What Is Love?

A question that I asked when I was meditating.

First, my mind thought of romantic love, as that is the context in which it is mostly used. I thought about my current relationship and examined the past ones. then I thought how romantic love is so overrated and how we need to mellow down a little.

Then I thought of why people love and need love. We love something because it reflects something about us or something that we wish we had. I love tigers because I'm known to be a very assertive person and I see that in tigers. I also like dogs a lot because I wish I had the quality of care and loyalty. I love their company and what they do to me. Hence, I love them.

This reason for why we love something or someone is probably the true reason for love. You love someone BECAUSE they give you something in return. No one will love someone who hurts you. You may convince yourself that you love your abuse partner. In truth, you are used to the person being around and you feel having someone is better than having none. You fear that your partner will leave you if you act like you don’t agree to their conditions. You restrict your freedom. But you say ‘I do this because I love you/ In truth you FEAR the thought of them leaving you. There is no love here, only fear.

Then I thought of Divine love. Most people fear the Deity, or ask for favors from the deity. The emotion involved here is fear and hope, not love. Children usually love their God/Goddess. When I was a child, I remember having conversations with Ganesh idol and even scolding him for my poor marks in exams. When you pass from the fear/hope level to seeing the Deity/Spirit/Divine in its purest and original form, you love. You no longer fear nor do you have wishes to present to your deity. All you have is love.

You can never love someone until you love all. This is my motto. Unless you love the various forms of the Deity and the formlessness, unless you love all in completion, you can never love any one single person in totality. Hence, when I say 'I love you' to my partner, I actually mean 'I love you, partially, love some things in you. But I also hate when you don't come for dinner on time, forget my birthday and so on'. Therefore, unless I come to love the other parts too, I can not love.

The Spirit is made up of everything. All of our cells, your partner, your neighbour, of that you the serial rapist and killer, of that of the dog that bit you yesterday and everything. If you hate the serial killer, the dog and if you are indifferent to your neighbour, you do not love the Spirit.  Therefore, you do not love your partner as he/she is an extension of the Spirit, of whose some parts you hate.