Controversial but worth a reading...

[On 8 November 1948, Nathuram Godse (19 May 1910-15 November 1949) rose to make his statement in court. Reading quietly from a typed manuscript, he sought to explain why he had killed Gandhi. His thesis covered ninety-pages, and he was on his feet for five hours. Godse's statement, excerpted below, should be read by citizens and scholars in its entirely, for it provides an insight into his personality and his understanding of the concept of Indian nationhood – Editor]

"Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus are of equal status as to rights, social and religious, and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession.

I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Vaishyas, Kshatriyas, Chamars and B-----s participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely what Veer (brave) Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other factor has done.

All this thinking and reading led me to believe that it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (three hundred million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and well-being of all India, one fifth of the human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanatanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the National Independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well. Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokmanya Tilak, Gandhi's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme.

His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to these slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a dream if you imagine the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust.

I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. (In the Ramayana) Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. (In the Mahabharata) Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations, including the revered Bhishma, because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed the total ignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essential for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Govind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhi has merely exposed his self-conceit.

He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them. The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good work in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there.

But when he finally returned to India, he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on in his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the Civil Disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin it and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus the Mahatma became the judge and the jury in his own case. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his policies were irrational, but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility, Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, and disaster after disaster. Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly illustrated in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language.
In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi, but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language in India called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, not written. It is a tongue and a crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and the purity of the Hindi language were to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards, the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with little retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them.

Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Stork followed King Log. The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and secularism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian Territory became foreign land to us from 15 August 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in the Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had.

The official date for the handing over of power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what the Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called it 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we considered a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed some conditions on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any conditions on the Muslims.

He was fully aware from past experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he has failed in his paternal duty inasmuch he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power, his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled against Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw that I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I thought that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be practical, able to retaliate and would be powerful with the armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me or dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason, which I consider necessary for sound nation-building.

After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds in Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually, but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.

I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preaching and deeds are at times at variance with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone should beg for mercy on my behalf.

My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof someday in future."
Nathuram Godse was hanged a year later, on 15 November 1949; as per his last wishes, his family and followers have preserved his ashes for immersion in the Indus River of a re-united India

Heart Failure

(World Hearts’ Day)

Written by Professor B. M. Hegde,

hegdebm@gmail.com

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Old proverb.

The world seems to be suffering from heart failure in our medical jargon. Heart failure is not stopping of the heart but only a defective functioning of the heart. When one contemplates on the world affairs today one quickly realises that all players in this world have become heartless. Heartless politicians, heartless businessmen, heartless media, heartless doctors, heartless judiciary, heartless lawyers, scientists, technologists, bureaucrats, administrators, educators and, even, heartless ritualistic religions and NGOs abound all around us. While we have people who love trees and animals we hardly have people who selflessly love humanity. No one wants to look at any problem in its entirety. While we talk of terrorism and war we never think as to who created terrorism in the first place and also that wars are born in the minds of heartless men. Our biggest problem seems to be man’s cruelty to man in the name of religion, race, caste, creed, nation, colour, and what have you. With man’s proclivity for comfort and greed all the God given resources of this world are being systematically destroyed heartlessly.

Let us start a movement to awaken the younger generation, who are non converts, to realize their responsibility to others in society and learn to live while letting others live as well. Let the younger generation be taught to inject heart into every one of their actions keeping in mind that the highest goal in life is humanism. Humanism is a concept that gives the pride of place to mankind in all endeavours. Sharing and caring should be our twin goals as long as we live. In fact, there is a new positive definition of health, not the usual negative definitions of absence of disease etc. “Enthusiasm to work and enthusiasm to be compassionate in this hostile world is health.” With this definition one can be healthy as long as he/she lives.

With this in view we would want to start a movement on the Valentine’s Day, February 12^th, for reasons more than one. Most young people all over the world already celebrate this day to send their heart with an arrow to their sweet hearts. We would only want them to extend this gesture to the whole of humanity most sincerely. In this case the heart, which is globally round in most pictures, will have a man sitting of the top trying to give a hand to another at the bottom falling off the cliff! Man helping man signal. Let us remind our younger generation that there is enough for man’s need in this world but not for man’s greed. Where one can sleep four can sit. Where one can sit two can stand. Some of our corporate honcho’s houses can accommodate thousand people easily.

840 million in this world do not get more than one meal a day. 67 million Indian children suffer from malnutrition and die at the rate of 6000 per day due to Nutritional Immune Deficiency Syndrome (NIDS). One example of heartless science and politics is here. Whereas 33 millions AIDS sufferers get $ 8 billion in research grant from NIH in the US alone, 67 million in India (an equal number elsewhere) of NIDS are not even known to majority of medical doctors. Reason is not far to seek. Anyone worth his salt calls himself an AIDS researcher as there is big money for grant. No body researches poverty and its ravages on human health because drug companies do not fund such research to break their own rice bowl! In fact, poverty is the mother of all illnesses, as it saps the most important human guard against any disease-the immune system.

One million people in the Indian State of Karnataka alone belong to no body. They do not even have a caste certificate to be included in the much publicized BPL (below poverty line) list. They live a gypsy life begging around using their skills in road side tricks of walking on the rope etc, or going from house to house with a bull begging, going round as fortune forecasters or as snake charmers. They do not have proper food and clothing and education is alien to them. How do we claim ourselves to be civilized when we close our eyes to all these atrocities with an ostrich like attitude in life? When you CAN voice your concern about the wrong doings in society, if you do not, you are as much a criminal as a terrorist is. While the world has shrunk to a small neighborhood mankind is yet to broaden its vision to make into a large brotherhood!

Arise, awake and, sleep not, YOUNG INDIA, until this goal is achieved. Technology alone will not make India great. Science does not make it great, either. Politicians, bureaucrats, business tycoons, and powers that be do not make India great. What WILL make India, nay this whole world, great is only humanism and to that end let us start the World Hearts’ Day. It is not enough to just have a day in a year where we talk and then do not walk our talk in life. Every day must be a hearts’ day in every individual’s life in whatever walk of life he/she is in.

“Like the daisy, with the shadow that it casts, protecting the lingering dew drops from the sun,” mankind must blossom every morning to protect the less fortunate in society. Future generations should strive to be world citizens, men and women beyond borders. Noblesse oblige-haves have an obligation to society to look after the have-nots. That will cure this world of its serious heart failure. Most of us might need a real heart transplant to achieve that cure although, the majority will make do with a small dose of medical advice. Have a heart!

“Have the courage to act instead of react.”

Earlene Larson Jenks.

The above idea was strengthened in me after I received a note from an unknown Canadian friend, Dr. Vivian Rambihar, who wrote the following note after he read my comments in the British Medical Journal recently entitled Noblesse Oblige.

(Thank you very much and I could not agree more with inclusive education.

I know of some of your ideas and some of the work you have done over the decades and while it may not have had the impact you wished, it is not without impact and is inspirational. Your ideas and actions have changed the world, but there is so much to do and maybe there is a serious limit to what can be achieved. 

The important thing here is that you think heart in your actions. Just came from a lecture on "Who in the world cares?"  And you do and continue to seek change.  So we just try and see if we can get more people to care more, and hopefully we would do some good. And perhaps the ideas in chaos and complexity can be harnessed to achieve more.

We can also dare to suggest that much of world problems like poverty, etc is a failure of heart, lack of caring and consideration for others. If more people think heart, we would find the food to feed the people who are starving and ill and in need of medications and education, etc. The Noblesse Oblige BMJ post was short but very touching. Reading that led me to think and also rethink what we do and can do and led me to the idea that the world has a failure of heart.  It's heart failure we have to treat, tapping into a cardiology vocabulary. And that's not easy, so we keep trying, experimenting with new ways that hopefully may achieve more. And if we can find the heart, we can find the way.

If all we achieve is get people to think, or better yet rethink the world in the ways you describe, we would have achieved something.)

Of love and like...

Fortunately or unfortunately I have seen life to the extremes. By ‘extreme’ I meant things which are not appropriate for my age. After all life is the same for everybody but for a select few like me things tend to be mistimed. But not always I had this kind of maturity to not to curse. I struggled as anybody would. I had only the advantage of mishaps happening in rapidity because of which I became immune to the negative effects. As I faced emotional breakdowns, I quickly regrouped my spirits together. Or rather I should put- I was compelled to do so by the turbulences in succession.

In this course I tried to find out the logic behind everything that happens in life. My obsession with math might have contributed to this. I made the greatest discovery of my life in this quest. Every phenomenon in life obeys causality. It’s only because of the presence of so many variables one often gets perplexed (which in Vedic terms became the ‘maya’ or ‘leela’ of life). Humans, being social animals depend on others for survival. In this process everyone makes a deal or two with every other individual one encounters. The extent of every deal is directly proportional to the quantum of the need (Quality being the decider of the dimension of calculation). In mathematical terms deals obey linear math.

Deal ∝f(need)

Deal=K (need)

need∝f(essentials for survival)

If avialability of survival essentials>threshold=>comfort

K is the constant dependent on the quality of the need

Almost every thinker from Karl Marx to Lenin observed the human life from this perspective and they discovered socialism which happens to be the idealized version of the above equation i.e. they tried to eliminate the selfishness from the equation. But unfortunately it didn’t materialize. The more one tried to resist selfishness in one dimension, with more immensity it showed up in the other. This was exactly the reason why socialism as a way of life failed. Having researched the raise and demise of socialism, I tried to device a model which can plug the holes in the socialist theory.

You must probably be counting the loosened bolts in my brain by now! But all that I said till now is very much relevant to my understanding life. Every facet of my life was troubled by the selfishness of every person I interacted with and I mean everyone literally including my mother. I asked myself the same question you probably must be willing to ask now. How can a mother be selfish with her own children?

To answer it frankly I should ask- Why not? After all a mother is a human being and selfishness in one way is nature’s way of making humans imperfect. Yes! It’s the imperfection in us which makes who we are. Otherwise I don’t think that humans wouldn’t have invented Gods. (By saying this I’m not trying to be an atheist. My perception of divinity follows a totally different perspective from what is usually in vogue). To understand this dilemma one should probably define selfishness. Selfishness is the essence of any deal. It’s the sum total of all the innate shortcomings a human being possesses. It’s the exact reason behind every deal one makes. As I explained earlier, all the deals follow linear logic.

There exists a totally different side to human nature. This side doesn’t follow linear math. The nature of this side can’t be written in equations. The sum total of this side constitutes love. Selfishness is a tool of nature to introduce imperfection in life so as to create the dynamic equilibrium and love happens to be the exact opposite which continuously nullifies the effects of the former. Ethics are the outcomes of the long term observations of this struggle. But what is Love? Innumerable souls tried to define it in innumerable ways but still Love evades definition. Why?! The answer is simple- Because love doesn’t follow linear logic. Rational human mind can never understand it. Love defies all the logic. ‘Transcendental’ is the term which does some justice to express the nature of love. To approximate in rational argument, love is the cement which binds every relation. Be cautious! Relation is a totally different entity from deal and both obey different types of logic; hence the functionality of each is at diverse poles. But again relations are of numerous types, each conditioned by the need in question which again is the manifestation of human selfishness. Relations may be of different types but the binding essence, the love is the same.

As I said earlier love defies all logic. It is the limit to human understanding. Just as in the equation E=mc2, the term ‘c’ which happens to be the limit of human observational power, love is the limit to human psyche. Its presence is always felt in a relation but can never be expressed in words nor can it be quantified. Because of this peculiar feature the expressions more love, less love, this kind of love, that kind of love so on and so forth are obsolete, speaking in the strictest sense. What one exactly means by those is nothing but the quantum or quality of the need. To put in the simple words, as long as a relationship exists, there shall be love.

Here comes the paradox. Every relation stands on the slack sand of social deals by virtue of needs; so all the relations are wobbly. But we do see that relations such as those between siblings, parents, spouses and friends are mostly stable. Even though the biological continuity partially explains the former three, the latter evades explanation. Here is where we find the magnificence of human psyche which made us what we are- namely ‘choice’. To elucidate choice, I have to strain the gray cells.

Everything in the universe follows a set of rules which we otherwise call the laws of physics. This inherent nature of everything results in certain orderliness. But nature is nothing but the summation of innumerable orderly systems interacting with each other at mind boggling rates and in countless dimensions. This phenomenon is known as ‘chaos’. Chaotic systems follow non linear math which in simple words means that trends can be observed even though unpredictability is the rule.

Choice is a peculiar aspect of life. To understand choice first one has to understand the basic aspects of psyche. Lets start with- consciousness. One can’t define exactly what consciousness is. It’s a subjective feeling which we all feel. If we apply this consciousness in broad sense, we can observe this in everything around, not only in living but also in non living. It sounds strange but I give a simple example. Imagine what happens when we pour water on a rough inclined surface. Naturally the water flows down because of gravity. What I am interested in is the particular way the water takes to reach the bottom. As it is a rough surface, obviously there is a lot of resistance and the water takes a tortuous path. Every time the water stream encounters an obstacle, it changes its path, where it has least resistance and it ultimately reaches the bottom of the inclined surface. On can’t predict the way taken by the water just by gravity alone or by the average resistance offered by the rough inclined surface. We have to know the exact position and the quantity of resistance offered by each obstacle. We have to know the angle at which the water was pour and the exact point at which the water touches the surface. By all these we can tell that the path taken by the water is sensitive to initial conditions. Let’s examine this from a different angle. Who has told the water to take that particular path? Who guided the water to the least resistance direction? The sum total effects of physical forces acting upon water answer the former questions. Hence we can say that the water also possessed a level of consciousness may be in the form of obedience to the laws of physics (Newton’s Laws of Mechanics in this case).

Suppose ‘X’ is a set of physical forces progressing freely in all possible directions. ‘Y’ is another set which is opposing the progression of set X in an environment represented by set ‘Z’. ‘Y’ in fact is a superset which has all X primes. (I mean X like things). X possessed consciousness by virtue of the interaction of it with Y and Z and the progression of set X is modulated by both Y and Z. If by some changes in the configuration of set X, if the set X were to progress in some or all directions in spite of the presence of sets Y and Z, we can say that X has “life” and that quality which led X to take over the opposing forces of Y and Z can said to be intelligence.

Intelligence is nothing but the ability of every living organism to make a random choice. Life differs from everything else in this aspect. All the physical systems are the victims of the nature’s causality by virtue of the dependence on physical laws which is inevitable. But life has the ability to make a random choice independent of the nature’s frame work in spite of being dependent on the same for the existence and this quality is present in various life forms in various dimensions. But how we humans are special? The answer is simple. Our intelligence retroactively influences our consciousness i.e. we have ‘Insight’. ‘Intelligence’ gave us life and ‘In sight’ gave us identity.

The term universal love is only possible with humans just because of the in sight. If we only make a choice we can love anybody or anything (It’s the imperfection inherent in us which prevents us from doing so). Friendship is a perfect example of a relation which is not dependent on biological continuity (Relations created out of biological continuity are seen in every species. So in my view friendship is definitely a matured relationship).

The eeriness of love takes us to strange places. Anyone of our senses alone can’t perceive the exact nature of it. It is only understood when all our senses work in unison with our consciousness. Mathematically ‘art’ is nothing but the expression of love. And Kahlil Gibran paints it to perfection in the following verse-

“When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips”

I think nothing else summarizes ‘love’ better than this poem. As Rigveda aptly quoted- “Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti!”