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Love, possibly, is the most talked about yet the least understood aspect of human life. Some people doubt its very existence whereas others have given theirs or taken other's life for it. What is love? - is an eternal question.
Love means different things to different people. Philosophers and writers, poets and bards, kings and paupers, devotees and lords- all have spoken about -and experienced love, and its loss.
Love pleases and troubles people in various ways. "Am I in love?", "Does she love me?", "Will someone ever love me?", "What happens in love?", "Does true love exist?" are the questions which people ask me often.
Most misconceptions regarding love arise because we use the word "love" to describe our relationships with living beings as well as inanimate objects. As such, we are unable to differentiate between liking, desire, infatuation, admiration, want, need, lust and LOVE. Many people feel that they are in love when they don't even know the name of the person, leave alone about their personas!
"I have fallen in love!" is one of the commonest statements heard. And I say to that - "We don't "fall" in love - we "rise" in love!" Real love enables, brings and gives joy and peace. It brings out the best in us, creates harmony and happiness and thus facilitates our work and adds zest to life.
Love is not beyond the control of the person - as most people believe. It is an act of conscious choice. We don't just fall in love, but we choose to love -a person or THE person. Love just doesn't happen - we need to work for it. In fact "to love" is one of the most demanding jobs!
"Loving" a person and maintaining a loving relationship are two very different things! Good loving relationships are not a matter of accident but a matter of achievement requiring intense effort. True love is the culmination of sincerity, wisdom, respect, affection, warmth, security and, above all, commitment, which makes it a permanently self-enlarging experience. In love, actions speak louder than words!
Love manifests in many ways and means -and is often expressed silently! We also need to enlarge the definition and methods of expressing love. "Romantic love" alone would be a very constrictive definition of love. Such stereotypical concepts exclude existence of love in other relationships and also its presence in elderly- since romance itself is seen to be perview of the young alone!
What is love? There have been books written on it and yet many -who have never read those definitions- are quite aware that love has visited them! Also it takes maturity and acquired insight to realize that what seems to be love is often not love. Love is too intense a phenomenon to be limited within a framework of words.
In his book, "The Road Less Traveled", M. Scott Peck defines love as "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's or another's spiritual growth." So we demonstrate love whenever we exert ourselves in the cause of spiritual growth - whether be our own or of someone else. This simple definition can guide us in life. The rest - as they say- is a matter of experiencing the magic!
Many a times we may be head over heels for someone who's most unsuitable or ill-matched for us. Such an attraction or a relationship does not lead to any spiritual growth. It is a temporary phase and we soon come out of it unless we voluntarily choose to continue otherwise - at some considerable cost.
Thus "falling out" of love is more being with the wrong person in the first place than running out of love! In my experience, the commonest mistake people make is that they equate love with Eros alone - forgetting that love has many other dimensions. Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in that recognition.
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