Love Over Fear.
S.B. Keshava Swami
Fear and love - the two most powerful emotions in creation. Fear is the inbuilt warning system to avoid all pain, and love is the sweet call which invites the heart to melt. Of the two, love reigns supreme. When we have love, all fear disappears, and Vrindavana, the abode of love, is the living proof. Ancient stories tell of Krishna’s parents, who, driven by love, followed Krishna’s daring call to abandon cultural and generational traditions of ritual worship to the heavenly God, and instead embrace a higher-level spirituality. Their love for Him outweighed the fear (and eventual reality) of supernatural backlash. Krishna’s friends fearlessly frolicked with destructive demons, powerful and brutal, knowing His loving eye was right behind them. When Krishna’s girlfriends heard His flute call, they impulsively ran to meet Him in the dead of night, with no inhibitions of violating custom, jeopardising physical safety, facing social repercussion or damaging future security. The fears which define and drive most people’s lives disappeared in their oceanic love.
This phenomenon continues today. In Vrindavana you encounter individuals who have embarked on life trajectories that the calculative mind just can’t grasp – they’ve taken risks, made sacrifices, embraced uncertainty, and let go of things that most people wouldn’t dream of. There’s no rational explanation to decode why they do what they do – it’s a deep, invisible, heartfelt conviction impelling them forward. The lesson is loud and clear: real life begins when we find an object of love that so comprehensively consumes our consciousness that fear has no place left to reside.
When we’re impoverished in love, or directing that love in the wrong direction, fear dominates - fears about the future, fears about relationships, fears about the world, fears about health, fears of rejection. In happy times we fear it will end, in distress we fear it may never end! Our life decisions usually reflect our fears more than our dreams, our thinking process haunted by what may go wrong. People accuse religion of being driven by fear, but practically everyone is driven by fear. In reality, it’s only deep, heartfelt, divine connection that can catapault you beyond fear. In Vrindavana, there is no God, and there is no fear-driven religion. Here we encounter Krishna, who isn’t simply a Lord to be fearful of, or the Father to be dutiful towards, but the most charming personality in creation – one who may just steal all your attention! Here people have heart attacks - not just physical, but spiritual ones too. Krishna mystically appears. If you’re lucky enough to lose your heart in Vrindavana, you’ll witness all your fears disappear at the same time. When oh when.
Today I ask myself: when all is said and done, will my life be defined by love or fear?