When I began my own personal self-exploration of love I first consulted with the dictionary. What was the definition of love?
Love, it read:
noun a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. a feeling of warm personal attachment, or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. sexual passion or desire.
verb (used with object), loved, lov·ing. to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her. to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).
This great deep, ocean called love and it was boiled down to nouns, verbs and a couple of phrases that barely did it justice.
"What is love truly?" I questioned.
There were so many types of love to consider: romantic, friendship, that of a parent and child, sisters and brothers. All so seemingly different in their nature. This is what we are led to believe. Ultimately though there is only one love. A love that is pure in its essence, that is unconditional in its nature and expands beyond the all that is.
George King says in his book The Nine Freedoms:
“You can truly Love all things and all people and you should do so, even though you may not like them. Love is not a way to bind and possess, but a way to free. It is not an expression of emotion, but mental energy transmuted on to the highest possible level. This is true Love. It is not personalized, it is universal. It is not binding, but gives freedom. Pure Love has great healing powers, it is the one force in the Cosmic system which can multiply itself from itself. The man who uses true Love is the wise man, for Wisdom is Love in action.”
Love is something we all seek out. It is part of being a human.
The problem is, we are so scared of being alone that we make stupid mistakes in order to fool ourselves into living the romantic dream. The world fools us with romantic fantasies that are not at all true. Giving us a distorted ideology of love.
Love is not about uttering those three special words.
Love is about being. Love is all we are.
Love is a spiritual experience when it is embraced.
Bell Hooks echoes this thought in her inspiringly, powerful book - All About Love as she writes: “All awakening to love is spiritual awakening”. However she continues, “Awakening to love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination”.
First it is paramount that we explore love for ourselves that we deepen into our own personal practice of love before we look to seek love outside of ourselves. The capacity to be alone is the key to discovering the love that exists within. That is abundant in its nature and is giving to all.
The great Indian spiritual leader, Osho, shared the following analogy about love:
"The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person--without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other."
Freedom and love is associated in many a passage. It is obvious that the fear of lack of love is what holds us back from embracing freedom within love. To truly love is to let the other person be who they are, with no conditions - to let them run free.
Let us enjoy the presence of love without the urge to hold onto it and without the desire to pluck it like a flower.
In order to evolve and participate in a beautiful lasting soul connection with another we must stop entering relationships based on ‘need’. Evaluating love based on a ‘list’ of all the assets your future partner may have. For example, a good job, a nice car, money. This kind of materialistic thinking is so far from the truth and essence of what love is it is no wonder we lack success in love.
Love in its truest form is not a transaction.
The Sun does not say “you were miserable yesterday so today I will not shine”. Love is eternal and nature shows us the way with endless giving, this is true love. Embody love and give love always - in every action, in every word, in every touch and only then will you find the true meaning of love, and how it has always been within you.
With love & gratitude,
Fabienne
P.S. Sign up for Your Greatest Love Story Yet a free 10-day course on Love.