Love isn't attraction. "I love you more than I love anyone." Translation : I'm more attracted to you than to others. How's that? You attract me more than others. You fit better into my mind's program than other people. That's not very flattering for you, but if my program were different...I'm reminded of people who say, "What does he find in her? Or what does he see in her?" Attraction is blind!
Do you feel attracted by someone or something? When you give in to the attraction, gratification follows. And after gratification, weariness or anxiety: "I hope I can keep this up! I hope someone else doesn't move in!" Feelings of possession, jealousy, fear of loss. That's not love!
Love isn't dependence. It is very good to depend on people. If we didn't depend on one another, we wouldn't have society. Interdependence! We depend on the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the pilot, the taxi driver, all kinds of people. But depending on one another in order to be happy, that's what's bad.
Sometimes, we see two empty people depending on one another, two incomplete persons propping each other up. Two dominos - one moves and the other falls down. Is that love? Love isn't easing our loneliness! People feel empty inside and rush to fill the emptiness with some one. That isn't love. In order to flee from emptiness and loneliness, people surrender to all kinds of activities, to work, or to someone's arms. But the cure for loneliness isn't contact with human begins ; it's contact with reality.
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In facing loneliness, we discover that it's not there. There isn't any vacuum! Here's something to remember - What we are looking for is inside us. When we face what's inside us, what we are fleeing disappears. And what we are seeking comes to the surface. Love isn't easing our loneliness. When people talk about love, they're usually talking about a good to be bargained over. "You're good to me? I'll be good to you! You're pleasant to me? I'll be pleasant to you! You're not kind to me? Funny, the pleasant feelings I had about you have turned bitter!" Is that love? That's the market for emotions disguised as attitudes of love.
Love isn't desire. Centuries ago Buddha said," The world is full of suffering. The origin of suffering, the root of suffering, is desire. Eliminating suffering consists of eliminating desire." By desire he meant that on whose satisfaction my happiness depends. And our society and culture are continually urging us to increase that desire. We are ever more programmed for unhappiness and lovelessness. The world is full of suffering. The root of suffering is desire.Eliminating suffering goes by way of eliminating desire.
Ambition is a brainwashing that has been done on us! We've been told that unless we have ambition, we won't do anything. The energy and delight in work have been forgotten. When an archer shoots for no particular reason, he applies all his skill. When he shoots to win the gold, he becomes blind, loses his reason, sees two targets. It's not his ability that has changed, but the prize. He is more concerned about winning than about shooting. And the need to win has hollowed out his power. Ambition has taken away his power.
The world is full of suffering, and the root of suffering is desire. Marriages built on desire are fragile, ready to come apart. "I have many expectation of you; you'd better not disappoint me." "You have expectations of me; I'd better fulfil them." Arguments! "You need me! I need you! I need to find my happiness in you! You need to find your happiness in me!" And so the fight begins. That's where the feeling of possession begins. Where that kind of desire exists, there's a threat. And where there's a threat, there's fear. And where there's fear, there's no love. For we always hate what we fear. And perfect love casts out fear! Wherever this kind of desire exists, it always comes accompanied by fear.
Love isn't desire; it's not fixation. Being impassioned is the exact opposite of love, but passion is canonized everywhere. It is an illness that everyone is trying to pass on to us.It can be heard in movies and in love songs. I saw a film where the girl says to the boy, "I love you, I can't live without you!" I can't love without you? Love? That's hunger! When I become impassioned over you, I stop seeing you! Wherever there's a powerful emotion, whether positive or negative, I can't see. Emotion gets in the way and makes me project my own needs on the other.
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We've been speaking thus far about what love is not, and we've come to the end of what can be said about what love is not. It can't be said. When you get rid of your fears, attachments, and illusions, you will know. We walk among illusions.
Love means, at the very least, clarity of perception and precision of response. Seeing the other clearly as he or she is. That is the least that I can ask of love. How can I love you if I don't see you? Usually when we look we don't see one another. We are looking for an image. Does a husband relate to his wife or to an image he has built of her? Does a wife relate to her husband or to an image she has formed of him?
I have an experience of you. This experience is saved in my memory. I make my judgement based on the experience. I carry it with me. I act or react on that basis, not on the basis of what you are now. I look at you through a picture.
When you look at me after a fight and say, "I'm very sorry about that argument," it would be wonderful if I no longer remembered anything. This is what the mystics are talking about when they speak of "purification of the memory" They are not saying forget everything, but empty out the emotion. Be healed of your pain!
You say, "Remember how much in love we were two years ago?" Do you want me to react to that or to you as you are now? When people think of love as investment, they have no idea what love is.
Love is like listening to a symphony, being sensitive to everything in that symphony. It means having a heart sensitive to everyone and to all. Can you imagine that a person would hear a symphony and listen only to the drums? Or value the drums so much that the other instruments would be almost eclipsed? Good musicians, those who love music, listen to each of the instruments; they might have their favourite instruments, but they listen to all of them.
When we are impassioned, when we have a feeling of attachment, an obsession, the object of our passion stands out and other persons are eclipsed.
Love is not a relationship. It is a state of being. Love existed before any human being. Before we existed, love already existed. I've said that when the eye is unobstructed the result is vision. We cannot do anything to get love. If we comprehended our duties, attachments, attractions, obsessions, predilections, inclinations, and if we got rid of them all, love would appear. When the eye is unobstructed, the result is vision. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.
Source : Walking on Water, Anthony de Mello. Abstract from chapter 11 - Leave Your Boat on the Beach. p86-90
Ophiuchus' Note : In recent days, having witnessed scenarios of breakups in relationships and marriages on one end, and on the other spectrum, seeing lonely souls seeking love and marriage to make their lives complete.Then came across this chapter,and feels the message is clear, therefore sharing it here.
