Life: Blink and you will miss it!

Crazy little thing called love

 

Whoever has not heard the words "I love you" and not felt something stir deep in side them? Or though, I love you, or contemplated their love for some beautiful person?

 

And most of these people - including me - have never thought "What is love"? What is this thing I am feeling?  Why do I love?

 

In "The Road Less Travelled" M Scott Peck does a great job of expanding on what love IS, and this is the gist of it.  To truly understand it, I suggest you read his book!

 

There are two 'states' to love:  The first being when you meet/see a person.  Some force makes you want to be near that person constantly, to have physical relations with that person and to get to a point to do anything for that person.  At this point, your ego boundaries break down.  You WILL do anything for that person.  you might forget your friends, you might day dream about that person, think about her or him all the time, waiting until you speak or see that person next. Your life is devoted to that person. You lust after that person. This state I think lasts generally from 6 - 12 months.  Then the next state starts:

 

As you and the person become more familiar to each other, your ego boundaries start to build up. You start to remember once again who YOU are, and so does your partner.  And when you partner does not do something you want or like, you begin to not want to be with the person when they do that or those things. You still want to be with your partner, except that intensity and obsession is transformed into a comfort-ness and relaxed state.  As your fully become aware of yourself again, you might realise you have changed as a result, you might welcome the change or you might not.  You might see that now you have to actually work at being in a relationship with the person, and it might be worth it or it might not be.

 

To me the P.O.C of love is "Being able to accept and help discover and nurture someone to fulfil the potential of they are"

 

The first state I reckon is more lust, the second state, depending on the relationship can either become love or fear.  Love will occur when the two (or three or four etc...) people in the relationship can understand very simply that each person in the relationship is unique, and that uniqueness is not something to be judged, just accepted.  And if they can help the other person to fulfil their uniqueness in their lives then they I achieve love.

 

If the people in the relationship don't understand the uniqueness of the other, and try to change the other to fit in the their mould, not accept the other for who they are, then they achieve a state of pain and possibly anger.  Pain because they feel something that is not good for them.  Anger because the person is not being who they want the person to be.  Then the relationship might turn to external influences to draw a state of comfort and possibly excitement back into the relationship.  This search will forever continue because it is not possible to find that state of 'love' by drawing on the external.

 

And all of that means absolutely nothing if don't see that you must love yourself the way you love others. 

 

You are maintaining a relationship with yourself.  their is the part of you that is conscious of things you do, and the part of you that is not conscious but still aware of what you do.  You have to accept who you are ALL the time, and LOVE WHO YOU ARE ALL THE TIME!  In my definition of love, that means for every waking moment to "Accept and help discover and nurture yourself to fulfil the potential of WHO YOU ARE"

 

That's frightening. In our society we are told not to accept who we are:  you are not blonde enough, not butch enough, not thin enough, not healthy enough, not rich enough, not clever enough.  You do not conform to societies rules, You do not play the part of your life, and if you do you are a freak, something to be revered and idolised because the average person will not attain that status.

 

Imagine if we were told this:  It doesn't matter what you look like, what you eat, what you drive, what clothes you wear, which god you believe in, which car you drive, what music you like etc... what matters is that YOU do what YOU Want to do, and good luck doing it.

 

Now look around you, everywhere their are people who can help you to find who you truly are, to find your "Personal Legend" (In the words of Paulo Coelho in the Alchemist).  There are authors, swami's, Guru’s, friends, family, teachers and there is the one person who will help you find this all out, the one person you can rely on 100% of the time, the one person who will be your life's greatest Guide, you teacher and your student... YOURSELF.  Love (Accept and help discover and nurture yourself to fulfil the potential of WHO YOU ARE), trust and accept yourself and you won’t even be moved if the world doesn't love you back, as it is in you!

 

And if you can come close to this state then you will find many who fulfil you ,yet they may be few.  You might never find or never your true love, because, you are your true love, and if you do find that person, it will be a great gift as they will bring with them new experiences and challenges for you to discover who your are. 

 

And when you stop the journey of acceptance and love, you will lose consciousness, and depart this plane of existence!