How to Open Your Heart to Genuine Love
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along. ― Rumi
“Again, I am left with a broken heart. I wonder why did I fall in love again?”
The message beeped in the middle of the night. The desperation of my friend was peeping through the screen of my phone.
Instantly, laughter echoed in my room. It was a relief that she didn’t hear my chuckle. But I made sure that she got my honest message.
“It is not your heart that got broken,” I thought to myself. “It was your expectations and desires.”
It is so easy to get confused between love and the layers of ego satisfaction that we term as love. We all have experienced heartbreaks, separation, or infidelity.
Suffering happens not because of the other. Instead, the root cause lies in the insecurity, fear, sadness, and hurt that hides within you.
But in this pain, you only see a partial story. You are almost always a victim in the story, and the other is an accused.
The Journey of Relationships
The worst way to fall in love is when you seek fulfillment outside of you. Dreaming of a picture-perfect life with a person who satisfies you is an illusion.
Why?
Think of it as a keyhole. You only know about the world from a limited perspective of your mind. There are hidden realities you can’t see before you jump into the unknown.
Love opens the realms that were invisible before. The softness, vulnerability, and openness of the heart feel refreshing. A non-threatening environment invites you to live fully.
The heavenly feeling is too lucrative to let go. Like an intoxication, you want to drink it repeatedly. The other person who helped you to experience it becomes precious.
Everything seems rosy and perfect. The other person becomes irresistible.
It leads to your holding on to the other. The latching of your life, expectations, and desires enslaves you both. You want to be with the other, even if it results in your gradual entrapment.
It is too late to realize until you experience:
- Boredom, frustration, or hurt
- Compromises and friction
- Sense of dragging relationship
- Separation
You falsely assume that the current situation is because of your beloved and love. The mind does not want to take responsibility. Evading and accusing the situation/other is the mind’s job, which it does perfectly well.
The same charming person becomes the core enemy. The mind bubbles out reasons to avoid them. You try to justify your reactions. But sometimes, you also don’t know the exact reason for your behaviors.
Understand Why Love Gets Thrown Out of The Window
Power and love don’t go hand in hand. The same is with desire, expectations, vs. love. They both are contradictions.
Earlier, what you thought was love was only addiction to the feeling of love. Then you try to mold the other according to your demands and desires. You easily brush aside the originality that you fell in love with.
The biggest mistake I see is the power politics in relationships. One wants to love the other, but on their terms. Love evaporates as soon as you try to change them.
To fulfill your ego, you expect the other to lose their uniqueness. Isn’t it pure selfishness in the name of love?
Your dissatisfaction leads to expectations.
It plays a prominent role in breaking the cords of a relationship that once was beautiful. The friction and imbalance start. You instigate the other to preserve their identity as well.
The endless tug-of-war results in seeking your contentment elsewhere. Separation becomes inevitable.
The Unknown Cruelty That Is Widespread in the Name Of ‘Love’
Imagine you see a beautiful flower as you walk. Its radiating aroma captivates you. To capture its lovely beauty and smell, you pluck the flower.
Within hours, its smells fade, its beauty perishes.
You killed the flower to fulfill your desire to have it. The same cruelty you show when you fall in love. You slowly suffocate the other to fulfill your desires.
This illusion forces you to capture the other.
But the ambush happens slowly and capriciously. You coat your selfish intention with the word ‘love’ to make it look pious. It is easy to hide behind the tag of ‘love.’
“I am annoyed by your XYZ habit. Why don’t you do this one thing for me? Please, I beg you, never do it again?”
To prove the purity of your intention, you use tears, reasons, and justifications. But bondage is bondage. To bind the other, you imprison yourself as well. It can never happen one-sided.
The truth is not a single person on this Earth wants to get strangulated, even in the name of love.
The possession and control are not ‘love.’ In fact, it has nothing to do with the other. You do it to satisfy yourself. This craving can never get satisfied until you depend on others.
The Beautiful Truth of Love Which Almost Everybody Fail to Experience
In everyday life, you build your defensive shields. Your survival mode — the need to protect and prove yourself are always on.
But love dissolves all.
A lover always wants to merge with the other. This urge to dissolve is a superpower. Great saints have equaled pure love for devotion. Love is a significant path where one can reach its highest potential.
Nowadays, people have polluted this word with desires, expectations, jealousy, possession. In contrast, love is not about bondage. It is never about the other person. Instead, it tells about you.
Years ago, I felt extreme love for my partner. When I wanted to possess him, it backfired.
It exposed my jealousy, the need for possession, comparison, and fear of losing him. My partner, who is also my spiritual mentor, guided me through all my limitations. He was already free of attachments.
(Pro Tip: Never fall in love with a free person if you want to live blissfully ignorant.)
It was not easy for me. The pain thrashed and paralyzed me. Tears of separation teared me up. Many times I wanted to run away from my sufferings.
But my immense love for him turned into devotion. This devotion made it possible to let go of everything.
Once every feeling dissolved, I, too, became free. I could see my chains of prison and how I wanted to enslave him, too. Love liberated me from my desire to mold him.
Days, weeks, months went by without meeting. There left no need to talk to him as the intoxication was flowing within me. The external trigger to feel ecstatic love disappeared.
Love flowered with one person. But now, it radiates to every being, irrespective of anything. Love makes you and the other person free instead of your slave.
Love Starts as Emotion and Ends in The Magical State Of Being
Outside things and people can trigger your love. It may feel that the source of love is outside. You may think the other person is responsible for the sweet nectar flowing within you.
The reality is you can never borrow love. It always hides within you. It starts as an emotion. But it reveals your actual state of being.
To unwrap your real being:
- Be aware of the stories the mind creates.
- Expose your fears and deep layers of insecurity.
- Question your selfish intentions.
- Recognize your rigid conditioning.
Friction in relationships is a reality. Every conflict is making you learn the deeper aspects of yourself.
It is not about how to mold the other for your benefit. But to look within what you can do to change yourself.
Takeaways
The world assumes a vulnerable heart to be weak. But there is no power more significant than it. Once you touch the deepest layer of your being, you become eternally free.
Love is never complicated. Instead, it is simple. It just wants to give. But the mind’s demands are endless, which drains the love out.
Desires, attachment, expectations, regrets, sadness, fear create chaos and suffering. Love exposes the lies of the mind. Once the lies drop, a new being of love takes birth. This pure form of love is freedom and rejoices everything in life.
Find the eternal source of love within your heart. Love can never happen without you.
Love is a meeting of two souls, and lust is the meeting of two bodies. Lust is animal; love is divine. But unless you know that you are a soul, you cannot understand what love is. — Osho
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