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LOVE

 

Love is the power of supporting and protecting Truth, rather than, as ubiquitously assumed, the soothing of wounds and fulfilling of needs and expectations. Truth is whatever wisdom Spirit dictates by means of our desire: to read a book rather than join a friend for dinner we already committed to; to work on a garden project rather than help our sibling move; to stand up for our values despite the risk of loss; to pursue poetry rather than taking on the family business.

The reason we violate our Truth is always the same: fear of losing the benevolence and support of others, or in short the fear of suffering and lack. The unwritten rules of proper relationships dictate us to often overrule our desires in the name of soothing this fear. We abide by these laws, and by doing so keep our pipeline of love from these relationships flowing. As life experiences bring us wounds and pain, we gradually come to depend on this pipeline for our survival and regard all contrary desires as something ugly and shameful to be fought and defended against, lest they deprive us of the continuous flow of others’ love. How dare we be so selfish.

Downgraded, rejected and unlived, these desires do not leave us but find refuge in our subconscious mind, turning into self-limiting beliefs, shame, judgements, needs and false perceptions. In Greek mythology, this archetypal defiling of Spirit is represented by Medusa, a most beautiful of nymphs turned into a monster as result of having been raped by a man. In the same way our desires, the most beautiful expressions of Spirit, are turned into monsters as result of our mind raping them: judging them shameful, undesirable, dangerous, overbearing, unrealistic, unprofitable, irrelevant, a sign of weakness; and forcing them to shut down or blocking their fulfillment.

The degree to which we can fulfill our desires without fear of love withdrawal by others will always mirror the degree to which we love and accept others, i.e. the degree to which they can safely follow their desires rather than cater to our expectations and needs. To find out how much we truly love anyone, imagine a situation in which this person hurts us by daring to be selfish at the cost of our need.

Upon such violation, most of us will react in some fashion, either by distancing ourselves in judgement, or by lashing out to the friend in anger and righteousness in order to receive justice. If we stand to lose too much from such reactions we might choose to swallow hard, keep calm and carry on. Such apparent non-reaction is still a reaction, a powerless passive-aggressive one which will result in our betraying and depriving the friend at the first opportunity.

But in essence it really does not matter in which way we react, because either way will prove that we do not love. Instead, our reactions are aimed at conditioning the behaviour of this person by means of giving or withholding our love, support, protection, approval or care. We are using our ‘love’ as means of personal power over that person, as their service, support or availability is a source of our power, comfort or fulfillment, and we cannot stand to lose it.

If we truly loved, we would not reward our friend’s fulfilling their desires with punishment or coercion, but would regard such situation as an opportunity to come face to face with our own shadow: that we have a deep-seated need for whatever this person provides, rather than a deep-seated love for this person. This need makes us use our friend rather than love them, for if we truly loved them we would take responsibility for our need and free them to fulfill their desires. And much like we are using our friend, family or lover, we are also in turn used by them for the provision and satisfaction of their needs.

As long as there is using there cannot be love, thus all ‘lovingness’ between such friends or family is nothing more than a feeble perception covering up a precarious business agreement of mutual need satisfaction. If either party defaults, punishment, wounding, coercion or disconnect will follow. Furthermore, as needing is the force behind addictions of all kinds, a lack of need fulfillment might entice the more dependent user to acts of deeper evil than would otherwise arise, such as the purposeful abuse, deprivation and betrayal of the defaulting party.

True love, on the other hand, is need-free and sacrifice-free, as fulfillment of desire, one’s own and another’s, becomes the Soul’s imperative. To be able to exist safely in such way, to love and be loved in utter freedom, is the deepest desire of every Soul, namely the desire for union with Spirit. This desire accounts for humanity’s need for offspring, as babies personify Spirit in their beauty, sensitivity, innocence, powerlessness and dependence, and are thus pure in loving, and safe and easy to love; and for humanity’s need for romance, as the feeling of infatuation matches the vibration of union with Spirit. Yet as the child’s mind awakens and the romance wears off, both relationships slide into a karmic bond of sacrifice and need, an external mirror of the unresolved inner evil.

For love to not degenerate into karmic bonding, the Soul needs to commit to Truth rather than a child, and attend to the purification of its unresolved evil in a fertile connection to potential, instead of a stagnating karmic connection to matter.