Anjali: Does love for a human being, if very intense, help one to the path of spirituality?
Swamiji: Yes, it does.
Anjali: How is that? Even when there is a physical element in it which may draw one away from the finer and spiritual aspect?
Swamiji: Then it is not love, it is lust.
Anjali: But you once said that love like Laila-Majnu's…
Swamiji: Love! Love in the sense that I am enchanted by some noble quality of another individual. Not merely because it's one hundred and forty pounds of flesh, that's very superficial. What I said was love. Love is only generated because of my admiration of some noble quality in the other individual. It is purely because of his knowledge, his way of living, his way of conducting society that we admire him. So love for a person like Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Vivekananda, I don't say that they may not have imperfections—but those we overlook. It is not for that. Krishna—I mean devotion to Krishna. Another fellow might emphasize all the weaknesses in Krishna but is the devotee looking at the weaknesses or the glory or the beauty? So true love, when generated, is always due to the noble qualities in a person.
