रोके उनते प्रेम माँगो, दरस माँगो प्यारे।

ह्वै के अति व्याकुल करहु नित, करुण क्रंदन प्यारे।

माँगु जनि उन भुक्ति मुक्तिन, भुलिहुँ तुम प्यारे।

We cannot attain His love forcefully. Then what can we do? We can only love God and ask Him for His love. We can ask God for His love, and He will give it to us. It is that simple. But there is a condition we must fulfill in order to receive His love.

God showers His love when a devotee asks Him with the true intention of receiving Divine Love. Only then will a devotee receive God’s love. God says, “First, you must create the true desire to attain Divine Love. You must feel anxious and cry, and then ask for My love”. Cry the way a child cries in front of its mother. The child does not consider itself to be a highly qualified individual or capable enough to get milk on its own. Hence, the child cries in front of its mother for milk. The mother understands the reason why the child is crying and hence comes running to feed the child.

At times, the kid gets smart and pretends to be crying; the mother understands that he is acting and when he cries seriously, the mother understands that too. God says that you must cry and ask for love the way a small child asks its mother for milk. Do not consider yourself to be wealthy. Instead, consider yourself to be helpless. The mother might be mistaken. The child might be crying due to a stomachache, and the mother might think that the child is crying out of hunger. But God says, “I do not make such mistakes. I know everything and I am seated within you. There is no question of mistakes. You must create the desire to attain My love, and leave the rest to Me”.

Shree Kripaluji Maharaj has just advised us that we have to shed tears and ask God for His love and Divine vision. Now, he tells us the opposite, i.e. what not to ask for. He tells us not to seek material desire and liberation. Materialistic people are egoistic, and they ask for these two things since the goal of a materialistic person is to get away from sadness.

Through material desire, we ask for the material happiness, and through liberation, we ask God to end our miseries. There are a lot of challenges that we can face due the desire for liberation. If we ask God according to our intellect, we may get into trouble because we ask according to the level of our intelligence.

For example, if we take a small child to a jeweler’s shop and ask him to choose between a diamond necklace and chocolate, he would definitely take the chocolate. The child does not understand the value of diamonds and only understands chocolate. Similarly, we have seen material love. We have no idea about the love of God. That is the reason we ask God for good health, marriage, wealth, fame, and so on. We run behind such material desires. Shree Kripaluji Maharaj says that if we keep running behind such material desires, we will not be able to attain God’s love.

There are two main challenges on the path of God’s love. Chaitanya Mahaprabhuji’s principle student and disciple, Roop Goswami had written in Bhaktirasamrut Sindhu-

भुक्ति-मुक्ति-स्पृहा यावत् पिशाची हृदि वर्तते ।

तावद् भक्ति-सुखस्यात्र कथम् अभ्युदयो भवेत् ॥

“Liberation and material desire are two of the biggest impediments in bhakti. As long as they are present in our hearts, the desire for God’s love does not arise.” If we want to practice devotion to attain God’s love, we must remove the desire for liberation and material pleasure from our heart.

Once there was a king named Sanjay. He was a very greedy person. A devta, celestial god, appeared in front him and asked the king to spell his desire. Sanjay asked for a baby who would give only gold i.e. if the baby vomits it will be of gold, his sweat will be gold, and so on. The devta thought that the king’s bad days have begun. Soon, Sanjay had a baby named Svarnasthivi. Now when Svarnasthivi vomited it would be of gold. The baby’s sweat was gold and everything the baby expelled from its body was made of gold.

Sanjay had now become very rich and everybody around came to know about it. He was not able to tax the people as before. People understood that there might be some other source of income. Gangsters now tried to find out the source of this wealth and heard about his kid. They kidnapped Svarnasthivi and took him with them. They decide to kill him and distribute different parts of his body. One took his hand, the other took his leg, and the third person took his head. The king heard of this and started crying. The devta arrived and told him that whatever he had asked for has become the reason for his sadness.

We have been asking for liberation and material desire since countless lifetimes, but now we have to learn to ask for just two things, i.e. God’s vision and His love. Shree Maharajji says, “Ask God to give us the intellect and understanding so that we can pray and attain His love. Pray to God and ask Him for increasing detachment from the world, so that you can do more seva. Since your goal is to serve Him, this type of desire will not be considered selfish because it is done with the aim of attaining His love and vision. Make His seva your goal and ask Him for His love”.