Thoughts on Love – Here, inspired by your thoughts on what ‘True Love’ is on Instagram are some of my ideas, and also thoughts and from some of the most seminal figures in literature who have made it part of their life’s work to understand and feel the depth of all this four letter word inspires. Lastly - a poem of my own...just because...
I have heard of Love spoken about as being the most fundamental force in the universe. It’s difficulty with words, themselves trappings, to wrestle with the vast and complex feelings - and the many ways Love can manifest in our heads, bodies and spirits – that this word in particular (the most overused in all song writing) inspires.
On true Love - I think there is Love in truth, as there is truth in Love, but what is true is always subjective on experience. Even what is objective, what can be seen and agreed on, is often looked at from a singular paradigm, our unique way of interpreting the world. Honest love, could be a condition of ‘True Love’ , faithful love could also be one, and from there having faith in Love itself as a force that could guide you ‘Truly’, that is to say ‘Well’ is an interesting idea.
True love is always felt in the present, in this moment. I think it’s a deep, accepting, surrendering, peaceful and life affirming, spiritual experience that is not necessarily dependant on gazing into the eyes of somebody else, but can be found on our own too. Maybe it’s right there in front of you, or within you all along. Can we practise ‘True love’ in all we do? By finding a quality of presence, a commitment to our passions, acting from our centre with all the compassion me can rouse, a kindness to ourselves, the earth, and the people circling our lives.
Some say true love is unconditional – it doesn’t need to posses, and loves for the sake of loving alone, and one could argue, it doesn’t just survive the test of time, or the trials of life, but exists outside of them both entirely. Something not so much ‘lost’ or ‘gained’ but more something you become reconnected too.
Finally, I think to say that an experience of ‘True Love’ could almost be like a meditation, it takes great discipline, but it’s something you can ultimately bring conscious practise too.
A note on self love – (I wrote this back in 2012…jeeeeezzzz)
And if you don’t…then I urge you, with all your might, to discover why.
Understanding this is the first step on what I feel is the most important journey we can ever go on. The journey of love. It’s no doubt one of the hardest, but also maybe the most rewarding. Now the love I talk about here has nothing to do with vanity, or narcissism but more a deep, constantly connected feeling of self worth, respect and care. This is not a love that loves on some days and not on others, this love is unconditional, this love is constant, this love is transformative. For only when we have built this unconditional love in ourselves, will we be able to shower it, purely, on others, and in turn, let others really love us back.
If you fundamentally believe yourself to be unlovable and are using love as an escape from yourself – when someone ‘brilliant, and amazing’ – all the things you think you’re not - turns to say they love you, they distort your own worldview, they make you wrong. How could ‘they’, love someone like ‘you’ you might think to you yourself, so firmly attached, and ignorant, to your own script, they must not be all you thought they were in the first place, and you hence you sabotage everything because nothing discredits them further than loving the ‘un-loveable’ YOU..
So can we even begin to build this unconditional love in ourselves? What’s stopping you? A pain in the past? The way you look in the mirror? Somebody else? You’re the only one who knows, and you’re the only who can do anything about it. Know this - you are deserving of love, no matter what, and remember this love, this unconditional love, accepts you for all that you are, for all that you’ve done and for all that you’ll do. If you believe in a God, this is the sort of love God would give you…so…be your own God…inspire that love in yourself, and through that, inspire others too.
The Art of loving. By Erich Fromm…….
In attempting to Understand Love (point 30 something in my Bucket List – See below) I’ve been reading ‘The Art of Loving’ by Erich Fromm. First published in 1957, some of his views are old fashioned, but regardless an exceptionally insightful book. Here summarised my thoughts. All quotes are from the book…which I highly recommend you read.
Is love an art? Should we treat it as one? And is love the most sacred art, a lost one perhaps, that we can devote our life too? Any artist works at his art, constantly seeking to improve and adjust his theoretical understanding and engaging himself physically in the experiences that will lead him to the next level; the next level of depth and understanding. A real artist shows commitment to his art..and this…this real commitment to love is maybe what we’re missing.
In our culture we’ve come to adopt a view that ‘love’ is this magical, illusive thing that comes from nowhere, sweeps us away and recues us from the fear of being alone. Love in this capacity is fleeting, inconsistent and temperamental…all traits I’m sure we can agree one does not want in a lover. “Most people see the problem of love as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love.” Hence the question arises ‘Am I lovable? How can I make myself more so? More pretty, More desirable. How can I make people fall in love with me?’ These are the questions we ask, questions that make us feel depressed and un-worthy when really we should be turning the emphasis inward and really asking ‘How can I increase my capacity to love.’ In the society we live in, one driven by the free markets and our insatiable appetite to consume, we have been conditioned to swallow everything, films, food, sights and people. “We have become a commodity, alienated from our fellow men and from ourselves. Transformed into a commodity” and this brings up feeling of anxiety, fear, and separateness. We have built a world where love is on the bottom of peoples priorities. How much am I worth? Am I a good investment? Our society is built to run on fear…So where is loves role in all this? How can we re-orient ourselves around love and escape from cyclical consumption?
“The deepest need of man is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave his prison of aloneness”
Do you feel alone? We were born into the natural world, in touch with it and it was a part of us. You only have to look at all the totems and practises of tribal cultures to see just how important our relationship with nature was. And it still is, but I think sometimes we forget this. Now as we move farther and farther away from nature, away from living in a supportive communities, as we used to, it’s no wonder that now more than ever we feel alone. I don’t know any of my neighbours. Riding the tube into London everyone is silent, in their own world, playing games on their I-phone or zoning out to music which throbs in their ears. There are people all around you, but still, you’re alone. Now I ask the question….Can one person truly complete you? In the present climate is there a danger that love is being idealised as the only path to salvation?
I think it takes great strength to be alone. Some of the most creative and influential people in the world were solitary creatures. Being able to be alone is really important. (I highly recommend reading the book Solitude by Anthony Storr to find out more about the link between creativity and isolation) But one man in no man and we need each other to flourish. Eric Fromm believes there are different ways to attain this unity we all desire but the “full answer lies in the achievement of interpersonal union, of fusion with another person in love"
What do you think? Is love being put on a pedestal as our last hope for connection or like Erich do you believe that a mature, reciprocal, joyous and active love - a love we stand in rather than ‘fall’ into, can transform our lives.
From, OSHO, TRANSCRIBED TEACHINGS, THE GUEST
What is love? Love is the fragrance, the radiance of knowing oneself…of being oneself…Love is overflowing joy. Love is when you have seen who you are, and then there is nothing left except, to share your being with others. Love is when you have seen that you are not separate from existence. Love is when you have felt orgasmic unity with all that is. Love is not a relationship. Love is a state of being. It has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not in love. One is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love - but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.
The last poem I wrote, Love, and everything that come with it – the catalyst
Until our hearts could take no more
Until we finally struck the reality of us
I had always wished our dreams come true
I had always thought we were dreamers, you and I
More than we were diggers
And yet look at the hole we made
I often think of the ground we moved together
Of the pleasures of our sweat
Of the tears that bore us on
Both of us buried in them
As we deepened into each other
Now that we’re out of that hole
