What is love?
Love is too vast to be adequately explained by words, daily we see many
enduring frustration and pain in the name of love, we have even seen
some kill in the name of love.
My version of love is that it is all embracing and is devoid of
selfishness, my needs should not bind you or my sentiments entrap you
if you desire the freedom of your own spirit.
Every human being was born single and free, they should only be bound
together if they desire that bondage mutually.
It is painful when another ask you for love and you can only give pity.
That pity which the other in desperation accepts as love, becomes the
breeding ground for your resentment.
Love is not like paint which when it wears out you apply another coat
and it looks as good as new.
Though passion can be stronger in love, they are not one and the same,
passion can operate without love and so too can love without passion.
It is dangerous when we confuse attachment with love because when the
mind is in attachment reason most often becomes impotent and
selfishness rules supreme.
When we say to someone “I love you” it is most times misunderstood.
“I love you” attempts to describe something you feel for the person,
but what is it that you really feel? do you really know? is it not that
“I love you” seeks to encapsulate a tradition of trying to describe feelings
which you do not understand or can explain?.
Do we not many times see people who tell each other “I love you” become
bitter enemies and “I hate you” becomes the order of the day.
So where did love go? was it ever really there?.
Was it that, it was a nice thing to say and an equally nice thing to
hear, and both the sayer and the hearer became embrangled in an illusion
of their own creation, and when that illusion was shattered there was
no common ground, and in their confusion, they hurled vituperation upon
the heads of each other.
Sometimes “I love you” really means “I own you” love should never
suffocate you or trammel the will of your spirit.
“I love you” is a feeble attempt to tell someone how you feel about
them, feelings are much too complex and deep to be explained by words
which more often than not convey little of what you really feel.
Sometimes we tell people “I love you” because we want to use them or we
want them to act favourable to us “I must be nice to him/her, he/she
loves me and I don’t want to hurt his/her feelings”.
“I don’t really love him/her but I am afraid to hurt him/her, I have to
stay with him/her because if I leave he/she is going to take it so
badly”.
So two people continue unhappily to live in another shattered illusion
some of us find consolation in what ever God we believe in, some of us
turn to alcohol or drugs.
Some of us in desperation have affairs and then feel disgusted with
ourselves but still we do it again and again.
This is what the Buddhists call Samsara
“I love you” is not enough to make two people stay
together, for two people to stay together and be happy, they have to
want to do so beyond reasons of convenience, like the pressures of
society, business commitments, children, financial dependency and religion.
When people stay together for those reasons, that relationship becomes a trap, unhappiness sets in, spirits become despondent and the yearn for freedom more often than not leads to infidelity.
KGD
