Q: And what is that you learned when you finally got to travel through India?
Radhanath Swami: My spiritual teacher Srila Prabhupada and many of the great teachers throughout history have taught us that pure love of God and genuine compassion for all living beings is dormant within the heart of all of us. It is our spiritual essence. The body and the mind are temporary, they are always changing. But the atma, the soul, is eternal. It is sat-chit-ananda, full of knowledge and full of bliss. And that bliss is the bliss of feeling the inconceivable, unlimited love of God and reciprocating by offering our love to God.
That love for God, that compassion for all living beings is like a seed within our heart. And every great spiritual process is to cultivate and water that seed. Activities that create weeds around that seed, activities that impede the growth of that seed, we are taught to avoid as far as possible. That meaning immorality, arrogance, violence to other living beings, unnecessary greed, illicit activities that are harmful to ourselves and others—if we avoid those things, by experience higher pleasures, spiritual pleasures that invigorate our minds and enlighten our souls, then that seed grows into a beautiful flower: the flower of pure spiritual love, of Bhakti. And that is the fulfillment and pleasure that every living being is looking for.
The most fundamental need of every living being is to love and be loved. And that need finds its perfection in the love between God and ourselves and in the love between the pure spirit in others and ourselves. And really that is the greatest need in the whole world.
