God loves us — this is the common teaching of the world’s theistic traditions. And this teaching is expanded in the bhakti tradition through the Bhagavad-gita. The Gita reveals God to be the all-attractive divinity, Krishna, and explains two endearing aspects of his love: it is both universal and particular.

Universality of Krishna’s love: He loves everyone, irrespective of race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, ideology, even religion. For an age that is increasingly striving for egalitarianism, Krishna is the ideal Divinity — he is the ultimate egalitarian. In fact, his love extends beyond humans to encompass all living beings (14.04). He loves everyone so much that he resides permanently in their hearts (15.15), acting as their greatest well-wisher (05.29).

Particularity of Krishna’s love: While Krishna’s love encompasses everyone, it also embraces each one of us individually. He has a unique relationship with all of us. In fact, he has made us all unique so that he can offer his love to us uniquely and can relish when we offer our love to him uniquely. Krishna is a person, with his own transcendental particularities. And he loves us as a person, for who we are, in our irreducible particularity. In such a personal loving connection, we all realize and relish Krishna in our particular way. To love Krishna by offering our entire being to him is to be enlightened (10.08). And those thus enlightened delight in enlightening each other (10.09) — they love to share the way they have experienced Krishna’s love, and they love to savor how others have experienced his love. It is this particularity of Krishna’s love that invites us all to the ultimate intimacy with him. 

One-sentence summary:

Krishna’s love is both universal and particular — it encompasses everyone without discrimination, and it embraces each one of us as a person in our individuality. 

Think it over:

  • How is Krishna’s love universal?
  • How is Krishna’s love particular?
  • How can you channel your uniqueness to offer your particular love to Krishna? 

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10.09: The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me, their lives are fully devoted to My service, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss from always enlightening one another and conversing about Me.

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