God is love

Expressions researched:
"God is love"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

No, that I explained, that Kṛṣṇa was advising to kill, to fight. That... He is explaining that killing of the body is not killing of the soul.

Lecture on BG 2.9 -- Auckland, February 21, 1973:

Madhudviṣa: ...and she is saying that God is love...

Prabhupāda: No, that I explained, that Kṛṣṇa was advising to kill, to fight. That... He is explaining that killing of the body is not killing of the soul.

Woman (1): But you can't... Your body might be an illusion, but to you it's real. And if you abused your life, then that's...

Prabhupāda: Fighting is a kṣatriya's duty, you see. Just like I can give you one example. Just like one man is ordered by the state that "This man should be hanged." Does it mean that the state is enemy of this man?

Woman (1): I disagree with hanging completely.

Madhudviṣa: She also disagrees with hanging.

Prabhupāda: You may disagree, but what is the principle? Do you mean to say the state is wrong, the government is wrong?

Woman (1): (Yes)

Prabhupāda: Well, that is an individual opinion. But according to śāstra, we have to understand that... Suppose your dress, something unclean dress, you have got. So if somebody says that "You take out this unclean dress. Get a...," so is that very (sic:) enimating. Because after all, the soul is within the body. So if the body has become unclean, or some other reason, the body has to be changed, so that is not lack of love. Therefore we have to understand actually what we are. Am I this body or something else?

Woman (1): No, I quite agree that I'm spirit soul. I quite agree with that.

Prabhupāda: Then that's all right. So similarly, when there is duty, when..., because I have already explained that the kṣatriyas are meant for maintaining the social order. The brāhmaṇa is meant for giving good intelligence. The vaiśyas are meant for maintaining the economic condition. So as the government maintains the force, military police, their business is to chastise. This is required for maintenance of the whole thing. So you cannot avoid this war, fighting, when it is for good cause. We should not be so foolish that war can be, I mean to say, completely abolished. That is not possible. If you want to keep the social order, you must have to maintain the military strength, the police strength, and the court or the university. Everything is required. You cannot neglect one of them. Similarly... But if you are afraid of being killed—that is the medicine we are preaching—then you get out of this entanglement. You be situated in your spiritual body. There is no more question of killing. But so long you are in the material world, you have to abide by the rules and regulation of material nature. That you cannot avoid.

So that we are preaching, that we are... Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu, see everyone on the equal level and love.

Lecture on BG 2.16 -- Mexico City, February 16, 1975:

Hṛdayānanda: (translating) How can anyone in any part of the world understand that he is part of God?

Prabhupāda: Have you got any understanding of God? Do you know what is God?

Mexican: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Hṛdayānanda: (translating) It is the essence. He calls it some big thing, the essence.

Prabhupāda: "Some." That means he has to clear idea. You do not know what is God clearly. You say, "Some, this, that." That is not clear idea. So how you can understand the part and parcel of God if you do not know what is God? How you can understand what is part and parcel of God?

Hṛdayānanda: He's saying that God is love, and therefore we should love each other.

Prabhupāda: So that we are preaching, that we are... Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu, see everyone on the equal level and love.

Mexican: Thank you.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Philosophy Discussions

So the conclusion is that we are searching after the platform where God is love, but it is going on, I mean to say, by degrees, one after another, in different names.

Philosophy Discussion on Samuel Alexander:

Hayagrīva: For Alexander religion is like hunger, and God is the food for that hunger.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: He writes, "The religious which sets us in search of God is our groping out to the reality which is God. This religious appetite may either be stirred in us directly, by the impact of the world with its tendency to Deity, or it may first be felt by us as a need of our nature." So the desire or hunger for God may be motivated either externally or internally.

Prabhupāda: That I explained this morning partially, that actually we are seeking love of God beginning with the body. That I have explained in this morning, that we love this body because I live within this body. As soon as I give up this body, the body is neglected, it has no value, throw it. So, so long the living soul is there, the body has value. So why the living soul is valuable? Because he is the part and parcel of God. So God is there also within this body. This is explained is the Bhagavad-gītā. There are two living entities. One is..., they all..., both of them are known as kṣetra-jña. One kṣetra-jña only knows about his body, and the other kṣetra-jña knows all other bodies. That is God and the living entity. So the body is important because the living entities are there. The subordinate living entity is the part of the supreme living entity. So ultimately the conclusion is, because a supreme living entity is in the body or within the universe, therefore we have manufactured so many activities of love and society, friendship, nationality, community. Ultimately, when it culminates with love of God, then it is perfect. So the conclusion is that we are searching after the platform where God is love, but it is going on, I mean to say, by degrees, one after another, in different names.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Yes. But if God is love... Yes. Kṛṣṇa means love, so when you want to love somebody and somebody wants to love you, the both of us must be a person.

Room Conversation with Kenneth Keating, U.S. Ambassador to India -- October 14, 1972, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: What do you mean by religion?

Mrs. Keating: Oh, religion. Well, I'm more of an eclectic. I believe in, in the best of all religions.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Mrs. Keating: I believe in the best of all religions.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Mrs. Keating: The highest.

Ambassador: He asked what you mean by religion. You mean an organized...?

Mrs. Keating: Oh, no. I don't mean anything organized.

Śyāmasundara: No. What...

Prabhupāda: No, no, first of all, principle of religion. What is the principle of religion?

Mrs. Keating: Well I think it comes from within, inside. I think we are at one with God and I am a reflection of God. I am an idea of God. That's what I believe.

Prabhupāda: That is very nice. Idea of God means whatever you have got, God has got the same idea. Is it not?

Mrs. Keating: Huh?

Prabhupāda: You mean to say like that?

Mrs. Keating: Ah huh.

Prabhupāda: Or you are a sample of God.

Mrs. Keating: Yes.

Prabhupāda: A small sample of God. Just like you take a drop of ocean water and you taste it, then you can understand immediately the whole ocean is salty. Similarly, if you analyze your characteristic, then the same characteristic is there in God. Just like you want to love someone. Everyone wants to love someone. Therefore it can be concluded that God has got the propensity to love.

Mrs. Keating: Yes. God is love.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But if God is love...

Mrs. Keating: Spirit?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa means love, so when you want to love somebody and somebody wants to love you, the both of us must be a person.

Mrs. Keating: Both must be...?

Prabhupāda: Person. You don't love the air. You love your husband. He is a person. And he loves you, you are a person. Therefore God must be person. This conclusion. Because I am person, I am a sample of God, so God must be person. What do you think? Without God being person, how we can reciprocate love?

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

No, I have already explained. What is not God? That is already explained. Anything you bring, He is, God is there. Without God, nothing can exist. So why this or that? Anything, that is God. But He's absolute. His love and His enmity, that is the same thing.

Morning Walk -- December 10, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prajāpati: In some Western theological literature, Śrīla Prabhupāda, it refers to that "God is love." In what sense...

Prabhupāda: No, I have already explained. What is not God? That is already explained. Anything you bring, He is, God is there. Without God, nothing can exist. So why this or that? Anything, that is God. But He's absolute. His love and His enmity, that is the same thing. We distinguish, here in this material world, "This is love and this is animosity." But God's animosity and God's love—the same thing. That is acintya. Here in the relative world we cannot adjust how animosity and love can be the same, one and the same. That is acintya, inconceivable by us. But God's love... Just like God's love for the gopīs and God's enmity for Kaṁsa, they're reaching the same result. Both of them are going to the spiritual world. Just like Pūtanā and Mother Yaśodā. Pūtanā came to poison Kṛṣṇa, and Mother Yaśodā is always anxious to save Kṛṣṇa, naughty child. He may not be hurt. So two opposite things. But both of them got the same result. Kṛṣṇa thought that "I have sucked her breast, so she is My mother. She must go to the same destination as Yaśodā Mā." Just see. That is His enmity. And that is absolute. In our relative world, we can see so many differences in the dealings of God, but He is absolute, one. That is conception of God. Advaita. Advaita. Advaita means absolute. And... Brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate. Vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam (SB 1.2.11). Again advayam. You may conceive God as impersonal or localized Paramātmā or Bhagavān—the same thing. But due to our, I mean to say, meager knowledge, we are thinking, somebody's thinking that His personality is greater than impersonality and somebody's thinking impersonality's greater than personality. This is our conception. He's the same. Vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam (SB 1.2.11). Not different. Not different. But one who has reached to the conception of personality, he has got all the others. That is the difference. So you write. You are theologician. You write about God so that people may understand how our students are enlightened. Other so-called foolish theologicians may learn from you. You take the ideas and explain.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

God is love. God is everything.

Room Conversation with Irish Poet, Desmond O'Grady -- May 23, 1974, Rome:

O'Grady: And so, rather than present the kind of answers that one could present if one was trained in oneself originally... And one who is first of all trained, then one has to untrain oneself, and then one trains oneself from that experience basically. This is my way of seeing it. And then one tries to help others through this course with the same process. Do you think that we should tell them more directly, or... Well, the basic question is how to handle the problem of modern education.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Our Vedic process is... There are so many questions, as you have already explained. Somebody thinks, "Why I have come here? And what is the purpose? What you are?" So many questions. Questions should be answered by the perfect. Therefore the Vedic injunction is tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet: (MU 1.2.12) "In order to take answers of all these questions one must approach the bona fide spiritual master."

O'Grady: One must...?

Prabhupāda: Approach the bona fide spiritual master.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Approach.

O'Grady: The bona fide spiritual master. If you have none, what do you do?

Prabhupāda: No, there is.

O'Grady: If you are told that Mr. Nixon is the bona fide spiritual master, what do you do?

Prabhupāda: No, we have got standard. Who is bona fide spiritual master? Just like... The one line, you have heard only one line, that bona fide spiritual master, "You must approach the bona fide spiritual master." But who is bona fide spiritual master? Then that next question. That is also answered, that bona fide spiritual master means tad-vijñānārtham sa gurum eva abhigacchet, śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham (MU 1.2.12). This is the qualification of bona fide spiritual master. What is that? Śrotriyam. Śrotriyam means who has heard from the bona fide spiritual master. A bona fide spiritual master is he who has taken the message from bona fide spiritual master. This is the... Just like a medical man is he who has taken the knowledge of medical science from another medical man.

O'Grady: Just like Christ took this knowledge from the Holy Ghost.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And anyone. Yes. Similarly, bona fide spiritual master means who is in the line of successive spiritual master. The original spiritual master is God. So then one who has heard from God and he has explained the same message to his disciple, then the disciple is bona fide spiritual master—if he does not change. That is our process. We take lessons. We hear from Kṛṣṇa who is the perfect, God. And that is explained in the Bhagavad-gita. Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2).

O'Grady: But then, you see my poor old father, living in the west of Ireland, a simple man, at his age, seventy now, your generation, he has gotten to the point at his age where he says, "Well, they tell me, the priests they tell me ultimately it's God who knows. But I want to know who told God."

Prabhupāda: No.

O'Grady: And then he comes to me and asks me and says, "You went to school and you read big books. Tell me who told God." And so I have no answer.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the difference between God and me.

O'Grady: That's the difference between being seventy and thirty-nine.

Prabhupāda: No. There is no question of... That is explained in the..., that Bhāgavata, Brahma-sūtra, who is God, first of all. Who is God?

O'Grady: Who told God?

Prabhupāda: No, no. First of all, "Who is God?" Then we shall ask, "Who told God?" (chuckles) That God... That is the Vedānta-sūtra, athāto brahma jijñāsā: "Now we should enquire about God, what is God, who is God." Unless you know who is God, how can you raise the question, "Who instructed God?" If you do not know God, then the question does not arise, "Who instructed God?" Is it not? Yes. So therefore God is explained in the Brahma-sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ: (SB 1.1.1) "God is He from everything comes, emanates." That is God. That God is explained in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, janmādy asya yataḥ: (SB 1.1.1) "The Supreme Being from whom everything emanates." Now, what is that Supreme Being? What is the nature of the Supreme Being? It is a dead stone or a living being? That is also explained. Janmādy asya yataḥ anvayād itarataś ca artheṣu abhijñaḥ sva-rāṭ (SB 1.1.1). "That God is fully cognizant of everything, directly and indirectly." Unless He is fully cognizant of everything, directly and indirectly, He is not God. So then the same question comes, as you said, that "Who taught God?"

O'Grady: Yes, that's the man I want to meet.

Prabhupāda: That is answered, sva-rāṭ. "Independent." That is God.

O'Grady: Independ...?

Prabhupāda: Independent. He is fully independent. He does not require to take lessons from anyone. That is God. That is God. If anyone requires to take lesson from other, he is not God. Who does not require to take lesson from other, that is God.

O'Grady: Where does human love enter into it?

Prabhupāda: Everything is there. Because love is also coming from God. So we are being part and parcel of God, there is part and parcel manifestation of love because the original love is there in God. Because nothing can exist. Nothing can exist if it is not in God.

O'Grady: Therefore we love.

Prabhupāda: The love is also there in God.

O'Grady: But God is not love?

Prabhupāda: God is love. God is everything.

O'Grady: Oh, yeah. Then love is God.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

O'Grady: Our manifestations of love are manifestations of God.

Prabhupāda: Ah... Because we are part and parcel... Just like son born of a particular father, he has got the symptoms, so because there is loving propensity in God and we being part and parcel of God, therefore we have got this loving propensity. This is the conclusion. Unless the loving propensity is there in God, where we get it?

O'Grady: Maybe it's generated in you by the need...

Prabhupāda: No, there is no question of "maybe." It must be, must be.

O'Grady: Oh, very... Yes, I accept the strong word.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no question of... Because we have defined God, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). God is He wherefrom everything emanates. That is God. So love, love or even fight. The fighting propensity is also there in God. And loving propensity is also there in God. But His fighting propensity and loving propensity—absolute. Just like in the material world we have got experience, fighting propensity is just opposite the loving propensity. But in God, either fighting propensity or loving propensity, they are one and the same, therefore He is absolute. That is the meaning of absolute. Just like we get from śāstras. The so-called enemies of God who is killed by God, he also attains perfection.

O'Grady: Yes, the vengeful... Yes, that I understand, the avenging God of Biblical imagination as against... Is it possible to do it all on your own, alone?

Prabhupāda: No. Therefore the Vedas say, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Abhigacchet means "he must." It is not possible alone. This word, this abhigacchet, this verb, is used in Sanskrit grammar... This is called vidhiliñ form of verb. So vidhiliñ form of verb is used when there is a..., matter is a must. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet, samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyam. And that is the Vedic version. Therefore... You have read Bhagavad-gītā. You will find Arjuna was talking with Kṛṣṇa. Then, when the things were not solved, perplexed, Arjuna surrendered himself, śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ prapannam. Find out this verse.

Nitāi: Text seven.

kārpaṇya-doṣopahata-svabhāvaḥ

pṛcchāmi tvāṁ dharma-sammūḍha-cetāḥ

yac chreyaḥ syān niścitaṁ brūhi tan me

śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ tvāṁ prapannam

(BG 2.7)

"Now I am confused about my duty and have lost all composure because of weakness."

Prabhupāda: Yes. That... Here is the question, "confused."

O'Grady: I am the first statement. "I am confused about my duty," that what is the... Thank you.

Nitāi: "...and have lost all composure because of weakness. In this condition I am..."

O'Grady: This duty, this duty, is this duty to the self or duty to others or duty to the state?

Prabhupāda: He is confused because he was a kṣatriya, soldier. A soldier's duty is to fight with the enemy. So Kṛṣṇa was advising him, "The opposite party is your enemy. You are a kṣatriya. Why you are trying to become non-violent? This is not good." Therefore he says, "Actually I am now confused. So in confusion I cannot take the right conclusion. I therefore accept You as my spiritual master. You just give me the proper lesson." This is the point. So they were friends. Still, he was confused. So in chaotic condition, in confusion status of life, we must approach the person who is in full knowledge of the things. Just like you go to a lawyer, you go to a physician; similarly, every one of us in the material world, we are confused. Therefore we must go to the spiritual master who can give us real knowledge.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Yes. So, dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātma-nivedanam, to offer everything to God—whatever I have got, my body, my money, my... everything. These are nine processes: śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam, arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātma-nivedanam (SB 7.5.23) Nine processes. So these nine processes you take. Or you take eight or you take seven or you take six or you take five, you take four, you take three, you take two—at least one.

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: To worship God, we have got nine processes. One is to hear about God and to speak about God—śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam. Then, memorizing God's activities. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam (SB 7.5.23). Then worshiping his feet—just like we offer flower to the feet. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam arcanam. Then Deity worship, just like we are doing in the temple, Deity worship. Then vandanam, offering prayers, just like you do in the church. Vandanam, dāsyam, to engage oneself always in the service. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyam. Sakhyam—to taking as the best friend, considering God as the best friend.

Jesuit: Consider God as?

Prabhupāda: Best friend.

Jesuit: Best friend.

Prabhupāda: Just like Arjuna did. Arjuna worshiped God as friend, the best friend. God is the best friend for everyone.

Jesuit: That's right. As John says, "God is love."

Prabhupāda: Yes. So, dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātma-nivedanam, to offer everything to God—whatever I have got, my body, my money, my... everything. These are nine processes:

śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ

smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam

arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ

sakhyam ātma-nivedanam

(SB 7.5.23)

Nine processes. So these nine processes you take. Or you take eight or you take seven or you take six or you take five, you take four, you take three, you take two—at least one.

Jesuit: And is everybody able to take the nine processes?

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is not difficult.

Jesuit: And do you have a, what I may call a training in contemplation, in which you get...

Prabhupāda: That is smaraṇam. Memorizing. Thinking of God's activities.