12.13: Loving as much as our heart longs

The Bhagavad-gita (12.13) indicates that a devotee who loves Krishna expands his love to the fullest potential by loving all living beings – as does Krishna himself (5.29).

Our heart’s love constantly longs to rush forth to an object worthy for our love. But as long as our love is directed towards any material object or person, we find the flow of our love checked and constrained by two often-subconscious fears:

1. Limited love: We limit the love that we offer to anyone due to the fear that our love may be at worst rejected insensitively or at best reciprocated inadequately.
2. Limiting love: We also fear that focusing our love on one person may limit our capacity to love others.

However, when we consciously and consistently offer our love to Krishna, we gradually discover that our love breaks free from these two limitations because:

1. Krishna notices attentively and reciprocates perfectly with our offerings of love by flooding our heart with fulfilling and energizing waves of love.
2. Krishna being the source of everyone and everything encompasses all of existence, so the love that we offer to him doesn’t stay stuck with him, but returns through him to embrace as many living beings as our heart desires.

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One who is not envious but is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor and is free from false ego, who is equal in both happiness and distress, who is tolerant, always satisfied, self-controlled, and engaged in devotional service with determination, his mind and intelligence fixed on Me – such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me.