Am I actually in love or is it just a phase of life?..
Love is a basic emotion, yet i cannot plan to fall in love or create conditions for being in love as i use to believe earlier. It is something over which i have no control. Either i fall in love or i do not.. It is ordained. An interesting way to look at love is to understand this analogy...’When a huge tidal wave comes, all the little brooks and ditches become full to the brim without any effort or consciousness on their own part’....
I beleive there are some parameters on the basis of which one can decide whether love has bestowed my life or not.
The first test is that I do not want exclusive possession of the object of my love. I wish the world to know of my love. I could declare my love from the rooftop. And I wish to do and say whatever makes the person I love happy. M K Ghandi said:’love and exclusive possession can never go together: theoretically where there is perfect love, there must be perfect non-possession’..
The second test of love is that there can be no bargain... It does not recognise reward or punishment... Love itself is a merit, and itself its own reward... Beyond itself love seeks neither cause nor outcome; the outcome of it is one with the practice of it..
I love something or someone for its own sake and not because I want or desire a favour in return. Love is not a mean to some ephemeral or non-ephemeral end, but is an end in itself. Love is not a response to any positive situation. I can go on loving…for when I give my love it comes back millions of times more.
The notion of giving is so consequential to love that ‘if i do not give it, it goes back, it becomes dead , it becomes a dead weight on me. It becomes hatred - it turns into its very opposite. It becomes jealousy, it becomes possessiveness’, said Osho.
The third test of love is the annihilation of ego. It obliterates the distinction between the self and the other by an unconditional surrender to the other; rather it is a total merger. A complete synthesis with the beloved. In true love the lover and the beloved are one.
The sense of my own identity individuality vanishes. The other, therefore, does not place a limit on the lover’s freedom; rather ,communion with the beloved leads to unbound freedom. It frees me from limits imposed on me by my ego.
The fourth test of real love is that it knows no fear. Fear could be of unfulfilled desires. If my love springs from fear of punishment, or from my desires being fulfilled, then there is no love at all. Love and fear are incompatible as in love there is no place for desire.
The fifth test of love is that i love what i consider to be the best and not the one what others consider to be the best. Therefore, the beloved person, object, or ideal is unique. It is the highest from the perspective of the lover; from the others’ perspective it may not be so. For others some other ideal could be higher than this one. But for the lover the beloved is the best.
The sixth test of real love is that the lover does not so much believe in the pedantic and powerless reason which merely argues but is able to establish a direct contact with the beloved.
The lover gives up the fruitless intellectual groping in the dark, and trusts her own direct experiences. SHe does not give reasons or arguments, nor depend upon inferences but depends on direct perception and lived life experiences to love.
Am I in true love or maybe i need to work harder!!!
