The love that we see around today is identification and attachment with body and mind. In this kind of love, one constantly strives to own and overpower just like one does when one acquires a property or an object. All the time and effort of an individual is spent on protecting the love or the person and in ensuring that this love is not snatched by some other person. Just like one guards one’s wealth, people guard their love or people they love and ensure they are bound by their love.
To call this behaviour love is to make a mockery and insult it. The love we see around is governed by fear, attachment and possessiveness. It is not true love. True love needs sacrifice. It requires us to go beyond our limited notions of ourselves as body and mind. What is commonly seen as love today is just another method of asserting authority.
True love is not about difference. It is about oneness. It is not about wanting to possess. It is liberating. Only that person who does not have a fixed locus of personality can truly love. Only that person whose ego has ceased to exist can truly love. True love has no expectation and hence no attachment. There is no ‘other’ from whom to expect. True love transcends all boundaries and distinctions because the lover and the loved are one. In true love, there can never be two persons. It is impossible. That could never be. All that could exist could exist only within these persons, not between them because there would be no difference and there would be only one, a complete mingling of two, the superseding of the one over the many.
True love is not physical. All that is physical is impure. True love is a reflection of purity. All external barriers lose strength in front of true love. It defies perception. It is difficult to understand. Just as God, it cannot be described. It can only be experienced. It comes with an intense madness to give out oneself completely. True love is characterized by a maddening passion to unite. Not asking but always ready to give. One who can give one’s head, everything that one cherishes and also give one’s individuality, only that person can truly love. Nothing is hidden in love. There is no notion of self or possessions of self. There is no need for privacy. One fails in love if there is even an iota of space required to be kept private. There is no shame in expressing one’s most terrible secret. There are no secrets. True love takes one closer to God. It is only before the beloved that one stands in one’s true nature just like one stands before God.
Prabhuddha Bharata July 2015 Editorial
Prabhuddha Bharata July 2015 Editorial