Is Love the language of the universe?
What is love? A million-dollar question indeed. While the word pervades our experience in so many ways, there are ongoing attempts to answer it in our films, celebrate it in our stories in all its forms and shapes. It is described as the ultimate form of human experience like the quote “you haven’t lived until you have loved.”
Is it just a feeling? How do you differentiate it from the varied feelings that arise within us? Does it have a particular texture, taste which helps us identify it as love? Or merely saying those words means there is love? Well, it is safe to say it can’t be limited to words, for sure we have experienced love with animals and we can all vouch for their sincerity more than we feel among our fellow humans. Is it just an intense emotion? If it’s an emotion what informs this intensity? What understanding is informed in the expression of love? One can do many things for love, it is said.
I wonder sometimes if we know it at all because the people we say we love we turn to hate. Can there be hate if there is love I wonder? It’s also a lot about my love, your love, their love, ideas of loving someone more, someone less but love is love isn’t we all feel it we all share it, it is nobody’s but we all insist on making it ours as special, theirs and so on.
In today’s world love is mostly tied to intimate relationships and the commodification of “romantic love” is at its peak. This has perpetuated “my love, your love” in a concrete tangible manner. But with our own experience, we know love expresses itself in myriad ways from a loving exchange with a stranger we meet on the bus to the love we share for our children. But for the most part, our current systems are set up in such a way that love is a commodity with a price tag. It’s one thing to express your love through a gift but if we depend on these material goods to prove the existence of love within and among us then we are doomed!
The burden of expectations?
Love is also mistaken for attachments and expectations that we hold in our lives. Can there be love if there are expectations? We expect others to do things for us to prove the love they hold or worthy of the love we have for them. Should this be expected? If it is reciprocated by the other due to the expectations is it love? If the person does not meet the expectations then does love evaporate in such situations? Can this fleeting nature be described as love? We all have experienced the downside of this fleeting nature; it does not sound like the ultimate human experience. If we say we love someone, can it be driven by what we want from the person or is it about celebrating the beautiful connection we feel for another? It certainly cannot be fleeting which changes into anger, jealousy, callousness when expectations are not met. Was there love in the first place or just a bag of expectations which we chose to call love?
Attachment is another form of corruption of love where we seem to be attached to another it could be partners, parents with their children. We tend to bury our securities with the people we claim to love, we feel jealous, envious, disappointed, angry if these securities, needs, or wants are not met. Mere attachment to the person where we assume another is supposed to fulfill these needs and wants, complete our sense of lack, define us even. Can anyone really stand up to such demands for another when we can’t seem to regulate our own lives? The ongoing need for children to fulfill the expectations of their forefathers and the need for the parents to demand such expectations, impose what they want from children in the name of love, this cycle, that goes on everywhere in the world, does not feel like love but a confused form of love we have trapped ourselves into were breaking this cycle means an outcome of hurt and pain. Surely love cannot be based on overlooking the freedom or autonomy of another and be limited to what we want from them.
Also, there is this question, if there is no love for ourselves can we love another? The love we feel for someone is originating within us isn’t it is not going to come from somewhere else. If we feel incomplete and looking to fill this gap from another is that love or merely a coping strategy for issues unaddressed within us. Only if we are happy, secure with ourselves can there be love that we can share isn’t it?
At this point, love looks a lot like witnessing, allowing, and supporting another being to blossom into their full life and complete potential. Seeing them happy in the choices they make, independent of what we expect or want from them. It cannot be cultivated, tamed, controlled, demanded, or expected. Love exists where freedom is (freedom not limited to do what you want)but, the mere recognition of every being as an independent thriving, throbbing life with immense potential to discover and share it with the world. This potential cannot be trifled in the name of love (more accurate to say in the name of attachments, control, or expectations disguised as love). I wonder if this understanding could inform what we call love in our daily lives instead of the convoluted forms of it we see on display every day.
If we look to nature, love feels like the language of the universe or the creation, like when you see a flower blooming in full glory from its form as a bud (gives us immense joy) for no reason whatsoever, causeless love. Like the tree that gives you shade without any demands or expectations in return. If we go into our moments of love, it is the dissolution of all the things we hold as different be it with our children, our friends, or animals. Even our bodies that separate us from others dissolve when we merge with an intimate partner. This recognition of underneath all our life stories, our travails which make us seem different, love is a reminder that fundamentally we are one at the same and intimately connected. Being part of the same universe, I am not surprised if we can feel and share this causeless love. If our society expressed causeless love to their fellow beings, their children, our future generation, the world would be very different from what we see today. The answer lies within us but we are looking elsewhere for solutions.
More importantly, if we are honest with ourselves we know love is within us and not something to be found outside of us in the world, person, or relationships. It’s always within, to be expressed, shared, and celebrated with everyone around us.
As Rumi said “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”