In the depths of my heart I stay quiet . As I learn, I listen. I practice love. I learn to love, again and again.

 

 

“Our job is not to seek LOVE - but to remove all the barriers that stop its coming” RUMI 

Sages have said that the world in which we now live cannot fully satisfy the longing of the human heart. So we are left wondering. We go on loving and longing, hoping that someday we will experience union in a perfect loving relationship, that fully satisfies our heart as nothing else can. This sense of incompleteness is beautifully explained in the yogic scriptures known as malas - particularly Anava Mala. The root of this term is “anu” which means particle or point, and “mala” which means impurity, veil, or film. The root of “anu” here indicates the feeling of being small and insignificant, separate and apart from everyone and everything else. The veil disconnects us from the truth that our nature is connected to something greater, already whole and complete and lacking nothing - Right now - Exactly as we are. This lack of fullness creates a proportional increase in desire to make it complete. When you’re in the clutches of anava mala, a sense of fullness, wholeness and contentment of life can feel completely out of reach. Instead of seeing abundance and infinite opportunities for connection, we see only how limited we are and we try to fill that inner void with material things, random relationships and friendships, desperately seeking for any sense of greater meaning in life.

 

 

In yogic philosophy love is a verb, a powerful active force rather than the emotional phenomenon that is typical of society’s fantasy- oriented ideas of love and romance. In many cultures love is portrayed as gooey, hot, sentimental experience with candlelight, love song, and sexual arousal. While this is a very exciting and fantastic sensation, it is not sustainable. Statistically, this in love feeling is most dramatic for the first two years of a romantic relationship and can be largely attributed to a primal mechanism that encourages a couple to create, cooperate and cohabitate. The challenge of love in action is to sustain this feeling through the grind of daily life after those initial two years. True love is the daily choice to wake up and serve another person, sharing your divine, deep and true qualities. This type of love extends beyond the primary romantic interest in a person’s life and is a way to be in service and relate in kindness to all people.

 

I WILL STAY WITH YOU FOREVER

 

How many times we have been disillusioned into thinking that there is one very special  person living somewhere in the world. And if I somehow meet that very special person, and somehow just fall in love, I will be fine and all my experiences of loneliness and emptiness will disappear - exactly as in a fairytale. How many films I have watched, how many songs I have listened to, enforcing the belief that there is only one love, just there, right around the corner, waiting to give me all as I give them all I have – happy ever after.

Our vision of romantic relationships starts from the idea of separation - I am here and you are there. If I meet the right person I will feel complete because I feel I am incomplete. We are reaching from that place of lack, and looking for each other to complete us. This illusion leads us to experience each other as two separate bodies, separate from anyone else and separate from the rest of universe. Two lost individuals, living their very lonely lives in this big chaotic and disappointing world, searching for each other. This leads us to commit to tying down this person in any way possible, in whatever way necessary, to be with us because we are so desperately lonely.

I think there is something really damaging in this type of thinking - the thinking there is only one person in the world that will complete me - the romantic fantasy of me and you searching for each other. We often have the very specific idea how they should look and how they should behave. As soon as we start a relationship we start moulding the other person into a vision of how we want them to be. We are putting a “frame” around the picture” and we think it is so great! The frame becomes more important that the picture itself. How many times are we imprisoned by our own expectations of how a relationship should be - musts and wrongs. Things I need you to do and things that I need you to be, and I tie you down immediately. We call this LOVE and this is the irony - it is all to do with our insecurities and fear. They have to be exactly how we want them to be, do whatever we want them to do. Why?  - because we love them so. I found this person and now we will live happily ever after. When a relationship doesn't work we say “It wasn’t the right person “ - maybe it wasn't - but really it is all about us.

Sooner or later we experience disappointment that the other person is not showing up for the relationship the way we want them to - without even realising how much doing this is actually pushing our lovers away.

Relationships, gay or straight, function in a similar way - trying to control the behaviour of another person. Why? - because we know better, because we need them to be a certain way in order for us to be OK. When someone has expectations of me to behave in a certain way, I do everything I can not to be that way. I think, for all of us, any sense of control puts us off, as we are individualists. Additionally, we often twist things, putting blame on the other person for not showing up - “obviously he/she is not ready for a relationship when I am giving so much”. Strangely we don't do this with our friends? We are much more likely to be understanding and compassionate and forgiving.

 

A DIFFERENT WAY

 

 

"Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now" Fred Rogers

 

If we see ourselves as complete people we will attract other complete people.

A healthy, happy relationship is a wonderful thing. From my own experience, the only way to succeed in a potential relationship is to train ourselves into a new way of thinking. We have to develop a capacity within us for a new type of structure and thinking, and we have to be ready for this type of reality. Our relationships can be Heaven - the most fulfilled experiences we can have - or they can be Hell. Relationships lead to tears and suffering and all the painful experiences in our lives.

First of all, how can we become more skilful in our choices?  How can we attract different people into our lives ?

1. As we initiate our own change, we start attracting different people into our lives. Like attracts like. We begin to realise that someone who does not carry the same consciousness, and share the same values, is the very last person in the world our psyche and our body should be trusted with. Why would you be in a romantic relationship with someone who does not get the basic rules?

2. The Idea of having a healthy intimate relationship starts from within us. We need to ask ourselves, how do we show up in the world and what are our own values, what can we offer and how can we be more loving? We need to first go to places in our own mental patterns and our psyche and to atone for being controlling, being needy, unforgiving, judgmental. We atone for our own mistakes, we seek to forgive and seek innocence in others. We surrender the barriers to love. We heal our own neurosis, our own mental or emotional behavioural patterns that make us blow relationships time and time again.

_________________________

 MEDITATION "OPEN to LOVE"

        The "Sat” in the mantra signifies Essence of Truth, or Being. It is said that precisely behind the heart is assumedly where the Soul locates.

                     "Kartar” implies Doer, and when the 2 words are united, it is to say "Doer, Manifestor, or Walker of the Truth.”

When these primordial sounds are daily chanted over time,

as a practice, we are in effect, opening, purifying, expanding the Heart.

 

 

Igniting your Light

RAD