Love itself is the actual form of God.

[Guest guest]

"Love itself is the actual form of God." "Letters from Sri Ramanasramam" by Suri NagammaThis dialogue is one of my favorite dialogues with Sri Ramana Maharshi.Here is the dialogue in context:Q: Swami, it is good to love God, is it not?Then why not follow the path of love?Maharshi: "Who said you couldn't follow it? You can do so.But when you talk of love,there is duality,is there not?-the person who loves and the entity called God who is loved? The individual is not separate from God. Hence love means one has love towards one's own Self."Q: That is why I am asking you whether God could be worshipped through the path of love.Maharshi:"That is exactly what I have been saying. Love itself is the actual form of God. If by saying, `I do not love this, I do not love that', you reject all things, that which remains is the real form of the Self. That is pure bliss. Call it pure bliss, God, Self, or what you will. That is devotion, that is realization and that is everything.If you thus reject everything, what remains is the Self alone. That is real love. One who knows the secret of that lovefinds the world itself full of universal love.The experience of not forgetting consciousness, alone,is the state of devotion which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self,which shines as the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love. Only if one knows the truth of love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled knot of life be untied.Only if one attains the height of love will liberation be attained.Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only love, which is seeing only love, hearing only love, feeling only love, tasting only loveand smelling only love,which is bliss."