{"id":20903,"date":"2024-05-20T02:30:10","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T02:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=20903"},"modified":"2024-05-20T02:30:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T02:30:11","slug":"god-and-love-the-hindu-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2024\/05\/20\/god-and-love-the-hindu-view\/","title":{"rendered":"God and Love: the Hindu View"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>KAUAI, HAWAII, May 13, 2024 (Hinduism Today, by Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami): In Western television shows, references to God are rare. However, when the Divine is mentioned, the prevailing sentiment often revolves around the assertion that \u201cGod loves you.\u201d This mirrors contemporary perspectives on the Divine. Indeed, amid life\u2019s challenges, it is reassuring to be reminded of the comforting principle that God cares for you. In Hindu philosophy, the idea that \u201cGod loves you\u201d is present but enriched by profound subtlety. There is a strong emphasis on \u201cYou love God\u201d and \u201cGod is love.\u201d This slightly different focus provokes the devotee\u2019s sincere effort to cultivate and intensify love of the Divine. Before looking in more detail into deepening one\u2019s love of God, let\u2019s look first at a second Hindu concept, that of faith. <br><br>In our modern world, an increasing number of individuals state that they don\u2019t believe in God and see no need to affiliate with a religion. A popular poster on the web expresses this sentiment, depicting a teenage girl boldly declaring, \u201cI\u2019m too old to believe in fairy tales.\u201d Western thought often, though not always, defines religious faith as an unquestioning belief in God and religious tenets, a perspective aligned with Webster\u2019s dictionary. In contrast, the Hindu expression of faith transcends doctrinal allegiance. In Hinduism, faith is not a consensus of belief; nor is it a static condition. Rather, it undergoes constant deepening through personal experience and spiritual growth. The spiritual truths of Sanatana Dharma, initially embraced without tangible proof, find ultimate validation through individual experiences. Swami Chinmayananda, founder of Chinmaya Mission, succinctly encapsulated this notion, stating, \u201cFaith is to believe what you do not see. The reward of faith is to see what you believed.\u201d <br><br>Read the full Publishers Desk article at source.<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/philosophy-and-scripture\/god-and-love-the-hindu-view\/\n\">https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/philosophy-and-scripture\/god-and-love-the-hindu-view\/<br><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KAUAI, HAWAII, May 13, 2024 (Hinduism Today, by Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami): In Western television shows, references to God are rare.,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20915,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20916,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20903\/revisions\/20916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}