Why is it important?
Love is a much used word what can mean so many different feelings and states of mind, ranging from lust and desire to selfless divine love. We will discuss these various levels of attraction and states of unity further on. Here let us examine what love is and why is it so important to us and for us.
We All Desire to be Loved
We all desire to be loved – and if possible – unconditionally. We need to feel that others accept us, respect us, admire us and love us. When we feel that others do not love or respect us, we feel pain, rejection, loss of self-esteem and even insecure and fearful – in other words – unhappy.
Deep down inside in the core of our being, we equally need to feel love for others. When we do not experience love for others, we do not feel connected to them. We feel separate, lonely, alienated and some times fearful.
Love aligns us with our higher self
Love may begin as a feeling of attraction, but eventually becomes a state of identification and unity. On the emotional level it is the basis for positive and healthy energy exchange between humans and beings of all types. When are loved or feel love, we experience an energy connection that relaxes, rejuvenates, affirms and heals us allowing us greater access to our true spiritual and magnificent inner being.
Love brings out the greatest and highest aspects of our being. It breeds compassion, understanding, forgiveness, selflessness, courage, healthy love-based-sacrifice and ultimately transcendence of our mental and emotional limitations, allowing us to overcome programmings and fear. Ultimately, love frees us from ignorance and allows us to experience our true spiritual self.
The opposite of love is not anger nor hate, but rather ignorance and fear. If we examine the moments that we lose our love, we will find that we are being controlled by attachment and fear. We will examine this issue later.
Why does love have this affect on us?
One explanation is that, in reality, we are not these bodies but actually immortal souls who temporarily identify with these bodies in order to develop and perfect our ability to express our divine nature while focused in and expressing ourselves through these bodies. Our true nature is in fact love, peace, wisdom, selflessness and all other higher human qualities. We consider the values important and absolute, because in fact they are our true inner nature. We seek to experience love, because we are reminded of our true inner nature which is love. We seek peace and do not like the opposite of peace, because we are actually peace – within. We consider justice and equality to be absolute values because they express our highest nature which, is already a reality in the core of our being, but not yet a reality in our mind, words, emotions and actions.
We seek love, peace, justice, and unity, because we are in fact all of these. We seek ourselves.
Thus love is not something to be exercised but rather released from within. We do not learn to love, but rather remember to love. We do not need to try to love, but simply need to remove the fear, attachment and ignorance that prevent us from experiencing the love that is already there within us.
Perceiving love in this way, allows us to free ourselves from the feelings of pride or guilt when we are able or unable to love. We are not more worthy nor more loved by the Divine when we love, than when we do not love. It is not a matter of good or bad, but rather a matter of ignorance and wisdom, a matter of bondage in fear and programming or freedom from false perception and fear.
Real freedom has nothing to do with being able to do whatever we want in every moment so that we can have what we want to be happy. Real freedom is not to make others do what we want them to do in order to satisfy our needs. Real freedom is the freedom to be happy and feel love regardless of whatever happens and whatever others might do.
We will discuss later on how to create the state of inner security, self-worth and freedom so as to be able to love in all situations.
How can we Describe Love?
To define love would be to confine it. As with the wind, we cannot see it, but we can perceive its results. What are some of those attributes or indications of love?
(Loving ourselves is a prerequisite to loving others. Thus, as you read these descriptions, you might want to also mentally check if your love for yourself is in alignment with the following these aspects of love.)
1. One aspect of love is that we feel joy, peace, and gratitude simply when we think of or come into contact with the ones we love. Their presence brings us happiness. In the earlier stages of our spiritual development this usually occurs when others behave in ways that satisfy our needs. As we evolve, our love is purer and independent of what they do.
2. Love and understanding augment each other. Understanding enables love to be stable even when others cannot be as perfect as we would like them to be. Loving allows us to have greater understanding and patience towards those we love.
3. When we love, we respect the others, their needs, fears, weakness, strengths, virtues and qualities.
4. Sacrifice out of love is totally different from fear-based sacrifice, in which we give up needs or rights out of fear of conflict or rejection, or of spoiling our image as a “good person”. When we sacrifice with love, we are making a conscious choice to let go of something we need, in order to help others. There is no pain, we do not expect something back, we keep no records or balances. We forget it immediately. The experience of love is our reward, and we need no other.
5. Although love is an inner state, it frequently needs to be expressed in action. We cannot imagine loving someone and not helping them when they are need. Expressing love with action sometimes means sensing what others need even when they do not have the ability to express themselves.
6. Love allows truth. Love demands truth and integrity. When others do not tell us the truth, we usually feel that they do not love us. (They may in fact love us but be too afraid to tell us the truth.) When we love others, we will natural want to be truthful with them
7. The same goes for keeping agreements. When others do not respect their agreements with us, we naturally feel that they do not love us. (Again, they may love us, but be controlled by desires, fears and attachments that prevent them from being conscientious in their agreements.) We cannot perfect our love for others until we keep our word with them.
8. Love creates a feeling of unity and peace. Our tensions are based on the illusion of our separateness and our inability to be natural and relaxed with another. Love breaks down those feelings and we find ourselves sharing and expressing aspects of ourselves that we fear letting others see. It is important for us to be able to share all aspects of ourselves with at least one other person. This allows us to feel both worthy and secure.
9. When we love others we want their health, happiness and success. We are happy about their progress and success in life. We feel no jealousy or pain even when they surpass us. We encourage them to proceed and blossom in their lives rather than competing or obstructing them.
10. We want the others to be happy in the ways they themselves are guided. True love does not fear when others find happiness or life solutions through others, rather than through us. We do not need to be source of their happiness or progress. We simply want them to be well.
11. Love allows others to perceive reality in their own unique ways, and does not demand that they agree with us. We need others to agree with us when we are insecure about our own perceptions or self-worth.
12. Love does not demand that others obey us or live as we believe. We love them regardless as to whether they can give us what we need or want and whether their life style coincides with our expectations or needs.
13. Love enables us to forgive others for their mistakes and weaknesses. We perceive them as souls in the process of evolution and are thus free to love them even when we do not agree with their actions or choices.
Note: Love sometimes requires that we distinguish between the others and their behaviors or actions. In such cases, loving does not require that we allow them to do whatever they like, when it is unjust, unethical or disrespectful. We eventually need to develop the ability to love while simultaneously negotiating for and at times even demanding a change in behavior. We continue to love others even when we need to confront them for their lack of conscientiousness or justice. This may sometimes mean employing natural or logical consequences if they are not able to align with their inner conscience. Throughout this process we continue to experience love for the others.
14. Perfect love can even forgive the worst of all human behaviors, just as Christ asked forgiveness for those who killed him because, “they know not what they do.”
15. Love is the source of greater creativity and humane works around the world. Our love for others inspires us to perceive and manifest ways of helping others live happier and more fulfilled lives. Love creates selfless actions and works.
The Pain of Loneliness and the Pleasure of Love
It is obvious that we need to experience love. When we do not, we suffer. we feel lonely, cut off emotional and energy-wise form others and life. This is why we fear rejection as much as we fear death. Feeling alone is like death itself. We are not connected with others and life. We believe that if we are not accepted by others, we will be alone and that is seems insufferable to us. If we examine the reasons people commit suicide, we will find that they were feeling lonely. Regardless of whether those around them did love them, they were unable to experience that love connection.
Note: We need to distinguish between being alone and feeling lonely. One can have hundreds of people who love and admire him and yet feel lonely. Another can be living alone in a cave and feel united with all of humanity and all of creation. Thus loneliness has nothing to do with how many people are around us, but has to do with our ability to feel our connect to them. It does not matter whether those we connect to are physically near us, far away or even passed on into the spiritual realms. We feel our connection with them wherever they might be.
When we do not receive the love we need, or are afraid to accept love because we have identified being loved with some danger, we choose to not feel that connection – no matter how much others might love or respect us. In such cases we might seek to fill that emptiness by other means such as overeating, drinking alcohol, drugs, over working, accumulating wealth or fortunes, being over focused on sensual pleasures or activities. We might even loose ourselves in serving others – with the hope that they will love us.
The emptiness of being alone is unbearable because it is actually the opposite of the truth. Our emotional states are affected by the degree to which we ourselves think and act in harmony with inner selves and ultimate destiny. Loneliness is painful, because it is in fact a separation from our true inner self. Anger is painful because it is the opposite of who we are. Fear is painful and dissimilating because it is a negation of who we really are.
Loneliness, anger and fear are born of the illusion that we are separate from and vulnerable to others and life itself. It is wise that we experience these emotions in as unpleasant, because that gives us the motivation to move out of those states towards unity. This is also why we feel so good when we feel love, unity, peace, accepted and safe.
Human nature is programmed to feel separation as painful and unity as pleasant. This wisely creates the stage for our evolution and movement towards a more loving reality.
Our inner emptiness is caused by our lack on contact with our inner higher nature and true self. We long for our true nature which is ultimately divine. Our true self is the one universal consciousness with is also the true self of all other beings and of all creation. We will never solve the problem of our emptiness until we reunite with our true divine self.
Three ways to fulfill the need for love
Imagine then that we all have a space in our heart center that needs to be filled with feelings of love and unity in order for us to be peaceful, happiness and healthy. We need for that space to be filled with love energy – or else se suffer.
We can fill that space in three ways.
1. Getting others to love us.
2. Loving others as they are at this stage of their evolutionary process.
3. Loving ourselves as we are at our present stage in our evolutionary process.
The first way we seek to fill our inner emptiness is by getting others to love us – hopefully as we are. Often we are also ready to make various alterations in ourselves and our lives with the hope that others will love us more. We suppress feelings, needs and activities with the hope they will accept us. We try to do things we hope will cause them to need us and perhaps love us.
Note: There is a great difference between doing things for others out of love for them and doing the same with the hope they will love us.
We spend time, money and energy altering our appearance with the hope we will be more attractive to others. We fetter over our weight less so for health reasons than out of concern about how we appear to others. We seek to amass money and material objects believing that others will want to be with us for those reasons. Each of us seeks ways to be attractive, desired and hopefully loved by others. We alter the truth and often tell lies to keep others close to us.
The problem is that we seldom obtain the love we need in these ways. Others subconsciously perceive our selfishness motives and frequently do not respond in the ways we need in order to feel loved. We then feel even more pain, because after doing so much to be loved, we are not getting what we need. We will not solve the problem by seeking to get others to love us.
That leads us to the actual solutions which are:
1. Loving others as they are.
2. Loving ourselves as we are so that we do not need others to affirm us.
We, however, have many obstacles to both of these solutions.
Basically we are able to love others steadily and deeply only when we have a loving relationship with ourselves. Otherwise it is quite easy to lose our love for others when they behave in ways that intimidate our feelings of self-worth, security and freedom. When they behave in ways we are programmed to fear, we lose our love and feel pain, injustice, bitterness, anger and even hate and revenge. All of this because we lack inner feelings of self-worth, security and freedom.
Christ encouraged us to love others as we love ourselves. He did not say, love others and not yourselves or love yourselves and not others. The reality is that we can love, accept, understand and forgive others only to the degree that we love, accept, understand and forgive ourselves. The opposite is also true. We can have as much understanding and love towards ourselves as we do towards others. These are interdependent.
Note: There are person who apparently more easily accept themselves or others, because of certain childhood experiences or character traits, but in the center of their being, love for themselves and others are interdependent.
We will discuss the subject of accepting and loving ourselves in later chapters.
Before moving on to the next chapter, I would like to repeat the following important points.
1. We do not need to learn to love. We are love in the center of our being. When we are free from attachment, addiction and fear we naturally and effortlessly experience love towards all – including ourselves and even those who might have sought to harm us.
2. We need to free this process from all forms of pride, feelings of superiority and guilt and feelings of inferiority. We are not more or less worthy of love and respect because of our success or failure in this process. It is simply our ultimate evolutionary destination. We will simply be freer and happier and more in alignment with our true self and the universe.
From the Book Love is the Choice
By Robert Elias Najemy
https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Robert+Najemy
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