Love knows no Fear

Swami Vivekananda says :
Love knows no Fear

So long as man thinks of God as a Being sitting above the clouds, with rewards in one hand and punishments in the other, there can be no love. Can you frighten one into love? Does the lamb love the lion? The mouse, the cat? The slave, the master? Slaves sometimes stimulate love, but is ti love? Where do you ever see love in fear? It is always a sham.
With love never comes the idea of fear. Think of a young mother in the street : if a dog barks at her, she flees in to the nearest house. The next day she is in the street with her child, and suppose a lion rushes upon the child, where will be her position? Just at the mouth of the lion, protecting her child. Lover conquered all her fear.
So also in the love of God. Who cares whether God is a rewarder or a punisher? That is not the thought of a lover. Think of a judge when he comes home, what does his wife see in him? Not a judge, or a reqarder or a punisher, but her husband, her love. What do his children see in him? Their loving father, not the punisher or rewarder. It is only people who have never tasted of love that fear and quake. Cast off all fear - though these horrible ideas of God as a punisher or rewarder may have their use in savage minds. Some men, even the most intellectual, are spiritual savages, and these ideas may help them. But to men who are spiritual, men who are approaching religion, in whom spiritual insight is awakened, such ideas are simply childish, simply foolish. Such men reject all ideas of fear.