1 The Courage of Love

(His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam has delivered almost 20,000 hours of recorded talks till date. As part of the talks, He shares simple small stories that give powerful cognitive shifts to the listener. Following is one such story.)

A SMALL STORY

A beautiful incident happened in the life of Ramanuja. If you study the life of Ramanuja*, you will see how he used every step of his life to move towards enlightenment.

When his teacher initiated Ramanuja* he gave him a special chant. The teacher told him not to pass on the chant to anybody and that if he did so, he would go to hell. Ramanuja asked him what would happen to the others with whom he might share it. The teacher said that they would be led to

salvation.

What would we have done? Naturally we would have kept quiet, thinking, 'Why unnecessarily go to hell?'

Ramanuja immediately stood on a platform in a temple and called out to the whole village. He loudly pronounced the chant given by his teacher and told the people, 'Let you all go to heaven! I

am not bothered about me going to hell. Let you all reach heaven!'

When you are deeply in love, you feel as if your whole being is open and you are ready to go to any extreme for the sake of anybody. You are ready to go to any boundary, as there is nothing to protect

within your being. Your being is totally open. You don't feel insecure when you are wild with love. That is why people who are in love always do risky things. They take the risk because they feel they

have nothing to lose. There is no insecurity about anything. They feel so expansive.

Love gives tremendous courage and energy. It opens you up. It makes you finally available to yourself. As of now, you are not available to yourself. Love can make you available to yourself.

When the teacher saw what Ramanuja did, he admitted that he learned a lesson from his disciple and declared that Ramanuja had reached greater heights than him. He told Ramanuja, 'You are in a different space now.'

When you are deeply in love, you feel as if your whole being is open and you are ready to go to any extreme for the sake of anybody. You are ready to go to any boundary, as there is nothing to protect

within your being. Your being is totally open. You don't feel insecure when you are wild with love.

*Ramanuja - Founder of the Vishishtadvaita or modified duality principle. Along with Adi Shankara and Madhva, considered to be one of the three great teachers of Hindu philosophy.