Reflections on love

This article is based on a recent discussion the author had with friends. We discussed love, what it is, and what it means to love someone.

Love can easily be misunderstood as attachment, desire, or having someone fulfill an expectation. Thinking of someone all the time does not necessarily mean love. Wanting to be with someone all the time, is also not love. 

Love is not a mutual agreement, or a 'fair exchange' between two parties. 

Worthy of love

Because love is not an object, we can never possess it as our own. Knowing that love is never 'ours' - as a 'separate self' - it means that love is not ours to give and to withhold. We do not have authority over love.

See, the idea that one person deserves our love, and that another person is unworthy of our love, this is really just a misunderstanding of what love is, and a misunderstanding of who we are.

Love is also not any specific action. Yet, many actions can come from love. Actions, words, thoughts, they can spring from the Fountain of Love, but the actions, words or thoughts alone, are not love.

Only Love

If we really want to love everyone, we can inquire into our own Nature. We don't have to go to everyone and tell them we love them. On the contrary. We turn silent and we go 'inwards'.

As we inquire into our own Nature, the mental concepts of 'self' and 'others' become transparent. The apparent 'one' that is loving, and the ones that are loved, or not loved - these concepts eventually dissolve, and our True Nature is revealed. 

We realize that all along, there were no 'others' to love. We see and feel only ourSelf in everyone and everything. The sense of separation dissolves. There is a Divine Union, and there is only Love.

Impersonal, and unconditional Love.

Knowing ourSelf, we know that there is only Love. 

Related articles on this blog:

Through the lens of the "I" - 15 April, 2022
The world's unhappiness - 1 March, 2022
Oh, Dharamsala! - 14 October, 2021