Good & Healthy Relationship Advice & Tips
Karma Sutra: What is love?
Love is an oft used word, an oft desired word, an oft exploited word. We try to classify it as conditional love and unconditional love.
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Though, most people believe that if it’s conditional it can’t be love. The two words cannot possibly go together. But if we really look around isn’t mutual need mistaken for love? The need could be physical, emotional, social, financial…in which case it’s ‘interdependence’ not love. Then how does one define love?
The great love stories, the great love songs – are these mere tales of fantasy or an exercise in mutual admiration, an egocentric game. The hunter and the hunted, when the chasing game is over, ‘needs’ metamorphose into ‘wants’. We want the person to be the imagined version of the person we fell in love with, an ideal. And when there’s a discrepancy, we leave. Turns out the terms and conditions were not met with. But what about love? What is love then and ‘Where does the love go?’ as Ms Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City) justifiably wonders.
Do we merely fall in love with ‘the idea’ of being in love? Is love yet another exercise in self-importance?
Is not a parent child love also conditional? Do we not love our kids because we see them as an extension of our ego. ‘My’ child should have the best, be the best…it’s the ‘My’ here which supercedes all the other factors. So, does even this count as love? Except perhaps as love for our own self?
Even our love for God is conditional. We love Him only when He fulfils our wishes (though lord knows, mostly He doesn’t). In His case, of course, He doesn’t fulfil our wishes because He loves us unconditionally. (At least someone does.) So, are we incapable of loving anyone but our own self unconditionally? Were we always like this?
When life had only just begun, we were brimming with love — love for our parents, our family, our friends, our neighbours…there was so much magic in that love. Our world was that glass prism out of which reflected the multicolours of a rainbow. So, when did it turn monochromatic? When did we stop loving? The basis of love, whether it’s divine love or love for our fellow beings and creatures is ‘Trust’.
When we were young, we lived in trust. And there was joy and fun, we enjoyed our seasons in the Sun. As we started to grow up, we got caught in the ‘business of life’. Chemistry got replaced with mathematics, the magical elements dissipated and calculations took over. With calculations came hierarchy of numbers and the race to be number one. This created tension. Trust was replaced by fear, love got replaced by need.
‘Who’ you are did not matter anymore, ‘what’ you are gained importance. We, who were capable of loving without reservations have turned into measuring devices. Where did the love go? All we seem to care about is, ’what’s in it for me?
It’s a sad state of affairs and our seasons in the sun have been replaced by bitter and chilly winters. Can we really take responsibility for the absence of love in our life? Can we bring ourselves to ‘trust’ again?
There are bound to be people who break our trust, but we need to forsake those people, not our ability to trust. Trust makes our heart expansive; it’s in sync with existence. As for people who break our trust, leave their fate to the law of karma. The law of karma is the basis of divine justice. No one exploits anyone but themselves. With this faith live easy and love easy.
To love is to trust existence. Whether it’s divine love or love for humanity, trust is always blind and love is always unconditional. Whether we wish to give the people who break our trust another chance is an individual choice. But when we hold on to the deceit and vow never to trust again it is detrimental for our physical, emotional and spiritual well being.
When we live in mistrust and fear our heart gets contracted and to live with a contracted heart is to live a joyless life. The loss – be it of emotional or financial nature, we will be able to overcome with time, but if we adopt the attitude of mistrust, we lose the essence of living. Make informed choices and decisions where possible but having done that surrender to existence.
As Osho, the Zen master, says:”Don’t be afraid, this existence is not your enemy. This existence mothers you, this existence is ready to support you in every possible way. Trust and you will feel a new upsurge of energy in you; that energy is love.”
Credit: The Indian Times
