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THE FORMS OF LOVE-MANIFESTATION
Here are some of the forms in which love manifests itself. First there is reverence. Why do people show reverence to temples and holy places? Because He is worshipped there, and His presence is associated with all such places. Why do people in every country pay reverence to teachers of religion ? It is natural for the hunian heart to do so, because all such teachers preach the Lord. At bottom, reverence is a growth out of love; we can none of us revere him whom we do not love. Then comes Priti--pleasure in God. What an immense pleasure men take in the objects of the senses ! They go anywhere, run through any danger, to get the thing which they love, the thing which their senses like. What is wanted of the Bhakta is this very kind of intense love which has, however, to be directed to God. Then there is the sweetest of pains, Viraha, the intense misery due to the absence of the beloved. When a man feels intense misery, because he has not attained to God, has not known that which is the only thing worthy to be known, and becomes in consequence very dissatisfied and almost mad—then there is Viraha; and this state of the mind makes him feel disturbed in the presence of anything other than the beloved (एकरतिविचिकित्सा). In earthly love we see how often this Viraba comes. Again, when men are really and
