Love - Beyond the words....
The
English expression, “Falling in love,” is significant because no one rises in
love or climbs in love. You fall in love, because something of who you
are has to go. If not the whole of you, at least a part of you should collapse.
Only then there is a love affair. You are willing to destroy a bit of yourself
for the sake of the other. It essentially means someone else has become far
more important than yourself.
Love is not a mutual benefit scheme
What most people call “love” is just a mutual benefit scheme.
One day, a
man named Shankaran Pillai went to a park. There was a pretty woman sitting on
a stone bench there. He went and settled down on the same bench. After a few
minutes, he moved a little closer to her. She moved away. Again, he waited for
a few minutes and inched a little closer to her. She moved
She
melted. Nature took over and they had their way with each other. It was getting
late in the evening; Shankaran Pillai got up and he said, “I need to leave.
It’s eight o’clock. My wife will be waiting.”
She said,
“What? You’re leaving? You just said you loved me!”
“Yes, but
it’s time. I need to go.”
Generally,
we have made relationships within frameworks that are comfortable and
profitable for us. People have physical, psychological, emotional, financial or
social needs. One of the best ways to fulfill these needs is to tell people, “I
love you.” This so-called “love” has become like a mantra: open sesame. You try
to get what you want by saying it.
Every
action that we do is in some way to fulfill certain needs. If you see this,
there is a possibility that you can grow into love as your natural quality. But
people go on fooling themselves into believing that the relationships they have
made for convenience, comfort and wellbeing, are actually relationships of
love. This does not mean that there is no experience of love at all in those
relationships, but it is within certain limitations. It does not matter how
much “I love you” has been said, if a few expectations and requisites are not
fulfilled, things will fall apart.
When you
talk about love, it has to be unconditional. There is really no such thing as
conditional love and unconditional love. It is just that there are conditions
and there is love. The moment there is a condition, it just amounts to a
transaction. Maybe a convenient transaction, maybe a good arrangement – maybe
many people made excellent arrangements in life – but that will not fulfill
you; that will not transport you to another dimension. It is just convenient.
When you
say “love,” it need not necessarily be convenient; most of the time it is not.
It takes life. Love is not a great thing to do, because it eats you up. If you
have to be in love, you should not be. You as a person must be willing to fall,
only then it can happen. If your personality is kept strong in the process, it
is just a convenient situation, that’s all. We need to recognize what is a
transaction and what is truly a love affair. A love affair need not be with any
particular person; you could be having a great love affair, not with anybody in
particular, but with life.
What you
do, what you do not do, is according to circumstances around you. Our actions
are as the external situation demands. What you do outside of yourself is
always subject to many conditions. But love is an inner state – how you are
within yourself can definitely be unconditional.
Make love your quality
If you are life, it is very natural to love.
Every human being is capable of love but unfortunately, many have crippled themselves
with all kinds of belief systems, opinions, philosophies, ideologies –
everything except life.
Its a simple process
Love is not something to do with someone else.
Love is never between two people. It is what happens within you, and what
happens within you need not be enslaved to someone else. For 15 to 20 minutes
daily, go sit with something that means nothing to you – may be a tree, or a
pebble, or a worm or an insect. After some time, you will find you can look
upon it with as much love as you do your wife or husband or your mother or your
child. May be the worm does not know this. That doesn’t matter. If you can look
at everything lovingly, the whole world becomes beautiful in your experience.
You realize love is not something that you do; love is the way you are.
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