Love Without Awareness of Greatness Is Mere Passion
Narada distinguishes true devotion from ordinary infatuation: without awareness of God's greatness, love is no different from worldly lust.
Continuing in Sutra 23, Narada warns: 'Tad-vihinam jaranam iva' — 'Love devoid of awareness of His greatness would be like the love of a paramour.' Without the dimension of reverence and recognition of the Divine, even intense feeling toward God degenerates into mere selfish passion. The defining mark of bhakti is that it is directed toward the supreme reality and saturated with awareness of its holiness. This sharp comparison guards the ideal of love from being confused with sentimentality or self-serving emotion. Narada insists that the quality of love depends entirely on the worthiness and recognized greatness of its object — true devotion elevates the lover precisely because it is fixed upon the highest.
Love devoid of awareness of His greatness would be like the love of a paramour.
Narada's distinction recalls the philosophical claim that the moral worth of love depends partly on the worth of its object, so that love of the highest good ennobles in a way that lesser attachments cannot.
Narada Bhakti Sutras
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- What the Narada Bhakti Sutras say about desire
Feeling strongly about God is not yet devotion. Without reverence, Narada says, the intensity is only appetite pointed at a different object.