Originally posted December 28, 2021
Recently, I was reading some notes I took many years ago of a talk Swami Radha gave about the name Radha. Her words were as fresh and inspiring for me as they were when she first spoke them in 1994 at Yasodhara Ashram’s Temple of Light. She was talking about cosmic love; the name Radha means Cosmic Love. She said:
“The Radha Nature, the ideal of Cosmic Love, is in all of us, men or women.
“It is about Love, Cosmic Love, the acceptance of all in everybody regardless of beauty or ugliness, of perfection or imperfection. It means going beyond human nature, swimming against the stream of life – it forces us to overcome the basic nature so that we can become truly human.”
At the time of her talk, I didn’t have a clue about cosmic love, and to be honest, I wasn’t very interested in it. I just wanted to be more considerate of other people, a more caring person. But I found Swami Radha’s words intriguing; they stayed with me. And I got a feeling from her talk that it is possible to make the changes needed for my personal development. She gave me the inspiration to keep practicing the yoga methods I had been given.
Years ago, I had found the Christian teachings too advanced and was looking for something to help me navigate my path toward the ideal world of “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Questions kept coming up for me. How can I get there? How can I get to the place within myself that is Light? What does Light mean?
When I went to Yasodhara Ashram for the first time I immediately recognized the potential of the yogic teachings, of Swami Radha’s approach to yoga. Her approach gave me the tools to make needed changes. The yoga practices for developing awareness helped me grow closer to the Light, the same Light that is available to us from many spiritual traditions. To me, Cosmic Love is that Light. They are the same thing even though my little mind felt those words, Cosmic Love, were too vast, too awesome for me to understand or ever live by.
I also learned that the changes I wanted to make don’t happen overnight. They take time. Swami Radha’s guidance included some help with that, the need to be patient, to incorporate changes in my life for the long term. She said:
“Unfortunately, human nature is such that we so easily get mechanical. Everything becomes routine. And that is the case with whatever you do in your life. You do it daily, it becomes routine. The wonderful thing in Yoga is that there are many practices. The moment you become aware that your practice is becoming routine, stop it. Switch to another and you can put your energy, your enthusiasm, in all over again. Your body, the temple of your soul, you cannot replace. Respect it. Take care of it.”
One more thought: As we grow in understanding, the meaning of words can change; they can go deeper, they may expand. Such is the dynamics of personal development. There is always something to learn about ourselves. At times it can even be an exciting process as our own precious wisdom begins to emerge. We need the patience, stamina, and humility to stay with that process.