UNBOUNDED SAINTS RARELY FITTED INTO THE PATTERN OF CREEDS

 
Love often stirs the heart through a little thing in life, and at the same time has the possibility to end with the greatest thing in life. As much as we all desire love, it is rare to find one soul who dares even the thought of its ultimate completion, rising above all duality and play of opposites to become truly One through God-realization.

The personification of Divine Love on earth is the God-Man, who is Love, Lover and Beloved.

Mystics of all faiths in every land have sought God with intensity of longing. Fervor is invariably a quality of these lovers of God. Rare souls among them who arrived at sainthood, that beatific stage where God is seen face to face, have left to mankind a rich heritage of inspiration and experience which was their inner life.

Churches or mosques or temples have claimed their remains after they passed away, and canonized them within the fold, though during their lifetime these ardent, unbounded saints rarely fitted into the pattern of creeds. Mostly they lived apart and sought God through intimate experience of Divine Love which overflowed into their everyday living, and which could not be circumscribed by convention or formalism.

They wanted God more than man. They wanted God more than their very lives. They sought and found Him through various paths; but the blessed experience of Divine Love was the same.

If it chanced that these saints possessed the spirit of evangelism, their very fervor and extremity of vision drove more people from them than ever were turned into followers during their earthly life. Of St. Francis of Assisi, we are told that his love embraced all creatures; and one day when the human listener turned away from his sermon, leaving him all alone, he preached to the birds of the air and these sensitive feathered creatures were irresistibly drawn to him.

Even of Christ, the Master, we are told by St. John: "Many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard, said, 'This is a hard saying; who can hear it?' From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more."