Spiritual Love

"There are different states of God realization. The idea of merging into God or entering into the all-pervading oneness, beyond this temporary existence, is a very preliminary partial understanding of God realization. That type of mukti, or salvation, or nirvana, is to be completely free from the sufferings of this world, and to enter a state of total peace. You're really non-existent as far as a personality. You're simply resting in an atmosphere of utter peace. Yes?

But a higher realization of the Absolute is love. What is higher peace or love? To some people they may want peace. But actually peace is the negation of all disturbances. Just like when you fall asleep, you're peaceful because you forget everything. When you have a nightmare it's different, but when you're just sleeping it's very peaceful because everything is forgotten. When you go into a deep state of meditation you enter a state where you're oblivious to the world. There's peace. And this is a spiritual realization that type of peace.

But a more complete and full spiritual realization is love or prema. Prema is ecstatic. It's actually a higher ecstasy to suffer for your beloved than to be in peace. Because even in suffering for, on a spiritual platform, suffering for God is an expression of very, very deep love. And it transcends and goes beyond even the peace of oneness.

So yes, we should understand that the real craving of the heart is for this love. Spiritual love."

-His Holiness Radhanath Swami Maharaja