“If my love is without sacrifice, it is selfish. Such a love is barter, for there is exchange of love and devotion in return for something. It is conditional love.“
– Sadhu Vaswani
Kabir – The couplet
कामी क्रोधी लालची, इनसे भक्ति क्या होए ।
भक्ति करे कोई सूरमा, जाती वर्ण कुल खोए ||
transliterated:
Kãmi krodi lãlchi, inse bhakti kya hoye|
Bhakti kare koi surma, jãti varna kul khoye ||
Translation:
The lusty, angry or greedy, these are incapable of devotion|
Devotion is for that exceptional one, who is free of denomination, affiliation or social binding ||
My understanding:
When we claim to do something because it needs doing, it behooves us to inspect closely the true drive behind the reasons we proffer.
Most all of our actions are driven by an expectation of something in return – whether it is material, sensual or emotional. All of these returns provide temporary satiation to a demand of the physical body. I term it temporary because close introspection does prove that there is no material, sensual or emotional demand that ever says “Thank you – I have had enough for this life!”
This then makes the demand truly insatiable. So our first success at receiving some return/satiation only fuels the drive to get more – till we find ourselves exhausted – but not the desire. When we can fulfill the need no more, it makes us sad, unhappy, dejected, and even negative. So that which seemed to make us happy is truly laying the seed for the opposite result in the long term.
The only way to find true peace and centeredness is to break free of the shackle of desire and the need to conform to externally imposed needs – the need to be someone in social spaces, the need to feel a particular way or the need to be able to claim victory in a specific area. These needs can only lead to Pyrrhic victory – the cost of the victory far outweighs the returns, and it leaves one with a deep sense of loss and dejection. Give up the dependence on such needs and find fulfillment and satisfaction in just being rather than acting out of expectation.