The Greatest Romance

In the dark and late of night, on the eve of St. Valentine's Day, I listen to classic love songs sung passionately by Natalie Cole - delicious lyrics wafting in and out of my ears, stirring deeply in my heart and soul, bringing to mind so many treasured love songs, as I lose myself in these lines I now hear and once sang - eliciting memories of my greatest and most poignant experiences of human love - of loving most fully and deeply - moments calling me into greater union with Divine Love...So many feelings, freely flowing like a stream of emotional consciousness, transporting me from where I am into higher states and planes...

"Even though its been so long
my love for you keeps going strong
I remember the things that
we used to do...
I try to deny it but I'm still in love with you
I miss you like crazy..."

"I never thought I could make it
I can't believe the hell I've through
Couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel
I didn't know what to do

I've been through the rain
I've been through the fire
There was something that I never knew...

I had an Angel on my shoulder
with a plan for me divine...
Who was right there all the time..."

"When I fall in love,
it will be forever...
When I give my heart,
it will be completely..."

"I have seen the bluest skies
Rainbows that would make you cry
I have seen miracles that moved my soul
Days that changed my life

I have seen the brightest stars
Shine like diamonds in the dark
Seen all the wonders of the world
But I've never seen a smile as
Beautiful as yours

A smile so beautiful
Comes one time in a lifetime..."

So much love and feeling flooding my heart - passion that comes unbidden and surprises - human and Divine love colliding - memories deeply treasured tumbling out of the most profound recesses in my brain, echoing heavily in my beating heart, slowly carry me off into deep sleep...

I awaken, roused from slumber to commune deeply in meditation, physical and human passion now transmuted into a longing for Divine Love, the very subject that Yogananda has been ecstatically and eloquently addressing with me, in his gentle whisperings into the depths of my soul:

"The greatest romance is with the Infinite.
You have no idea how beautiful life can be.
When you suddenly find God everywhere,
when He comes and talks to you and guides you,
the romance of Divine Love has begun."

"The love of God is the only Reality.
We must realize this love of God -
so great, so joyful.
I could not begin to tell you
how great it is!"

"God will not tell you that you should desire Him
above all else. He wants your love to be freely given...
That is the whole secret in the game of this universe.
He who created us yearns for our love...
Our love is the one thing God does not possess,
unless we choose to bestow it..."

The thought of God yearning and pining for our love, is deeply moving - and this is the essential message of the Bhagavad Gita - which is nothing more and nothing less that the Divine's Love Song to us...

"He is the nearest of the near,
the dearest of the dear.
Love Him as a miser loves money,
as an ardent man loves his sweetheart,
as a drowning person loves breath.
When you yearn for God with intensity,
He will come to you..."

And then more lyrics dance joyously in my heart, every beat, every note, animating my soul...I am alive...I am awake...I am drunk with Love...

"Your love, like wine,
tasting sweeter every day...
All of my life I've been waiting
for a love like this
And now that you're here...
its just a second away
it's gonna stay
Till snow falls on the Sahara
And the sun freezes over
Till the Mojave red turns blue
When my lungs get tired of breathing
And my heart stops its beating,
[Not even then] will I stop loving you..."