In the story of Radhe Krishna, we discovered why they descended upon earth and how their story taught us love that’s boundless and eternal. However, since Radha was under the curse, and in her human form, Krishna had to first teach love to her and make her free of all the evils. This would in turn make her free to love and set her example in front of the world. In this blog, we discuss the evils and why getting rid of them is important for us to know true love.

Fear (Bhay)
Fear is one of the most empowering yet crippling qualities to have. Fear of failure might lead us to reach great heights, but the same fear of losing it all might keep us trapped inside a bubble, unable to move. Fear comes in many forms. ‘What will people say’ being the most common, ‘What if I hurt someone through my actions’ a little less common, fear of commitment, confrontation, getting hurt emotionally or physically, fear of life, fear of death and don’t even get us started on the phobias. These fears keep us bounded and unable to love freely because unless your love is fearless, it can’t be free and unless it’s free, it can’t be love. It can be an attachment at best.

Speaking of attachment, we come to the next evil.

Attachment (Moh)
Remember your favorite childhood toy? You wouldn’t go anywhere without it, talk to it, and even sleep with it. As the years passed and you finally gave it up or it got lost in shifting homes, you either cried when you lost it or were already over it. You were attached to that toy. Now, attachment isn’t that bad a thing, except, it makes you incapable of loving. It often disguises as love and is short term. Say a few years maybe, or sometimes just a few months. Love is eternal on the other hand. So attachment is the evil you need to be most careful of because you never know if you are in love with a person or just attached to them. Find out, the sooner you do, the better for you. Because if you are just attached to someone, you might get angry at them as well, speaking of which…

Anger (Krodh)
While enough has been spoken about anger, multiple seminars on anger management, acts of violence – domestic or outdoors, outrage, wars, and what not, anger remains one of the most popular evils and also a roadblock on the path to love. Here, it’s important to understand the reason for anger. Say if you are angry because your partner hasn’t been taking care of themselves, then that’s anger out of love and you’d scold them and take care of them. If you are angry with your child because they aren’t doing something productive then that’s out of love as well. But if you are angry at someone because they aren’t living according to your ‘standards of life’ of they did something that triggers you, then that’s anger out of hatred and needs to be destroyed before it’s even born. Bringing us to our next evil,

Hatred (Ghreena)
Hatred or disgust rises from a similar emotion of disapproval. When you become true love, hatred, disgust, or disapproval of anything doesn’t arise because you become all accepting and all-loving of everything that exists in this universe. You start feeling the love of the creator in every creature and living being whether it’s a lizard or a beautiful lady. There is no difference whatsoever. Please note, this doesn’t mean you can go and kiss a lizard (read that in bold J) but it does mean that you can appreciate a lizard for what it is and respect its space and life. It is very important for one to get rid of hatred because where hatred resides, love can’t and where there is true love, hatred doesn’t arise. Hatred also leads to jealousy which brings us to our next evil

Jealousy (Irshya)
Bhala uske baal mere baalon se sundar kaise? (How can her hair be more beautiful than mine?) This common comparison is one of the most basic examples of jealousy. Comparing ourselves to others, getting jealous of their success, and wanting their bad so we can rise up is one of the lowliest things that we as humans can do. Yes, we all want to be successful, we all want to be at the top and we all want to lead a great life. But instead of being jealous of other’s success, we can simply take inspiration from them and strive to do better than we are currently doing. Here, it’s also important to understand how jealousy is one of the biggest enemies of love. The second name of love is freedom. How can we ever truly love someone and have them experience freedom if we are jealous of every person who comes close to them? But our fragile yet huge egos can’t take it, can they? Speaking of which,

Ego (Ahankar)
Ego and self-respect have a very thin line differentiating them. When you refuse to let someone use you over and over again, that’s self-respect but when you don’t call someone back because they forgot to call you, then that’s ego. And that precisely is also why; the ego has no place in love. Because when you love someone, you don’t care if they forgot to call you back, you call them back and you are concerned about them. Also, when two people are truly in love, their individualities cease to exist. They are submerged in each other and become one person. They don’t care what their names are any more or whose name is put before and who’s after. You can call them lovebirds for all their lives and they will be happy. It’s also important to understand here that ego arises of our last evil, inferiority complex.

Inferiority complex (Heenbhavana)
The last but one of the most dangerous evils that stop us from loving freely and truly is the inferiority complex. Thinking that we aren’t enough for our partner is also somehow one of the most relatable issues modern-day lovers face amongst others. Inferiority complex also becomes a superiority complex without us even realizing it and we end up feeling our partners aren’t enough for us – both being equally twisted and dangerous. This belief keeps us in constant doubt and that’s ironic. We end up believing so firmly in our shortcomings that we can never believe in our partner’s love for us. We are constantly asking for validation and are constantly asking them why they love us. This behavior keeps intensifying until one day either the relationship breaks, or the partners do.

So to be able to love truly, one needs to get rid of these evils by looking their fears in the face, understanding the difference between attachment and love, destroying the base of their anger, accepting the world for the wonder it is, letting themselves and their partners free, adopting humility and lastly, being incomplete and true love with themselves. The last part won’t be so difficult once you take care of the first 6.

However, it is always easier said than done. So by all means surrender yourself to a spiritual Guru and help them help you experience true love.