 |
 |
SOPHOCLES, the great Greek tragic dramatist, had remarked: "The one word which frees us of all weight and pain is that of love". To experience love in all its splendour, to find it seeping into our bones, washing over the mind and heart, merging them into one rhythmic whole, is the biggest gift we can hope to receive. Poets, novelists, lyricists and cinematographers have tried to capture the ‘feeling of love’ --- the intensity of emotion, the ecstasy of belonging, the pain of suffering and separation, the anxiety and insecurity of loss,--- but they have failed to satiate the appetite of viewers, readers and audiences. Everyone loves a love story and the they-lived-happily- ever-after ending. If love really does make the world go round, why isn’t the world one big party of lovers and beloveds? Why is there so much unhappiness, misery, pain, suffering and, yes, even a lack of love? How can we be more loving? Are we capable of receiving love? Once found, can love grow and build on itself? Can love between people bring out the best in them giving them a sense of direction, a new meaning? Is finding love such a big thing? Mystics have said that "love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go and it makes the end so easy." That should, in a nutshell, signify the import of love. To be unable to give and/or receive love is like turning into a barren, parched piece of land which is incapable flowering and changing colours with the seasons, incapable of growing and refining itself. |
|||||||||
| Those who are touched by love find
themselves empowered with a rare brand of energy,
strength, conviction and belief in themselves. Love has
the greatest power to do good in the world. If we want to
go through life not as a curious spectator, but as an
enthusiastic participant, experiencing the highs and lows
with passion and intensity, we have to be touched by the
emotion of love — both as a giver and a receiver.
Whether it is love for one’s school, college,
friends, job, parents, siblings, nature, interests or a
beloved, we have to have love coursing through our veins.
And herein lies one of the greatest paradoxes of life. It
can be argued that we cannot give love away until we have
it and that we cannot have it until we give it away. In
truth, it is only when we develop the ability to love
unconditionally that we discover its overpowering
presence in our lives. It comes by giving it away. It is
the one thing that never goes out of fashion, out of
style and it is one which we can never have enough of. The most difficult task for a human being is to love another. Love is at first, not anything that means merging, giving and uniting with another. It is an inducement to an individual to ripen and to become something for another’s sake. Kahlil Gibran says, "Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love." There is no scope for manipulation, strategy or measuring outflows and inflows in love. He adds, "When you love you should not say, ‘God is in my heart, but rather, I am in the heart of God’. And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course." Victor Frankl, while being taken to do forced labour in a Nazi concentration camp, was overwhelmed with feeling which he later put down in the following words: "A thought transfixed me. For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, even if for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved." In a position of utter desolation when a man cannot express himself through positive action, when his only achievement consists in enduring his sufferings in an honourable way, he can achieve fulfilment through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved. Any definition of love would be incomplete, inadequate. It cannot be quantified or explained in mere words. There are as many definitions and interpretations of love as there are people who have experienced love. Each one of them lends his own distinct impression, adding yet another shade to its multi-coloured splendour. M Scott Peck reluctantly attempts a definition by saying, "Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth." He explodes the myth that ‘love is a feeling’. He says that love is an action, an activity. He gives depth to the meaning of love by differentiating it from cathecting. The feeling of love, according to him, is the emotion that accompanies the experience of cathecting. Cathecting is the process by which an object becomes important to us. Once cathected, the object, commonly referred to as a ‘love object,’ is invested with our energy as if it were a part of ourselves and this relationship between us and the invested object is called a cathexis. The misconception that love is a feeling exists because we confuse cathecting with loving. We may cathect any object, animate or inanimate, with or without a spirit, without giving a dime for its spiritual development. Genuine love, on the other hand, implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. When we are concerned for someone’s spiritual growth we know that a lack of commitment will be harmful and that commitment to that person is probably necessary for us to manifest our concern effectively. The most important thing is that genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. His seeming acts of sacrifice, submission, giving and compassion are all acts of love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. If it exists fine, but if it doesn’t the commitment to love and the will to love still stand and are exercised. Conversely, it is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love. The common tendency to confuse love with the feeling of love allows people all manner of self-deception. An alcoholic who spends all his time in a bar, running up hefty debts, neglecting his wife and children has no business to get misty eyed and declare to the bartender in a drunken moment his ‘love for his family’. Love has to move from mere feeling to acting and doing. If one really loves, one’s feelings, body language, expressions, words, communication and actions will automatically reflect that love. A person will no longer have to demean the emotion of love by having to prove it. |
 |
 |
