I've been suffering a lot and existing in my mind, but it seems like it is really what needs to happen, and that some new understandings have arisen.
I've been wondering a lot about love, and what love means, and if it is real or meaningful. I think I've realized how much meaning my mind has assigned to love, and that love in itself does not inherently include any other characteristics.
It is real in the moment that it exists, and my ideas that true love means honesty, loyalty, and is everlasting are not true. These are just made up qualities that I have always affixed to "love". It is hard to let go of thinking love means something.
How could my mind really understand what love means? Yet I feel that it does mean something, that it is real. I am finding confusion between feeling love, feeling that it is real and meaningful, and understanding that it is only my mind assigning the meaning.
I know that a love with no object is a true love, but I still experience love with people. It is so hard not to attach to it, feel torn by it, or understand what it is when you feel betrayed by it.
Do you have any words about this?
I've been wondering a lot about love, and what love means, and if it is real or meaningful. I think I've realized how much meaning my mind has assigned to love, and that love in itself does not inherently include any other characteristics.
It is real in the moment that it exists, and my ideas that true love means honesty, loyalty, and is everlasting are not true. These are just made up qualities that I have always affixed to "love". It is hard to let go of thinking love means something.
How could my mind really understand what love means? Yet I feel that it does mean something, that it is real. I am finding confusion between feeling love, feeling that it is real and meaningful, and understanding that it is only my mind assigning the meaning.
I know that a love with no object is a true love, but I still experience love with people. It is so hard not to attach to it, feel torn by it, or understand what it is when you feel betrayed by it.
Do you have any words about this?
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Answer:
Namaste.
Some wonderful insights...
Particularly
a) I've been suffering a lot and existing in my mind, but it seems like it is really what needs to happen
b) how much meaning my mind has assigned to love, and that love in itself does not inherently include other characteristics...ideas that true love means honesty, loyalty, and is everlasting are not true. These are just made up qualities that I have always affixed to "love".
c) understanding that it is only my mind assigning the meaning
d) a love with no object is a true love
It seems like you understand "true love" well and how it differs from what we call "love" which as you say, is "hard not to attach to it, feel torn by it, or understand
what it is when you feel betrayed by it".
They are fundamentally different "states", like going to Mississippi (love) and going to the Milky Way (true love).
It is difficult, particularly in this culture, to get past the attachment to the emotions surrounding absorption in another person or thing with all of its hopes, dreams, disappointments, expectations, pleasure and pain. Only by watching it unfold, again and again, can we see that love w/attachment w/an object or person is inherently headed to Mississippi, to suffering and pain. That's not some book talking; that's the common experience, yours and mine - just listen to our music.
There is a "love" and we really need another name, like bliss or something from another language like ananda which is not so culturally and experientially loaded for us to capture love without an object. For a long time, i used "uncaused happiness" in my signoffs, but it confused folk, understandably. i even considered it for my book's title, but the editors and reviewers didn't like/understand it. i would offer the same definition for love without an object, like "uncaused love".
Can we have a love that has no cause, that is not a bargain or a transaction in the marketplace, trading something to get what we call from from another? There is "uncaused love" and in my experience it is far beyond the "love" we bargain for everyday. Love without a cause and without an object comes when one sees that I am everything, I am everything.
One of the great and famous spiritual quotes on the subject comes from Nisargadatta's I Am That; "when I see that I am nothing, that is wisdom; when I see that I am everything, that is love...between these two my life moves".
That is the practice; just try living with, feeling deeply the reality of "I am everything". Carry it around the way you have looked so deeply and sincerely at "When am I?", "Where am I?". Hold it and see if it is true for you...what does it feel like to hold that feeling...is it real for you...is it likely to be possible...to be true?
you really have an extraordinary insight into this work; your questioning and reasoning are exceptionally attuned to it; persevere...persevere...
hope this is helpful
peace and stillness
Namaste.
Some wonderful insights...
Particularly
a) I've been suffering a lot and existing in my mind, but it seems like it is really what needs to happen
b) how much meaning my mind has assigned to love, and that love in itself does not inherently include other characteristics...ideas that true love means honesty, loyalty, and is everlasting are not true. These are just made up qualities that I have always affixed to "love".
c) understanding that it is only my mind assigning the meaning
d) a love with no object is a true love
It seems like you understand "true love" well and how it differs from what we call "love" which as you say, is "hard not to attach to it, feel torn by it, or understand
what it is when you feel betrayed by it".
They are fundamentally different "states", like going to Mississippi (love) and going to the Milky Way (true love).
It is difficult, particularly in this culture, to get past the attachment to the emotions surrounding absorption in another person or thing with all of its hopes, dreams, disappointments, expectations, pleasure and pain. Only by watching it unfold, again and again, can we see that love w/attachment w/an object or person is inherently headed to Mississippi, to suffering and pain. That's not some book talking; that's the common experience, yours and mine - just listen to our music.
There is a "love" and we really need another name, like bliss or something from another language like ananda which is not so culturally and experientially loaded for us to capture love without an object. For a long time, i used "uncaused happiness" in my signoffs, but it confused folk, understandably. i even considered it for my book's title, but the editors and reviewers didn't like/understand it. i would offer the same definition for love without an object, like "uncaused love".
Can we have a love that has no cause, that is not a bargain or a transaction in the marketplace, trading something to get what we call from from another? There is "uncaused love" and in my experience it is far beyond the "love" we bargain for everyday. Love without a cause and without an object comes when one sees that I am everything, I am everything.
One of the great and famous spiritual quotes on the subject comes from Nisargadatta's I Am That; "when I see that I am nothing, that is wisdom; when I see that I am everything, that is love...between these two my life moves".
That is the practice; just try living with, feeling deeply the reality of "I am everything". Carry it around the way you have looked so deeply and sincerely at "When am I?", "Where am I?". Hold it and see if it is true for you...what does it feel like to hold that feeling...is it real for you...is it likely to be possible...to be true?
you really have an extraordinary insight into this work; your questioning and reasoning are exceptionally attuned to it; persevere...persevere...
hope this is helpful
peace and stillness
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