By Tamohara Das
The relationships, which are based upon bhakti, which means love, a loving relationship, but love is also manifesting through service. A nice quote that I like is that there was an author, a poet named Kahlil Gibran, he was some kind of mystic from the mid east area, maybe he was from Lebanon. He wrote this book called The Prophet which was very popular in my days among my generation of counter culturists. He had these little statements that were very profound. This is one that I thought was cool but I had no idea what it meant until I became a devotee. Then it became crystal clear. He said that "work is love made visible." Isn't that it? Work, or service, is the outward, visible manifestation of love. There's not a lot of meaning if you say I love you, I love you, but I don't want to do anything for you. I love you but don't ask me to do anything, don't ask me to do any service. That's not really love, is it? Love and service are intertwined. They are together. It's not abstract or theoretical. We call bhakti devotional service. Not devotional sentiment or devotional idea or theory. It's devotional service. So bhakti means love and service to Krishna and His devotees. Of course, we always have to remember that that service to Krishna goes through guru, through the spiritual master, who is the recipient of the service that goes to Krishna.