Love is a word used more commonly than any other at the present time. It is commonly thought of to the point of obsession by nearly all mankind, yet how many people truly understand what Love is? When I look around the world I see some acts done with Love, but my overwhelming sense is that most acts are done out of confusion, fear and anger. How can it be that we as a society talk of nothing but love and still fail to act in a loving way to one another? The only answer is that the love we speak of so often is not Love at all; it is lust, which is an entirely different thing to Love. We have been confused, our focus shifted. Love is advertised as being a bizarre combination of desire, passion and yearning. It is seen as an emotion which sparks from your heart and has somehow been attached in a very potent way to sex. But I am not convinced that love is any of these things. In fact I am willing to assert quite confidently that Love is none of
these things. It is not desire, for desire is a selfish act. Desire is looking at a person to see what you can get from them to further your own needs. Love is not passion, for passion is an uncontrolled fervour. Passion is looking at a person through a lens and only seeing the aspects of them that we are interested in seeing. There is no truth in passion, so it cannot be Love. It is not yearning, for yearning is a desperate act. Yearning brings us angst, loneliness and self-pity, none of which are associated with Love. It is not an emotion, for emotions are impermanent and tightly linked to the ego. Emotions cloud our judgement and clutter our thoughts. They impede our learning and do nothing to free us, so they cannot be Love. It does not originate from your heart, for your heart is a physical location. Love originates from your soul and emanates throughout your body like a wave. Love is not sex, for sex is merely a physical act, albeit
one which results in the formation of life. Sex is a powerful, emotionally connecting moment between two people and can certainly result in an experience of Love, but it is equally a powerful tool for destruction and pain. Sex can certainly exist without Love, as Love can exist without sex.
No, Love is something more. It seems to be elusive in the current times, yet we all know that we have felt Love throughout our lives. We know deep down to our core that Love exists and that we have had it. Even if it only lasted the briefest of seconds, once it has been experienced it is never forgotten and forever sought after. So what is Love? When have we experienced it in the past? How can we recognize it in the future? We must remember that Love is simply an interaction. It is the sharing of a powerful experience between two or more souls that arises in a connection to the universal consciousness, or an exposure to the Truth. Love is walking down a dirt path on a fall day. The air is crisp, but your jacket is cozy. The leaves are turning beautiful shades of yellow and red. Coming towards you on the path is a father with his 2 year old daughter on his shoulders, piggy-backing. As they bounce past the daughter looks you straight in the
eyes and lets out a loud screech of laughter, her face exploding into a toothy smile as yours does the same. A chuckle bursts from your lips as your eyes descend to the father’s and you see his face aglow as well. The feeling that washes over all of you at that moment; that is Love. The connection made with the laughing child and her father, two strangers who you will most likely never meet again, is a moment you will remember. The child has seen that an enthusiastic laugh and smile will bring the same out in a stranger, the father has seen how the innocence of a child can bring together previously unknown people and you have learned to appreciate every bounce along the path of life. All three have grown, all three have participated in a beautiful moment. All three have Loved.
If we want to entire a realm of higher thinking, in an attempt to break Love down into its simplest form, then I would imagine the definition for Love would be that it is. Perhaps instead of wording our definition as ‘Love is ’ we should be making statements to the effect of ‘ is Love.’ I think you will find upon deep introspection and analysis of the experiences in your life, that they all break down to variations of the same experience: Love. The confusion in our assessment of Love, I am convinced, is simply one of misplaced labelling when one experiences a connection to Love. Love is the lesson. It is the core, the root, the essence. All things in our universe arise from infinite, minute variations upon the same theme: Love. Because Love is It, when we catch a glimpse of It we become filled with a sense of awe, wonder and happiness. But this is also where the confusion enters. For we associate the emotions of happiness and
bliss that arise from Love as being love, but this is not the case. Love is the lesson, learned. Love is what arises when another step down the path towards Truth has been taken.
Now to ratify Love and relationships, for there is much confusion on this front still to be addressed. Many people go through life looking for ‘the One’ that they will fall in love with and live with in eternal bliss. This mindset, that there is only one person out there in the midst of six billion who can satisfy you and make you complete, is one of gross ignorance. By thinking in this way we set ourselves the task of searching for love, or worse still, waiting for love. In both cases, when someone does meet another person that they have a close connection to, instead of nurturing their shared happiness, each person begins to categorize their partner. In an attempt to decide whether or not this person is ‘the One’ they rate various attributes about their partner, judging and measuring them against their own lifestyle. Never making compromises, but instead seeing how the other person fits into their rigid idea of the perfect relationship.
The problem with this way of thinking is that no one will ever fit, and no partner will ever be ‘the One’ because no person is perfect. We all have bad habits and imperfections. But if we are constantly critiquing out partners we are sure to notice every imperfection. And with time these imperfections will begin to grate upon our nerves. Our original feeling of love towards this person is being replaced by annoyance. Perhaps, also, because our original feeling of love was actually lust, which wears off relatively quickly. All in all our relationship is doomed to failure because we are waiting for love to happen, or searching for love so furiously that we instead uncover all our lover’s imperfections.
How can this be avoided? Wise men have said that love can be found between any two people, and I tend to agree. All that must be remembered is that Love is not something that arrives, or something that needs to be found. Love is something that is created. When two people who share something special decide that they want to engage in a loving relationship and they make the effort together to create Love between one another, then it cannot fail. But both parties must understand that Love is a journey with ups and downs. Love is multi-faceted and is expressed in many ways, all of which need to be experienced. The ‘perfect’ relationship is one where two souls are content to share the majority of their experiences in this life together, so they can compare notes, reminisce about past shared experiences and learn from one another as they grow.
Again confusion has an opportunity to enter into our understanding of Love, for we all agree that there are certain people we are much more closely drawn to than others. In the example from before, for instance, in the current mindset, the father would have most likely directed all his experiences of Love towards his daughter and recognized little of his exchange with the stranger walking by. This is because as we experience more and more instances of Love with the same person, we automatically assume that we are ‘in love’ with that person. What we do not recognize is that we have simply shared Love with that person many times and so our fond memories of Loved times with that person affect our present view of them. It is as if we prime ourselves to share Loving experiences with certain souls. The more we Love with someone the more we can Love with them in the future. But we should not forget the stranger walking by, because that stranger is
another opportunity for Love. Love is not meant to be exclusive; it is very definitely inclusive. What we will find when we recognize all of the participants that are sharing in moments of Love is that the moment becomes that much more amazing. We begin to prime ourselves not just to Loving one person, but to Loving in general. And soon we realize that the more we do Love everyone the more we can Love everyone. When we open our eyes further we start to see that there are many more participants in our Loving than we had originally expected. Forget not the trees around you, with glorious leaves of fiery red and auburn, adding to the experience. Or the finch sitting on the park bench, singing a sweet song in the background. Don’t doubt that the trees and the birds sense your laughter and experience that moment of Love. In time you will see that true Love can be shared between any two facets of Consciousness, between any two souls, any two life
forms. It is true we congregate with those we have Loved the most, but Love can be had anywhere.
As for experiencing Love in the future, it is as simple as keeping an open mind and an open heart. Smile, share your thoughts, listen to others’ opinions, sing, dance, touch, hold, laugh. Love is not hard to find, for it is everywhere. All you need is a receptive soul and you will find what you are looking for. Love is all you need.
