Bible Matters 508: Brahman’s Gospel of Love

Love is an integral part of Hinduism, a religion that believes in the power of love and compassion. Hinduism teaches that love is the essence of life and is central to attaining spiritual enlightenment. The Bhagavad Gita is a sacred Hindu scripture that contains the teachings of Lord Krishna to the warrior prince Arjuna.  “Love is the foundation of all virtues.” This quote from the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most revered Hindu scriptures, highlights the belief that love is the basis for all positive qualities, such as kindness, forgiveness, and empathy. According to Hinduism, love is the driving force behind all thoughts, actions, and interactions, and it is through love that one can find true happiness and fulfillment.  Another quote from the Upanishads, ancient Hindu philosophical texts, states, “Love alone is the eternal law.”   Hinduism teaches that love is the unifying force that connects all beings and brings harmony and balance to the world.  Love is a fundamental quality of the Supreme Being, who is described as the embodiment of pure love and compassion. The divine love flows through all beings, animate and inanimate, and forms the basis of all relationships and interactions.

There is no doubt that the Lord God, sent the prophets to share God’s Gospel of Love.

Genesis 9:26-27 – And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.  God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

Brahman is the Supreme being.  Brahman’s Gospel of Love was shared among the descendants of Shem and Ham and the Hinduism was formed.  This gospel is pure love.  A life of love, to be revealed by perfection unto eternal life.

Titus 1:2 – In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

The prophets recognized that man consists of the body (physical) and the soul (spiritual).    The physical body will die.  The spiritual soul will live. 

The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.

It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable and immutable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.

Let’s review Brahman’s Gospel of Love with quotes from the most revered Hindu scriptures, “Bhagavad Gita.” 

• Believe in one true Brahman.  When you believe in Brahman, then you believe in the scriptures.

Indeed, You alone know Yourself by Your own internal potency, O Supreme Person, origin of all, Lord of all beings, God of gods, Lord of the universe!

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: The indestructible, transcendental living entity is called Brahman, and his eternal nature is called adhyatma, the self. Action pertaining to the development of the material bodies of the living entities is called karma, or fruitive activities.

I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Fearlessness; purification of one’s existence; cultivation of spiritual knowledge; charity; self-control; performance of sacrifice; study of the Vedas; austerity; simplicity; nonviolence; truthfulness; freedom from anger; renunciation; tranquility; aversion to faultfinding; compassion for all living entities; freedom from covetousness; gentleness; modesty; steady determination; vigor; forgiveness; fortitude; cleanliness; and freedom from envy and from the passion for honor — these transcendental qualities, O son of Bharata, belong to godly men endowed with divine nature.

By divine grace comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and the intellect of such a person of tranquil mind soon becomes firmly established in God.

The choice is yours.  Either walk with the Lord and fight for righteousness or to be lost in sin and darkness.

Do thou fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat — and by so doing you shall never incur sin.

Considering your specific duty as a ksatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.

In the minds of those who are too attached to sense enjoyment and material opulence, and who are bewildered by such things, the resolute determination for devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not take place.

They say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. They say it is produced of sex desire and has no cause other than lust.

While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.

O son of Prtha, in this world there are two kinds of created beings. One is called the divine and the other demoniac. I have already explained to you at length the divine qualities. Now hear from Me of the demoniac.

There are three gates leading to this hell — lust, anger and greed. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul.

From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool.

Thus, perplexed by various anxieties and bound by a network of illusions, they become too strongly attached to sense enjoyment and fall down into hell.

• Repent of your sins and surrender unto Brahman, with the Lord dwelling in your hearts. 

As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Prtha.

O son of Prtha, do not yield to this degrading impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy.

The Supreme Lord said: O Parth, when one discards all selfish desires and cravings of the senses that torment the mind, and becomes satisfied in the realization of the self, such a person is said to be transcendentally situated.

One who restrains his senses, keeping them under full control, and fixes his consciousness upon Me, is known as a man of steady intelligence.

After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: The giving up of activities that are based on material desire is what great learned men call the renounced order of life [sannyasa]. And giving up the results of all activities is what the wise call renunciation [tyaga].

To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.

O best of the embodied beings, the physical nature, which is constantly changing, is called adhibhuta [the material manifestation]. The universal form of the Lord, which includes all the demigods, like those of the sun and moon, is called adhidaiva. And I, the Supreme Lord, represented as the Supersoul in the heart of every embodied being, am called adhiyajna [the Lord of sacrifice].

But a person free from all attachment and aversion and able to control his senses through regulative principles of freedom can obtain the complete mercy of the Lord.

As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.

They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus until the end of life their anxiety is immeasurable. Bound by a network of hundreds of thousands of desires and absorbed in lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification.

That person, who gives up all material desires and lives free from a sense of greed, proprietorship, and egoism, attains perfect peace.

People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death.

• Judge no one – All believers will be judged based on your pure walk against Brahman’s word.  Do not judge nor assume righteousness by comparing your walk against another.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.

A person is considered still further advanced when he regards honest well-wishers, affectionate benefactors, the neutral, mediators, the envious, friends and enemies, the pious and the sinners all with an equal mind.

The yogis look upon all—well-wishers, friends, foes, the pious, and the sinners—with an impartial intellect. The yogi who is of equal intellect toward friend, companion, and foe, neutral among enemies and relatives, and unbiased between the righteous and sinful, is considered to be distinguished among humans.

Completely renouncing all desires arising from thoughts of the world, one should restrain the senses from all sides with the mind. Slowly and steadily, with conviction in the intellect, the mind will become fixed in God alone, and will think of nothing else.

The true yogis, uniting their consciousness with God, see with equal eye, all living beings in God and God in all living beings.

• Love Brahman.  Your walk will be your testimony be serving the Lord.

To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.

Some yogis perfectly worship the demigods by offering different sacrifices to them, and some of them offer sacrifices in the fire of the Supreme Brahman.

By thus engaging in devotional service to the Lord, great sages or devotees free themselves from the results of work in the material world. In this way they become free from the cycle of birth and death and attain the state beyond all miseries [by going back to Godhead].

• Love your Neighbor – Do good using the quality of your talents with fervent acts of charity.

Everyone is forced to act helplessly according to the qualities he has acquired from the modes of material nature; therefore, no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment.

Acts of sacrifice, charity and penance are not to be given up; they must be performed. Indeed, sacrifice, charity and penance purify even the great souls.

All these activities should be performed without attachment or any expectation of result. They should be performed as a matter of duty, O son of Prtha. That is My final opinion.

Some learned men declare that all kinds of fruitive activities should be given up as faulty, yet other sages maintain that acts of sacrifice, charity and penance should never be abandoned.

When you believe in the Lord, you do not kill.

O Partha, how can a person who knows that the soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?

• Do the will of Brahman unto eternal life. 

That is the way of the spiritual and godly life, after attaining which a man is not bewildered. If one is thus situated even at the hour of death, one can enter into the kingdom of God.

Persons who are learned in the Vedas, who utter omkara and who are great sages in the renounced order enter into Brahman. Desiring such perfection, one practices celibacy. I shall now briefly explain to you this process by which one may attain salvation.

O son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up with determination and fight.

The man who has escaped these three gates of hell, O son of Kunti, performs acts conducive to self-realization and thus gradually attains the supreme destination.

The faithless and unbelieving will turn from the scriptures.  Their happiness and peace will not be in this world or the next.   

But ignorant and faithless persons who doubt the revealed scriptures do not attain God consciousness; they fall down. For the doubting soul there is happiness neither in this world nor in the next.

Those who are demoniac do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done. Neither cleanliness nor proper behavior nor truth is found in them.

One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Krsna consciousness] can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?

Pray for guidance and direction. 

Arjuna inquired: O my Lord, O Supreme Person, what is Brahman? What is the self? What are fruitive activities? What is this material manifestation? And what are the demigods? Please explain this to me.

Have faith and believe the scriptures.  Do not be deceived.  The Supreme Brahman is looking for you to do good with acts of charity and live Brahman’s Gospel of Love.    

To God be the glory in all you do, Amen.