Myths & Matters - 4. Love is Conditional

Prelude:

In this series titled as "Myths and Matters" I am presenting few "Moments of Truth" that unfolds in our life as a wisdom after we suffer due to false understanding of our relationship with our loved ones or life events. When this wisdom dawns on us we have nearly finished our life and hardly left with few years to apply these wisdom to achieve peace of mind. It is prudent to learn from other's mistakes, as we may not have time to commit all of them by ourselves, as life span is insufficient to do that. In this series I briefly cover one topic at a time about the false understanding as "The Myth" and offer few suggestions under the heading "What Matters".

Please note the serial number that appears on each topic to keep track of the serial. Although there is no sequence for reading, you will be benefitted if you read these topics in sequence for best results. I shall post one topic every Sunday to keep continuity and sustain your patronage. If you find these topics useful, kindly join this blog as follower to get automatic update through your mail when I publish any new post. To follow this blog please refer the ‘Follower’ section on the right side of this blog and click the button “Join this site” and follow through the instructions.

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The Myth:

‘Love’ is one of the invisible universal forces that keep us sane during our human existence. Unfortunately it is the most misunderstood and abused word in the modern civilized society. Every one understands ‘Making Love’ which term came from the west that means it is a physical act!  As Rajneesh once said “you cannot ‘make love’ as Love is not a stuff to make; but a state of a being”. Alas! We have reduced this great universal bonding force as a mere physical act. He also said that one fellow is restlessly waiting in the court to divorce the woman and the other fellow is relentlessly waiting to marry her! How come the woman who became a pain on the neck to one person could become a ‘Honey’ to another?

The other phrase pertaining to love is “Fell in Love”; how one can fall in love as Einstein said, “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love”. In reality we have reduced this great force as a mere sexuality. There is something going fundamentally wrong in the name of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Civilization’. Part of our indulgence pursuits we have exhausted all possible combinations of ‘making pleasure’ and ended up in legalization of ‘Gay marriage’. We have started challenging the very reason nature created “Adam and Eve” for procreation. May be this indicates the ‘Kali Yuga’ which is in its advanced stage to conclude the end of the human existence which can happen due to “Tsunami” or degrading civilization. In any externally focused materialistic society, we keep exploring pleasure in all possible indulgence. I don’t mind but why in the banner of ‘Love’, which is the divine essence of life?

The so-called marriage is not a union of two souls any more as Rajneesh mentioned but a convenience for each other to have safe sex. Strange to witness the extent to which ‘Love’ has been abused. Now the law in the west clarifies that when people get married, their ‘possessions’ continues to belong to them as no one knows how long the relationship will lost! When they get separated their offspring’s are the causality. As one of the greatest thinkers of modern times said, “If the mankind would have found a system for safe sex free from social stigma for prostitution, the system of marriage would not have come into existence”. He indirectly says that the hotel system is not questioned for eating outside for quenching hunger but why not the other human needs!

When growing child reaches teens, the first thing attracts them is “Love” – the other name for ‘infatuation’. If any one of you have not experienced this strange phenomena, either you would have born as a “Prophet” or not belong to this modern civilized society. One of the hypothesis of modern times is “Love marriage is better than arranged”. If this hypothesis is the null hypothesis, then why statistics shows that the divorce is more among love married couples? If not divorced still they live with each other not as passionately when they dated each other. I heard from some of my family friends complaining that their husband who spoke hours together over cell phone is cutting calls after marriage.  Why the romance ends once they are legally wedded? When there is someone is campaigning against the lovers, they become more fiercely involved proving the nature’s law “Resistance causes persistence”.  In true sense if they love each other, then there is no start, middle and end for love as it is perpetual.

What Matters?

It is important to get back to basics of the spirituality to understand the true meaning of the word ‘Love’ and re-align us to relate to the rest of the beings in our life including the loved ones as well as other species. The following tips would help:

Tips-1: “All great forces are invisible”

In the physical universe you will find all great forces are invisible and are in the non-material form such as ‘Gravitational force’, ‘Electromagnetic force’, ‘Nuclear force’, ‘Thermal force’ etc. Similarly in the human domain great forces such as ‘Love’, ‘Compassion’, ‘Empathy’, ‘respect’ etc. are invisible and can make a huge impact in our relationship. Understanding them and their impact is more important to apply them in our life. Love is not a ‘tangible’ matter but an expression of our soul with respect to another being. It is something we always expect from everyone around us. It is not a ‘bad word’ as we discussed above.

Tips-2: Love is “Giving and not taking”:

To understand this statement you need to experience a ‘pet’ at home. The dog for example expresses its love when its master returns home without any ‘hidden agenda’. The pet enjoys giving love, as it is the true nature of any creation; but as human beings we have made everything as a ‘business’ believing that ‘Giving is to take something later’ like a politician who invests in politics to earn money later. It proves the point ‘why roads not made to last longer more than a monsoon’. If you observe nature you will find everything in it ‘gives’ more than it takes – plantation takes carbon-di-oxide and releases oxygen, coconut tree takes soap water and gives sweet nectar and so on.

Tips-3: Love is ‘Un-conditional’:

We want our children to take care of ourselves during old age since we looked after them when they grew up. We say “I will love my children when they study well”. This is a ‘conditional love’; love subject to someone meeting your expectations. Love is un-conditional as it is a state of a being. Just imagine human beings are de-foresting damaging the ecology – if the trees make a condition saying that “I will take oxygen and release carbon-di-oxide”, we will all perish. Only when parents don’t attach a ‘price tag’ for their love, they can expect their children to reciprocate it. Let us not make ‘Love’ as a business.

Tips-4: Love is contagious:

Love is like a virus and contagious as it spreads beyond caste and creed - It has no bound. It is not limited by religion and the color of the skin. If hate replaces love, it is a sign of the decaying humanity. We make choices in every aspect of our life and love towards other species is one among those choices. Love and hate are the two options we have and when we make the choice, we have no options to expect different reciprocation from the other party. When I chose to hate someone, I have already made the choice to get hatred from that person. Let us make the right choice.

Tip-5: The entire universe is the essence of the same entity:

It sounds philosophical when we hear from Sankara who postulated “Advaida” philosophy saying, all that we see in this universe are none other than a single entity. The forms are different but the essence is the same. All gold jewelry is looking different but they are none other than gold, which was excavated from the earth once. The same philosophy expressed by Einstein as “Singularity” theory stating that there is only one force that expresses this universe instead of electromagnetic, nuclear and gravitational forces as believed earlier. We are willing to believe the science but not Sankara’s vision. Which ever is your belief, it explains love with a different perspective. Loving other being is nothing other than loving yourself, as you are present in all the other beings. This explains the ritual of bowing and saying “Namaste” when you meet the other person by which you symbolically acknowledge the common essence present everywhere.

Tip-6: Love yourself first

If you don't love yourself, you cannot love the other person; self love precedes love towards others. Our self esteem is the foundation for our self-expression. Self pity is different from self esteem; the former is a sign of mental sickness and later is a healthy sign. Most of us are unhappy about some aspects of ourself; education, personality, shape of our nose or color of our skin etc. This perennial sense of dissatisfaction leads to a void in us which is responsible for our inability to love other beings. Hence the starting point is to accept ourself as we are and complete our self love before we relate to other beings.   

Let Love rule this World.

Many more Myths and Matter to follow.

Love

NC