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The basis for the entire world is the prema (divine love) of the Lord. Even if one is able to get by heart the essence of all the Vedas (sacred teachings) and even if one is able to compose poetry in a very attractive manner, if that person does not have a purified heart, he is a useless person. What other greater truth can I communicate to you?

Summer Roses on the Blue Mountains 1976, p.99

The world is the field in which love grows and is harvested. It is a battlefield of the senses, where the play of good and evil is acted out. Love vies against the selfish desires of the ego. The reality of unity struggles to overcome the illusion of separateness. The experience of selfless love reveals God in the individual and within all creatures.

Love is the word which indicates the striving to realize the falsehood of the many and the reality of the One. Love identifies; hate separates. Love transposes the self on to another and the two think, speak, and act as one. When love takes in more and more within its fold, more and more entities are rendered as One. When you love me, you love all, for you begin to feel and know and experience that I am in all.

Sathya Sai Speaks 7, p.473

Unitive love is the fulfillment of life. It expresses itself as identification with all, for as we grow in spiritual awareness, we expand the bounds of our compassion. We start by loving ourselves, then our family, community, and nation. However, true love is gained only when we see through all false distinctions. When we see God in all creation, we cease to selectively love only some and not others. This awareness fulfills life’s promise.

The Earth is a great enterprise, a busy factory, where the product is love. By means of sadhana (spiritual practice), it is possible to produce love and export it to millions and millions of people in need of it. The more it is shared, the deeper it becomes, the sweeter its taste, and the vaster the joy. By means of love, one can approach God and stay in his presence, for God is love, and when one lives in love he is living in God.

Sathya Sai Speaks 7, p.395

2. How Do We Cultivate Love?

To grow flowers, we must first clear a plot of ground. To grow love, we must clear the weeds of attachment and greed from our hearts. Soil must be watered and fertilized. The heart must be prepared by learning compassion for all. When the tender shoots of service and devotion sprout, they must be kept free of the insects of egoism.

We start by expressing love toward God as we would to a mother or father, brother or sister. But with time we see that there is no limit to the attributes and manifestations of God. The world is created from and is the substance of God. And so we begin to recognize God in all and express love as service and sympathy for those in need. With time, we feel the joys and sorrows of others as our own. By serving others, we revere God within them and draw closer to the source.

Love is God, God is love. Where there is love, there God is certainly evident. Love more and more people, love them more and more intensely. Transform the love into service, transform the service into worship. That is the highest sadhana.

Sathya Sai Speaks 4, p.309

Service is the natural expression of love in action. When our hearts are distressed at the suffering of others, we have no choice but to alleviate that suffering. That is the true test of love. Service is rendered as to a friend, not as a duty. Service is performed as a token of love and humility, gladly given.

Love is not an obligation; it is an expression of our inner divinity. Service should not be performed with the idea of one serving and another being served. Selfless service is a natural expression of love, given joyfully and spontaneously. Love is our nature; it is the fountain of divinity, our inner source, identity, and potential.

When you live with the consciousness of the omnipresent atma (inner divinity), you live in love, love flowing and flooding in and through you and all else.

Sathya Sai Speaks 7, p.25

To experience the flood of love requires spiritual practice. It is acquired by purification of character. The prerequisites to experience divine love are truthfulness, nonviolence, inner peace, and adherence to duty. When we live a virtuous and moral life, we can experience selfless love.

If we really want to experience prema, we will have to understand what peace, or shanti, means. If we want to follow the path of peace, we will have to accept the path of dharma (spiritual duty). If we want to follow the path of dharma, we will have to accept the path of truth.

Summer Showers 1977, p.60

3. The Vision of Unity

Saintly men and women reach beyond their own small worlds to grasp universal values. They seek higher and further for the principles which benefit all. Their visions for humanity germinate in hearts full of love. Their ideals are nurtured on the milk of truth and the bread of duty.

They grow strong in the shelter of inner peace. Their strength is inner divinity realized through a pure heart.

The pinnacle of spiritual attainment is realization of the atma. The qualities of this divine nature are being-consciousness-bliss, experienced with divine love as truth. At the summit of realization, these qualities meet at a common point, which is beyond description. So to reach the height of love, one must also reach the apex of wisdom, sense of duty, and peace. These qualities are present within each of us, but are hidden by the dark clouds of egoism. Sathya Sai Baba says that these divine qualities are like the sun: they always shine within us, but are often hidden by clouds of selfishness.

The Upanishads say that man is a spark of divine love encased in five sheaths…That love is ever urging and surging for expression, enlargement, and enclasping. But the tangles of fear, greed, egoism, and aggrandizement do not allow the spark to grow and illumine the sheaths, as well as the world around.

Sathya Sai Speaks 7, p.324

When we foster divine love within, the dark clouds disperse. Through love, self-realization is achieved. When we love God, we will not do anything to remove ourselves from the source of love. God wields the instrument of love to transform and reform us into the image of the divine.

One should not fear God. One must love him so much that all acts he disapproves are discarded. Fear to do wrong; fear to hate another; fear losing grace.

Sathya Sai Speaks 6, p.179

4. God Is Won by Love

In all the world’s religions, we find no saints who attained God by means of their scholarship; we find no saints who realized the Lord by means of good deeds alone. Love is the price for admission to God’s presence. If we have love in abundance, no other requirement is needed. Love unites the individual with divinity. Through love, we gain nearness to God. Wisdom or austerities alone cannot enable us to achieve realization of our goal.

Cultivate love and prema towards all: that is the way to gain nearness. I do not measure distance in terms of meters or miles. The range of love decides distance for me.

Sathya Sai Speaks 6, p.263

Love reveals and is the presence of God. Love is the light by which his face is lit. If we wish to know and experience God, we must learn love for God’s creatures. We cannot express devotion to God without also loving his creation. When we experience the source of love within, we view the world through the glasses of love.

I must tell you of the paramount importance of love. Love is God; live in love. God is the embodiment of perfect love. He can be known and realized, reached and won, only through love. You can see the moon only with the help of moonlight; you can see God only through the rays of love.

Sathya Sai Speaks 8, pp.181-182

Sathya Sai Baba teaches us a short prescription that enables us to reach the goal.

Start the day with love
Spend the day with love
Fill the day with love
End the day with love
That is the way to God

Sathya Sai Speaks 8, p.73

Questions for Study Circle:

What is the love?
How is love cultivated?
Why develop love?
How is love expressed?
What is the true test of love?
Is love emotional or unreasonable?
Can love exist without being expressed?
Can God be known without cultivating love?
What is so special about love?
Can we love God without loving other people?
Where does love come from?

References for Further Study:

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12.
Sathya Sai Speaks 1, p.43 (The Lord is reflected in the heart with love).
Sathya Sai Speaks 6, p.86 (Love is the distinguishing mark of Sai).
Sathya Sai Speaks 6, p.225 (The atma expresses itself as love).
Sathya Sai Speaks 9, p.107 (God is bound to you by love).
Sathya Sai Speaks 11, p.99 (The glasses of love make everything appear as love).
Sathya Sai Speaks 11, p.239 (To experience love you must throw away desire).
Summer Showers 1974, p.107 (If one has on the glasses of love, all appears as love).
Summer Showers 1976, pp.106-111.
Summer Roses on the Blue Mountains, p.107 (Love is the only way to reach and understand God).