(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 20 December 2012, Durban, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 12.6.40)
I was listening to a lecture of Srila Prabhupada and Prabhupada said, “Love is for Krsna.” We think we love so many things but all that love is not going to last. The only love that can last is love for Krsna; no other love can last no matter how deep it may be experienced now.
Just like between parents and children, such a deep love but then how long are the souls together. Bhagavatam looks at it from the bigger picture; from the bigger perspective of time and is pointing out to us that life-after-life, the living being is going through so many births in the material world and for a moment, like two straws floating together on the river of time, just for a moment these two straws are floating together until the waves of time will separate them. So our material love, even for those who are so dear to us, time will separate us!
But that does not mean that once we have assimilated this philosophy that now we must become cold, and that in this world there is no meaning to human relationships and affection and so on… No, we can remain affectionate but we must understand that those feelings of love only become meaningful if we connect them to the Supreme Lord because then the eternal element comes into the relationship. Then, in that relationship of affection, there is eternal spiritual advancement.
If we are not giving Krsna consciousness to our loved ones then there is no love at all! Then it is just illusion. For a moment, “I love you so much!” then it all disappears again. There is no such thing as eternal love in the material world.