Scriptural basis for loving all souls
God resides in every being. Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita, "I am
the Self, O Gudakesha, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the
beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings". This verse is the
foundation for seeing all living entities as sacred and worthy of love, as
each one contains a portion of the divine.
The enlightened see all with an equal eye. A key sign of a realized soul is
the ability to see the underlying spiritual equality of all beings. The
Gita says, "The wise, by virtue of true knowledge, see with an equal eye a
learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a dog-eater"
(BG 5.18).
True love is selfless and universal. Spiritual teachers inspired by the
Gita's message emphasize that true love is not a conditional emotion but a
selfless force. When one recognizes the divine Self in everyone, they can
genuinely love all beings as their own self, seeing no one as a stranger.
How to cultivate this universal love
Achieving the state of loving all atmas is the result of spiritual practice
and inner realization. Some of the methods taught by the Bhagavad Gita
include:
Selfless action (Karma Yoga): Perform your duties without attachment to the
results, offering your actions to the divine. This purifies the heart and
expands one's capacity for love.
Meditation and self-inquiry: Quieting the mind through meditation and
asking "Who am I?" can help one look past the temporary body and identify
with the eternal Self (Atma).
Devotion (Bhakti Yoga): Engaging in devotional practices helps to focus
one's love on the Supreme Being. By directing love toward the ultimate
source of all atmas, that love naturally expands to all beings.
TEXT 20 10
aham ātmā guḍākeśa
sarva-bhūtāśaya-sthitaḥ
aham ādiś ca madhyaṁ ca
bhūtānām anta eva ca
I am the Self, O Guḍākeśa, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the
beginning, the middle and the end of all beings.
Both the Paramātmā and the jīvātmā, being transcendental to the
material energy, are called ātmā.
The wrong conception of the jīvātmā is to identify the material body with
the pure soul, and the wrong conception of Paramātmā is to think Him on an
equal level with the living entity.
But both misconceptions can be removed by one stroke of bhakti-yoga, just
as in the sunlight both the sun and the world and everything within the
sunlight are properly seen.
Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī therefore says that for purification of both wrong
conceptions, the Lord presented His eternal form before Brahmājī, being
fully satisfied by Brahmā’s nondeceptive vow of discharging bhakti-yoga.
Except for bhakti-yoga, any method for realization of ātma-tattva, or the
science of ātmā, will prove deceptive in the long run.
Brahmājī undertook great penance in performing bhakti-yoga, and thus he was
able to see the transcendental form of the Lord.
His transcendental form is one-hundred-percent spiritual, and one can see
Him only by spiritualized vision after proper discharge of tapasya or
penance, in pure bhakti-yoga.
Due to ignorance the conditioned soul is encaged in the temporary varieties
of material forms. But the Supreme Lord has no such temporary form like the
conditioned souls.
Brahmā was then told by the Lord the gist of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in four
original verses. Thus Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is not a creation of the mental
speculators.
The sound of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is transcendental, and the resonance of
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is as good as that of the Vedas.
The topic of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the science of both the Lord and the
living entity.
Regular reading or hearing of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is also the performance of
bhakti-yoga, and one can attain the highest perfection simply by the
association of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
A pure devotee of the lord prefers to serve the Lord, the master of
material nature. He seeks the substance and does not wish to give it up.
The substance is the lotus feet of Mukunda, and King Kulaśekhara, being a
most intelligent devotee, prays to gain that substance and not the shadow.
Srila Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, a great associate of Lord Caitanya’s, was a
very rich man’s son who had a beautiful wife and all other opulences. When
he first met Lord Caitanya at Pāṇihāṭi, a village about forty miles from
Calcutta, Raghunātha dāsa asked permission from the Lord to leave his
material connections and accompany Him.
The Lord refused to accept this proposal and instructed Raghunātha dāsa
that it is useless to leave worldly connections out of sentimentality or
artificial renunciation. One must have the real thing at heart.
If one finds himself entangled in worldly connections, one should behave
outwardly like a worldly man but remain inwardly faithful for spiritual
realization.
In his original identity the living entity is indestructible, and so also
are his original spiritual qualities. One can kill neither the spirit soul
nor his spiritual qualities. To remember the Lord and desire to serve Him
are the spiritual qualities of the spirit soul.
One can curb down these spiritual qualities by artificial means, but they
will be reflected in a perverted way on the mirror of material existence.
The spiritual quality of serving the Lord out of transcendental affinity
will be pervertedly reflected as love for wine, women, and wealth in
different forms.
A pure devotee does not bother himself about what is going to happen next
in his material situation, he is always alert not to forget his ultimate
aim.
SB 2.9.4 TRANSLATION:
O King, the Personality of Godhead, being very much pleased with Lord
Brahmā because of his nondeceptive penance in bhakti-yoga, presented His
eternal and transcendental form before Brahmā. And that is the objective
goal for purifying the conditioned soul.
Ātma-tattva is the science of both God and the living entity. Both the
Supreme Lord and the living entity are known as ātmā. The Supreme Lord is
called Paramātmā, and the living entity is called the ātmā, the brahma or
the jīva. Both the Paramātmā and the jīvātmā, being transcendental to the
material energy, are called ātmā. So Śukadeva Gosvāmī explains this verse
with the aim of purifying the truth of both the Paramātmā and the jīvātmā.
Generally people have many wrong conceptions about both of them. The wrong
conception of the jīvātmā is to identify the material body with the pure
soul, and the wrong conception of Paramātmā is to think Him on an equal
level with the living entity. But both misconceptions can be removed by one
stroke of bhakti-yoga, just as in the sunlight both the sun and the world
and everything within the sunlight are properly seen. In the darkness one
cannot see the sun, nor himself, nor the world. But in the sunlight one can
see the sun, himself and the world around him. Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī
therefore says that for purification of both wrong conceptions, the Lord
presented His eternal form before Brahmājī, being fully satisfied by
Brahmā’s nondeceptive vow of discharging bhakti-yoga. Except for
bhakti-yoga, any method for realization of ātma-tattva, or the science of
ātmā, will prove deceptive in the long run.
nondeceptive vow of discharging bhakti-yoga – No drinking water under
water, being overly clever does not work. We cannot hide anything from
Krsna. Krishna knows everything we are doing.
In the Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord says that only by bhakti-yoga can one know
Him perfectly, and then one can enter into the science of God. (BG 18.56,
8.26, 11.54) Brahmājī undertook great penance in performing bhakti-yoga,
and thus he was able to see the transcendental form of the Lord.
Mukunda Mala Stotram
The form of the Lord manifested before Brahmā is not one of the forms with
which we have experience in the material world. Brahmājī did not perform
such severe types of penance just to see a form of material production.
The form of the Lord is sac-cid-ānanda, or eternal, full of knowledge and
full of bliss. But the material form of the living being is neither
eternal, nor full of knowledge, nor blissful. That is the distinction
between the form of the Lord and that of the conditioned soul. The
conditioned soul, however, can regain his form of eternal knowledge and
bliss simply by seeing the Lord by means of bhakti-yoga.
The summary is that due to ignorance the conditioned soul is encaged in the
temporary varieties of material forms. But the Supreme Lord has no such
temporary form like the conditioned souls. He is always possessed of an
eternal form of knowledge and bliss, and that is the difference between the
Lord and the living entity. One can understand this difference by the
process of bhakti-yoga. Brahmā was then told by the Lord the gist of
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in four original verses. Thus Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is not a
creation of the mental speculators. The sound of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is
transcendental, and the resonance of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is as good as that
of the Vedas. Thus the topic of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the science of
both the Lord and the living entity. Regular reading or hearing of
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is also the performance of bhakti-yoga, and one can
attain the highest perfection simply by the association of
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Both Śukadeva Gosvāmī and Mahārāja Parīkṣit attained
perfection through the medium of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Main point – You can only hear SB and understand the atma tattva – science
of understanding Paramatma and Atma (Living entity). This knowledge is in
no other scripture. SB is the amala purana. In modern education they cancel
Krsna and even if you go to religious school they at least teach some
incomplete knowledge of God. Something is better than nothing.
Living entity – atma, Jiva.
Mayavadis – They have everything confused. They think that jiva becomes
paramatma.
The limit of our free will – accept Krsna’s instructions or reject them.
We can be independent of maya and the laws of nature by becoming pure
devotee. We can never be independent of Krsna.
Misconceptions can be removed by engaging in Bhakti Yoga under the guidance
of pure devotees.
The devotees who actually practice KC as we are supposed to practice –
Regularly hearing BG and SB
First 6 verses of MMS were commented upon by Srila Prabhupada
SŪTRA 3*
mukunda mūrdhnā praṇipatya yāce
bhavantam ekāntam iyantam artham
avismṛtis tvac-caraṇāravinde
bhave bhave me ’stu bhavat-prasādāt
O Lord Mukunda! I bow down my head to Your Lordship and respectfully ask
You to fulfill this one desire of mine: that in each of my future births I
will, by Your Lordship’s mercy, always remember and never forget Your lotus
feet.
The world in which we live is a miserable place. It is, so to speak, a
prison house for the spirit soul. Just as a prisoner cannot move or enjoy
life fully, so the living entities who have been conditioned by the laws of
material nature cannot experience their actual ever-joyful nature. They
cannot have any freedom, because they must suffer four principal
miseries—birth, old age, disease, and death. The laws of material nature
impose this punishment upon the living entities who have forgotten the Lord
and who are busy making plans for lasting happiness in this desert of
distress.
By the mercy of the Lord, the pure devotee knows all this very well.
Indeed, his whole philosophy of life is based on this understanding.
Advancement of knowledge means to understand the naked truth of this world
and to not be deluded by the temporary beauty of this phantasmagoria.
The material nature is not at all beautiful, for it is an “imitation
peacock.” The real peacock is a different thing, and one must have the
sense to understand this. Those who are mad after capturing and enjoying
the imitation peacock, as well as those who have a pessimistic view of the
imitation peacock but lack any positive information of the real
peacock—both are illusioned by the modes of material nature. Those who are
after the imitation peacock are the fruitive workers, and those who simply
condemn the imitation peacock but are ignorant of the real peacock are the
empiric philosophers. Disgusted with the mirage of happiness in the
material desert, they seek to merge into voidness.
But a pure devotee does not belong to either of these two bewildered
classes. Neither aspiring to enjoy the imitation peacock nor condemning it
out of disgust, he seeks the real peacock. Thus he is unlike either the
deluded fruitive worker or the baffled empiricist. He is above these
servants of material nature because he prefers to serve the Lord, the
master of material nature. He seeks the substance and does not wish to give
it up. The substance is the lotus feet of Mukunda, and King Kulaśekhara,
being a most intelligent devotee, prays to gain that substance and not the
shadow.
A pure devotee of Lord Nārāyaṇa, or Mukunda, is not at all afraid of any
circumstance that may befall him. Despite all difficulties, therefore, such
a pure devotee asks nothing from the Lord on his own account. He is not at
all afraid if by chance he has to visit the hellish worlds, nor is he eager
to enter the kingdom of heaven. For him both these kingdoms are like
castles in the air. He is not concerned with either of them, and this is
very nicely expressed by King Kulaśekhara in Text 6.
A pure devotee of the Lord like King Kulaśekhara does not pray to God for
material wealth, followers, a beautiful wife, or any such imitation
peacocks, for he knows the real value of such things. And if by
circumstance he is placed in a situation where he possesses such things, he
does not try to artificially get out of it by condemnation.
Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, a great associate of Lord Caitanya’s, was a
very rich man’s son who had a beautiful wife and all other opulences. When
he first met Lord Caitanya at Pāṇihāṭi, a village about forty miles from
Calcutta, Raghunātha dāsa asked permission from the Lord to leave his
material connections and accompany Him. The Lord refused to accept this
proposal and instructed Raghunātha dāsa that it is useless to leave worldly
connections out of sentimentality or artificial renunciation. One must have
the real thing at heart. If one finds himself entangled in worldly
connections, one should behave outwardly like a worldly man but remain
inwardly faithful for spiritual realization. That will help one on the
progressive march of life. Nobody can cross over the big ocean in a sudden
jump. What was possible for Hanumān by the grace of Lord Rāma is not
possible for an ordinary man. So to cross the ocean of illusion one should
patiently cultivate devotion to the Lord, and in this way one can gradually
reach the other side.
Although a pure devotee does not bother himself about what is going to
happen next in his material situation, he is always alert not to forget his
ultimate aim. King Kulaśekhara therefore prays that he may not forget the
lotus feet of the Lord at any time.
To forget one’s relationship with the Lord and thus to remain overwhelmed
by material hankerings is the most condemned mode of life. This is exactly
the nature of animal life. When the living entity is born in a species of
lower animals, he completely forgets his relationship with the Lord and
therefore remains always busy in the matter of eating, sleeping, fearing,
and mating. Modern civilization promotes such a life of forgetfulness, with
an improved economic condition for eating and so on. Various agents of the
external energy make explicit propaganda to try to root out the very seed
of divine consciousness. But this is impossible to do, because although
circumstances may choke up a living being’s divine consciousness for the
time being, it cannot be killed. In his original identity the living entity
is indestructible, and so also are his original spiritual qualities. One
can kill neither the spirit soul nor his spiritual qualities. To remember
the Lord and desire to serve Him are the spiritual qualities of the spirit
soul. One can curb down these spiritual qualities by artificial means, but
they will be reflected in a perverted way on the mirror of material
existence. The spiritual quality of serving the Lord out of transcendental
affinity will be pervertedly reflected as love for wine, women, and wealth
in different forms. The so-called love of material things—even love for
one’s country, community, religion, or family, which is accepted as a
superior qualification for civilized human beings—is simply a perverted
reflection of the love of Godhead dormant in every soul. The position of
King Kulaśekhara is therefore the position of a liberated soul, because he
does not want to allow his genuine love of God to become degraded into
so-called love for material things.
IF WE CAN RESTRAIN FROM KILLING THE SNAKE WHEN IT IS ABOUT TO BITE IS THAT
LOVE ALL? Or that is a level one has to reach so nothing does matter? KR
IRS 251025
On Sat, 25 Oct 2025 at 18:26, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar*Communicating and Interacting with Other Organisms
>
>
>
> You are not a single organism. There are trillions of bacteria, making
> you, you. When the ‘you’ inhales air, the smell message carrying air
> changes into hormones, travels via the blood stream, the hormones become
> the instructions of coordinated living to all the bacteria constituting
> you. The electromagnetic Brain, photon-synthesizes observations, while the
> Amygdala, gives the emotional feeds or the collective voice of the
> trillions of organisms in you.
>
> Breathing constitutes your living. You smell by breathing. You smell the
> smell messages of the other organisms. You interact with every other
> organism via smelling and sensing. The ‘you ‘or the trillions of bacteria,
> are communicating with each other as a result of your breathing.
>
> When trillions of bacteria can communicate with each other, ultimately via
> the air, will it not be possible to use the same air to communicate with
> the other organisms of the biosphere? You must first feel that you are part
> of the Biosphere, and that emotions bind you to the Biosphere via
> breathing. Then you must accept that the other organism is a being of
> emotions and feelings and that you can breathe, smell and feel the feelings
> of that organism. You have to practice breathing and smelling, and then
> gradually you learn to sort out the smells into smell messages. You learn
> to give smell responses. Gradually your mind also participates in this
> process.
>
> Start by sitting near a tree, and try to smell and sense the messages of
> the tree.
>
> In a big forest, when you adopt this method of communication with the
> other organisms, you swim in a wonderful ocean of approval. That feeling
> becomes your living. Once the human organism could sort out among thousands
> of different smells. The Smell Dictionary was very big.
>
> Today we do not even bother to communicate with nature. We lost our very
> basic faculty of smelling and communicating. We do not even realize that we
> are part of the planet earth. This basic indifference is euphemized as
> scientific temperament.
>
> Just go into a forest, and try to breathe, smell and sense. You can
> experience the real world, the world of emotions and feelings. You begin
> reclaiming your macro personality. And failure leaves your dictionary.
>
> YM Sarma
>
> Chat gpt
>
> That’s a beautifully poetic and philosophically rich passage by *YM Sarma*,
> blending science, spirituality, and ecology into one vision of
> interconnected life. It invites readers to rethink what it means to be “an
> individual” — not as a single entity, but as a *collective organism*
> intertwined with countless others, both within and around us.
>
> Here are a few reflections and interpretations that might help unpack it:
> ------------------------------
>
> *🌿 1. The Collective Self*
>
> The idea that *“you are not a single organism”* is biologically true —
> the human body contains trillions of bacterial cells, outnumbering human
> cells. Sarma expands this scientific fact into a *metaphysical insight*:
> our identity is a *community*, not an isolated “I.” This view echoes
> ecological and Eastern philosophies (like Vedanta or Buddhism), where the
> boundary between self and world dissolves.
> ------------------------------
>
> *💨 2. Breathing as Communication*
>
> Breathing is framed not just as a physical act but as a *medium of
> exchange* — air carrying “smell messages,” hormones, and emotions between
> beings. In a way, this anticipates the modern study of *chemical
> signaling* (pheromones, plant volatiles, etc.), but it’s also symbolic of
> empathy: *to breathe with* is to *be with* the world.
> ------------------------------
>
> *🌳 3. Smell and the Forgotten Language of Nature*
>
> The author laments the *loss of our olfactory sensitivity*, which once
> connected us deeply to the environment. The “Smell Dictionary” here is a
> metaphor for our lost ability to interpret the world’s subtle emotional and
> energetic cues. Smelling becomes a practice of *relearning belonging* —
> to “breathe, smell and sense” is to remember we are part of the living
> Earth.
> ------------------------------
>
> *💫 4. The Emotional Ecology*
>
> Sarma suggests that *emotion is not exclusive to humans* — that trees,
> animals, bacteria, and even ecosystems possess feeling or responsive
> presence. When we open our senses, we enter an *“ocean of approval”* — a
> field of mutual resonance that sustains life.
> ------------------------------
>
> *🌍 5. The Philosophical Challenge*
>
> The passage critiques what Sarma calls the “scientific temperament” — not
> science itself, but its detachment from emotional and sensory connection to
> life. True knowing, he suggests, must also involve *feeling* and
> *communing*, not merely analyzing.
> ------------------------------
>
> *🌸 6. The Practice*
>
> The invitation at the end is experiential:
>
> “Sit near a tree, and try to smell and sense the messages of the tree.”
>
> This is a kind of *eco-meditation* — regaining empathy through sensory
> presence. It’s reminiscent of forest bathing (*shinrin-yoku*), a practice
> shown to reduce stress and heighten awareness of the living world.
> ------------------------------
>
> Would you like me to help you *summarize* this text in a concise form
> (for study or presentation), or would you prefer a *creative reflection
> or response* inspired by it (for example, a poem or essay)?
>
>
>
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> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHC%2BB5Ej3U-QXQDxc%2BBZOP%3Dt6juaQru4igNkDTAvz-7_a6Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
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