Vedanta Theory of Prema (Love) II
Brahman causes the sky, air, fire, water, earth and life. Because we inherently owe our existence to them and all the creation helps in our living one way or the other, we call all manifestations of Brahman as Madhu. We worship them and pray their grace for our benefit. We love them and they return our love by keeping us alive. We enter a mystery of survival, death and possible rejuvenation through the enactment of our life.
Once certain part of the universe is manifested, Brahman becomes Satyam, abbreviated to Sat, the Truth. Truth is what exists eternally. All truth may not be visible, some parts of truth are deduced and some parts are believed. Whatever Brahman has or is, it's Sat. Because Brahman is also Madhu, whatever we think is not helpful to living we call with a negative word Asat. In the theory of Brahman all is Sat. It may be said that it creates Asat to magnify Sat. The snakes and tigers also have a space in the universe.
The logic of what should be created and how the universe might be sustained creates knowledge, vijnAna. Brahman knows what's created and what rules are applied in order to create. It has the ability to understand and deduce. This attribute of Brahman by means of which it creates and examines each object and determines the course for everything in the universe is called Chit. It is translated in English as consciousness, but it's not strictly correct. Chit is that power by which future decisions are made and the new knowledge is created. It's the cosmic signature. Human beings spend their lives in pursuing Chit, and it remains always further away. We in our own turn are endowed with Chit, about which I will write when I talk about the creation process.
When Brahman succeeds in creating the objects and the rules and is able to sustain the universe, it develops the attribute of Ananda, joy. The sun shines, the rivers flow, the air blows, the flowers blossom and life is sustained. Brahman knows all the rules and is always a winner. Ananda is the attribute Brahman has by nurturing what it created. Ananda is the only direct manifestation we relate to. It's the Ananda mode that we observe and call it Madhu. The human goal becomes to immerse ourselves in this cosmic Ananda, and our reciprocation of it becomes our Prema (love). More we contemplate, more we get. Hence the phrase, knowledge is Ananda. Ananda is the bridge between Brahman and us and we build this bridge with Prema (love), a human attribute.
So we call Sai as sacchidAnanda sadguru, the divine teacher manifesting attributes of Brahman, the Sat-Chit-Ananda!
If we understand so far, we have to comprehend that joy is a necessary condition of love, the latter is an external manifestation of the internal joy. The phrase "unconditional love" is indeed this joyous mood that contains the individual.
A practical question comes as to how we attain that joyous mood. The path to joy is acceptance. We accept all and everything. This is not easily done since our view and reach are limited. One thing we can practice is that nobody is our enemy, we are friendly to all. Friendship on earth is the manifestation of our latent spirituality. Hence the tradition of hospitality, respect to the strangers and kindness to all objects have been the moral duties. More friendly we are, more joyous we are; more joyous we are, more loving we are. The root of love is friendship. This is the concept of SriKrishna becoming a sakhA to Arjuna in the Gita.