Love is the only thing that binds the Lord

See, we have to awaken the Love that we have treasured so much and keep always for ourselves. When you are in love, what do you like to do? To give, right? You like to spread this love. In the same way, when you are Awake, His grace will flow through you. You will come out of this dreaming state one always puts oneself into. This reminds me of a story. There was once a woodcutter. One day, after finishing working, he came home, sat down and fell asleep. In his sleep he was dreaming that he was a king who had seven wives and many children. He was enjoying the dream very much. Then, all of a sudden, a friend of his came–not in the dream, but in reality– and said “Wake up!” The woodcutter came out of his dream and started shouting at his friend, saying “I was a king and you came and disturbed me!” Then the friend said “But it was just a dream.” But the woodcutter was very annoyed and said “For you it was just a dream, but for me it was reality.” It’s the same for us; we are living in a dreaming state. When we become Awakened, we will see the Reality. But this Reality is not to be understood with the mind. It’s different. And that’s what human beings are here for, to attain this Reality of who they are, to see that they are not just this, as we call it, bag of bones. We will attain this Reality only through Love, Unconditional Love; only by loving in the same way that He loves us. Do you think His Love is bound by any limitation of what we understand of Him or how we dress Him? The Love of God is not bound by anything, except by the love of His devotees. When we look at the life of Krishna, what was binding Him? He was always free, ever free. He was born free. The only thing that binds Him, that limits him, is the Love of His devotees. There was a Swami from Vrindavan last week in the ashram in Germany. He told this beautiful story, which is, also, in the Srimad Bhagavatam, of when Krishna was small. You know He was very naughty, always breaking all the makan and butter pots, trying to annoy everybody, because He wanted all the attention to be on Him, only, and on nothing else. One day Yashoda had Him on her lap and she had some milk on the fire. Then the milk started to boil and to spill in the fire. This Swami was explaining how great was this milk. It was crying, because even when the Lord was so near to it, it couldn’t come to Him. Seeing the milk boiling, Yashoda put Krishna down and rushed to remove the milk. There are many great yogis who try to attain the Lord through meditation and penance, but they cannot. And there He was playing on the lap of Yashoda, but yet she let Herself be distracted to the outside, forgetting about the Lord. So He went and broke the pots of buttermilk and gave the butter to the monkeys, starting to feed them. When Yashoda came and saw the broken pots and monkeys all around, she knew that it was Krishna. Then she started to look for Krishna and to run after Him everywhere. Of course, Krishna with His little, little legs started, also, to run around and she couldn’t catch Him. Then, finally, He let Himself be caught by Yashoda. So she tried to tie Krishna with a rope, but every time She tried to tie Him, the rope was short by two inches. Then she would go and get some more rope, but again it was short. And she tried again, but again it was short. Finally, Yashoda became really, really tired. Then Krishna was looking at how much Love she had at that moment, He thought “OK, I succeeded in getting Her attention fully on me.” So He let Himself be tied. So Love is the only thing that binds the Lord. When we talk about love, about finding this love inside of us, it’s actually to find His Love inside of us, to catch Him completely and when we catch Him, then we can say “Yes, I have Him.”