Love of God

If you ask people whether they love God, almost everyone replies that they love Him from the core of their hearts. Perhaps they are right. But if you try to assess the level or intensity of their love for God, you may be surprised. The other day, in one of my spiritual classes, I asked ‘how should we judge that you really love God?’ Their answer varied from “I daily say my prayer two times, in the morning as well as in the evening.”, “I remember Him too often.”, “He grants almost all my wishes.”, “I remember Him before starting anything new,” etc.

But would all these be the indicators of my love and not my respect or my fear of Him or even my selfishness? I may respect Him for being the Creator and the Supreme or I may pray to Him for the grant of some desire or a vested interest; I may also be afraid of His annoyance and wish to be safe at all cost. Out of all these or some of these, I may display my devotion to the Almighty. But how can that be interpreted as my love for Him?

To find out whether I really love Him I should search my inner-self. For example a mother loves her child. If you ask her why does she love the child, what would she say? She loves him because she loves him and because he is her child. And for this seemingly very simple reason, she can do anything and can undergo any inconvenience and trouble for the child. We perhaps do not remember what our mother must have done for our comfort and happiness. She may not have even been conscious of the fact that all her effort and labour for the well-being of her child would ever be recognised, not to say whether it would ever be compensated and rewarded.