional love.
As a child, I am imbued with my father’s mind-filled love.
As a baby,I taste the pure love of the holy chalice of maternal attraction.
As master,I drink from the sympathetic love of the servant’s attention.
As a servant,I sip from the master’s respectful and appreciative love.
As a guru,I revel in the pure and clear love that springs from the total devotion of the disciple.
As a friend,I drink from the fountains of spontaneous love.
And as a divine friend,I get drunk with the crystal clear waters of cosmic love resulting from the reservoir of hearts that worship God.

I love only Love,but I like to delie myself that, father or mother being, that I think and feel love only for the child; when, as a lover, I am only interested in the lover; when, as a servant, I live only for my master.

And because I essentially love only Love, I ultimately destroy the illusion that I exist as myriads of separated human souls.

For this reason I transfer the father to the astral world, when he forgets that it is my love, not his, that protects the child. I take the baby from my mother’s breast so that she realizes that she has worshipped in him only my love. I’m taking my girlfriend away from the lover who imagines that she loves only her and not my love that responds through her girlfriend.

My love plays hide-and-seek in all human hearts, so that everyone can learn to discover and worship not the human receptacles of My love, but Love itself, dancing and jumping from one heart to another.

Human beings demand from each other: “Love only me” – and I freeze their lips and seal them forever, so that they may never utter this untruth again. Because they are all my children, I wish that they could know and speak the final truth: “Love the unique Love of all of us.”

Telling someone “I love you” is false if you don’t realize the truth: “God, as love in me, is in a loving relationship with His love, present in you.”

The moon laughs soloud at the millions of well-intentioned beings who have unconsciously lied to their loved ones: “I will love you forever.” Their skulls are shattered along the sands of eternity. They can neither remember nor keep their promise to love each other forever.
Without saying a word, I’ve always loved you. Only I can truly say to you, “I love you”- because I loved you before you were born. My love gives you life and sustains you moment by moment; and only I can love you after you have entered through the gate of death and are imprisoned in the land where no one, not even the being who loved you most in the world, can reach.

I am the love that moves the human puppets hanging from the strings of emotions and instincts, to make them dance and play the song of love on the stage of life. My love is wonderful and eternal when you love only her; but the line of life and joy is cut off as soon as you become shackled by human attachment and emotion. Do, my children, all the Truth, and seek only my love!

Those who love Me as one person, or who love Me imperfectly in the form of a being, do not know what Love is. I can know love only those who love me wisely, righteously, completely, abandoned and totally given—who love Me equally in everything and who love Me perfectly and equally as Everything.”