Love
(Some important quotes from the book “Discovering Love” by Swami Dayananda Saraswati)
Love is not an ordinary topic that we understand. Love is something that is hard to find.
Love is not a calculated emotion; it does not measure, demand or set agenda.
Love is reckless, it gives all the way helplessly because it is the nature of live.
Lack of self-love and acceptance makes me turn away from myself and others. Otherwise, I cannot absorb love even if it is lavished on me.
Love is that fundamental emotion that accommodates another person and provides you the space to understand them.
Love is not something to be swallowed, love has to be discovered.
Diverse manifestations of one single emotion which we call love.
It is the love for the self that drives all human beings to do actions.
Emotions and their nuances are many, but all of them have their basis in one emotion, which is love.
Kama does not mean lust or passion as is commonly understood. It is love for the desired object.
Heading the list of desires, interestingly, are the husband and wife.
We love others not for the sake of the other but for our own sake, we love that which is connected to us and brings us pleasure and joy.
In marriage, moksha is the goal, with two pilgrims meaningfully coming together. This is symbolised by the seven steps, saptapadi: the first step for prosperity, second step for progeny, the third for health, fourth and fifth for the health of both their parents, six for friendship and finally the seventh step for Dharma.
Marriage is amongst equals. Marriage becomes a pilgrimage only when two equals join together because the sacrament of marriage is a means for an end; marriage is not an end in itself. With trust, when two persons with two different interests understand each other, and start doing something together, this is what we call love.
In understanding, there is love. That is why marriage becomes an important institution for human emotional well-being.
‘I love you’, implies a complete acceptance of the other, inclusive of the person’s limitations and weaknesses.
If you want to be happy at all times and at all places, happiness must be your true nature.
When desires and emotions become wants and demand fulfilment, the inability to do so makes your life replete with unfulfilled desires.
The word, ‘happiness’ is better defined as freedom from the sense of limitation, freedom from the sense of want, freedom from the attempt to become, and it is this freedom, moksha, which is your rue nature. It is this wholeness, fullness, or purnatva that you seek and it is your true nature.
Love can have many facets such as compassion, empathy, service and so many others. It creates a condition to help you understand yourself. There can be love only when there is understanding, otherwise love cannot sustain. Love is only when you free yourself from your agenda for the other. Love and understanding are not possible if they are pre-existing conditions.
In absolute terms love is Ananda. It is a manifest form of Atman, the wholeness of Atmanwhich is why love accommodates, because it is whole. Since it is whole (purna) in itself, any omission or commission on the part of the other does not cause concern.
Lack of understanding turns love into obsession and causes the need for control. When you cannot control the object of your love, dislike can even turn into hatred and cause you to destroy that which you love. Hatred is only unfulfilled love. Jealousy is also love. When someone else gets the thing you love and want, you become jealous. Jealousy is another ramification of love and is the most illegitimate of emotions.
Anger is also love. When your love for something is thwarted or denied, you are in pain, which manifests itself as anger. You need to be aware of yourself; you need an insight into your inner world.
There is only one emotion which is real, which is your nature, and that is love—love as compassion, sympathy, understanding, giving, yielding, and as friendliness also. It is not a question of should or should not; it is what you are. It is a question of understanding; it is not to be commanded or demanded. When you see any suffering, you pick up the pain. This is empathy, this is natural. The world u through empathy and invokes compassion. Compassion, in turn, moves you to act, to reach out and help.
It is the loving person who is truly eligible for discovering that he or she is the content of love, which is fullness. It is this fullness that manifests in the form of love. The dynamic form of Ananda is love.
Only if you can discover love for yourself as a person, and the individual, you have an infrastructure to absorb and receive love. Then, you can give love without loss, without reservation. The self is love, the self is everything. It is the content of love itself.
If you look at yourself as an individual, you find that it is difficult, if not impossible, to have self-love. Whatever be the reason, the fact is, you have been placed in a particular situation over which you have no choice. Your parentage, physical body, mind, fences, emotions, intellect, memory, all these are given to you, and so is the world around you. Everything has in order a scheme of things with laws. There is a physiological order, psychological order, social order, etc. Besides these orders, you have the cognitive order which deals with how you gather knowledge and whether the knowledge is right or wrong. You have to use your cognition to manage your life.
The only way you can understand Iswara is by knowing he is in the form of this intelligent order, this complete and all-encompassing order. The entire order is Iswara, Sat-Chit-Anandawith the power of Maya, the Sakthi.
The moment you accept yourself as being in order, as being a part of the vast order that is Isvara, your life becomes successful. By following Dharma you will be in harmony with Isvara.
It is your own anxieties, fears, and your agenda for others that separates you from the world, from understanding.
The more loving you are, the easier it is for you to understand what the Sastra says. The wholeness naturally comes to manifest; it does not remain as an ideal. It is this wholeness that you love. When all that is here is one whole, where is the question of your not loving? When you understand this, you have discovered love.
