This is not a sweet song.
It is the sound of someone standing in the ruins of the world and refusing to shut their heart.
Elton John does not look away — he names war, cancer, hatred, even the violence inside families — and then answers with a single line: I believe in love.
This is not optimism. It is defiance.
It is the vow of one who has seen the smashan, who has watched every temple and flag fall, and who still chooses to keep the heart burning.
What follows is not a sermon but a series of blows — verse after verse, until the last chorus lands like a ritual offering.
Verse 1
I believe in love, it's all we got
Love has no boundaries, costs nothing to touch
War makes money, cancer sleeps
Curled up in my father, and that means somethin' to me
This verse already feels like standing in the middle of the cremation ground and refusing to look away.
“Love is all we got” is not optimism — it’s the last truth left after everything else has been tested and found hollow. Kaula sādhana begins here: when politics, religion, even the body’s health have failed, and what is left is the raw pulse that says live.
“Love has no boundaries, costs nothing to touch” — this is the great refusal to let the heart be fenced in by nation, creed, or transaction. In Kaula vision, love is not a contract but the very vibration (spanda) of Śakti herself, present everywhere, free to anyone who dares to feel it.
“War makes money, cancer sleeps” — there is no naïveté here. The world runs on blood and profit, and death waits silently in the marrow. This is the sādhaka’s first confrontation with the smashan — to see the world as it is, not as the dream would paint it.
“Curled up in my father” is the one gesture of surrender. Not to dogma, but to the axis of Being itself. In Kaula terms, this is lying down on Śiva’s chest, letting the great Stillness hold the terror and exhaustion. It means something because it is real — the one place of refuge that cannot be taken by war or disease.
Pre-Chorus 1
Churches and dictators, politics and papers
Everything crumbles sooner or later
This is the cremation ground widening out.
“Churches and dictators, politics and papers” — all the structures we build to make sense of the world, to hold power, to tell ourselves what is true — they stand like monuments for a while, but they are made of dust. Kaula sādhana asks you to see this clearly. Even the temple will fall. Even the scripture will turn to ash.
“Everything crumbles sooner or later” — this is not despair, it is clarity. The yogin watches the city collapse, the newsprint rot, the throne topple, and does not flinch. This is the courage required before the heart can truly say I believe in love.
Chorus
But love
I believe in love
This is not gentle.
It is a fist hitting the ground.
“But love” — as if spitting out blood, as if saying: yes, the world is burning, yes, everything is rigged for profit and death — but love will not be erased.
“I believe in love” — not as a mood or a philosophy but as a final refusal to let horror have the last word.
This is the Kaula vow made in the cremation ground: I will not look away, I will not go numb — and still I choose to keep the heart open.
It is fiery, because it has seen the cost.
It is not comfort — it is defiance that burns.
Verse 2
I believe in love, it's all we got
Love has no boundaries, no borders to cross
Love is simple, hate breeds
Those who think difference is the child of disease
This verse comes like a second strike of the drum — louder, sharper.
“I believe in love, it's all we got” — the refrain returns, but now it is heavier. After naming the ruin of the world in Verse 1, this is said with teeth clenched: if love is all we have, then it must be enough to fight with.
“Love has no boundaries, no borders to cross” — the line slices through every flag, every wall, every identity politics that divides. Kaula knows no “pure” or “impure” ground — all is Her play. Love cannot be quarantined.
“Love is simple, hate breeds” — this is a battlefield line. Love is the clear river; hate is what festers when fear is allowed to rot.
“Those who think difference is the child of disease” — here the sādhaka calls out the deepest delusion: that diversity itself is a flaw. Kaula vision sees difference as Śakti’s art — her endless dance of forms. To call it “disease” is to insult the Goddess.
This verse is fiercer than the first: the speaker is no longer curled up in the lap of the Father — they are standing up in the cremation ground, pointing at the world and refusing to agree to its hatred.
Pre-Chorus 2
Father and son make love and guns
Families together kill someone
This is the most brutal turn so far — the moment when the song looks straight at the shadow without flinching.
“Father and son make love and guns” — the intimacy of family is laid next to the machinery of death. It is almost unbearable — the same hands that cradle can forge weapons. Kaula demands that we hold this paradox without turning away: tenderness and violence are both born from the same womb of Śakti.
“Families together kill someone” — the line lands like a knife. There is no safety in tribe or bloodline here. Even the hearth can become a forge for hate. This is smashan-vision at its starkest: everything is sacred, even this horror — but sacred does not mean safe.
The verse refuses the sentimental image of family as sanctuary. It says: see it all. See what humans do together — the births, the feasts, and the killings. Only then is your vow to love real.
Verse 3
Without love, I wouldn't believe
In anything that lives and breathes
Without love, I'd have no anger
I wouldn't believe in the right to stand here
This verse is the heart laid bare.
“Without love, I wouldn't believe / In anything that lives and breathes” — this is not pretty. It means the only reason to keep faith in the living world is love. Without it, existence itself feels void. Kaula sādhana recognizes this: love is not optional sentiment, it is the bridge between Consciousness and creation.
“Without love, I'd have no anger” — this line is volcanic. Anger here is not ego’s tantrum but raudra-rasa — the fierce, righteous heat that protects what is sacred. Love fuels this fire; without it, there would be only numbness.
“I wouldn't believe in the right to stand here” — this is said like a vow: my right to exist comes from love. Not from law, not from power, not from permission — from the very pulse of the heart.
This verse transforms love from comfort into weapon and shield. It is the fire that keeps the sādhaka upright when the whole field is ash.
Pre-Chorus 3
Without love, I wouldn't believe
I couldn't believe in you and I wouldn't believe in me
This is the most naked confession in the whole song.
“Without love, I wouldn't believe” — the words repeat, but now they strike deeper, as if shouted through smoke.
“I couldn't believe in you and I wouldn't believe in me” — this line is almost too raw to look at. Without love, there is no bridge to the other, no mirror to see yourself. Kaula sees this as the final truth: when love is absent, there is only fragmentation — the Goddess is veiled, and both you and the world are empty shadows.
Closing Chorus
Without love
I believe in love
I believe in love
I believe in love
The song ends like a ritual fire — not fading, but intensifying.
“Without love” is the last look into the abyss — a naming of what would happen if the current went out.
And then: “I believe in love” repeated three times, each one sounding less like an idea and more like an oath. This is not a singalong moment — it is pūrṇāhuti, the last ladle of ghee into the fire.
It feels like standing in the middle of the smashan at dawn, ashes on the skin, and saying: Yes. I saw it all, and I still choose this.
Closing Reflection
This song is not a hymn of comfort — it is a vow made with ash on the forehead.
It names war, disease, hatred, even the blood-soaked intimacy of families who kill — and then, instead of retreating, it answers with love. Not the soft love of greeting cards, but the kind that stands upright in the fire and says: I will not let my heart go cold.
Kaula calls this vīra-bhāva — the stance of the hero, not because he conquers, but because he refuses to look away. Love here is the last rebellion, the last truth left when everything else crumbles.
The song ends where all real sādhana ends: not with relief, but with the pulse of something fierce and tender still burning.
A heart still beating in the cremation ground.
A vow still echoing:
I believe in love.
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