This picture is provided by: Derick
Love
The poets and musicians have sung you.
Philosophers and psychologists have spent years studying your mystery.
Brave man have fought wars and lost their life for you.
Nothing, with maybe the exception of reason, defines us as human beings as love.
Nothing in the world we desire and search for more than love.
Even money, power and fame deep down are nothing but disguised ways we search for love and attention.
Love
What else is more profound, powerful and magical?
What else is more noble, pure and sublime?
What else is more dysfunctional and ignorant?
What? You never heard of ignorant love?
There once was a very successful businessman that had a beautiful wife.
He lavished her with expensive things, jewelries and clothes.
She drove the most expensive luxury car and lived in the most beautiful mansion.
One day while they were out in town one young sales person – gay as could be if you ask me – complemented her on her elegance and beauty.
Her husband started the most embarrassing fight, accusing her of flirting with the young man. I found later the reason and I said to him “You should be proud you have such a beautiful wife” He said that she’s an ingrate tramp that tortures him with her constant flirting and that she has provoked the young man on purpose.
Later on, I found out that this man would not allow his wife to go to college or to get a job because was too afraid she would cheat on him.
The funny part is that years latter she caught him with another woman.
I call this story the “golden cage of love” or the ignorant love we call jealousy.
OK. There are some people out there that will argue that jealousy is not love.
That love is pure and unconditional and that there is not such a thing as ignorant love.
Let’s put a little crack in the colored glasses we see love with.
“IF” is the mark of the Devil.
“IF” like in “If you love me you would do … for me” or “If you love me you would give or buy me …” or “If you love me you wouldn’t ask me to…”
Let’s look through this little crack of “IF” next time when you talk to your relatives, family, friends, lover or spouse.
Pay attention to your pastor on how many times he tells you “If you love God…” or to the politicians on how many times tell you “If you love your country…”
“IF” is the mark of the Devil or if you are a non believer, the mark of ignore-ant love.
See how many times love comes to you with this mark and most important see how often you mark your love with it.
Sadly enough unconditional love is more rare than the air on the moon.
I can count few instances of total, absolute unconditional love: Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa and maybe a few more.
Even my mother loved me with that ignore-ant love. No woman I ever dated or married was ever good enough for her boy.
Even I, find myself pulling a fast “IF” with my children – it is so easy and so tempting.
Is it that my mother did not love me or that I don’t love my children?
I love my children more that life itself and that is exactly why ignorant love is so insidious, so dangerous.
Look at your life, at your past and present experiences.
How many times have you been hurt by an enemy or a stranger and how many times have you been hurt by the very people that were supposed to love you?
How many times have you hurt an enemy or stranger and how many times have you hurt the person you have loved the most?
We hurt the people we love because our ignorance not because we don’t love them enough.
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16 comments:
I think you'd find that if you met Jesus, Ghandi or Mother Theresa you'd find that even they had moments of dark thoughts and maybe actions.
Like most things in life i guess we always look for absolute black and white lines in love - but the truth is that the world is a series of shades of grey.
Jealousy tends to be born of fear - no matter how much we love a person we still have that fear of losing them. I guess the test is how you react to that Jealousy. If you make your lover a prisoner through jealousy then one way or another you will lose them - but if you trust in your feelings they can only grow stronger.
Imperfect people cannot practice perfect love. That is our human condition until we learn a higher way. Until then we tend to negotiate/manipulate the ones we love to get what we want. If we don't take care in the way we negotiate, we lose/hurt people.
Very true.. One can't find pure love. Not atleast in this world. Its only god's love that is pure
Ignorant love, I like the concept. And I agree, we are often blinded by our own upbringing, by how love was defined in the family culture we were raised in. What I often see is the tendency to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. But too far in the opposite direction. I'm doing the opposite of how my parents would have handled it, but I'm still hurting my children because I've swung the pendulum too far.
Derick's photos are wonderful.
I think that love has a light side and a dark side. Unconditional love would seem to be an impossible feat for the frailty that is the human condition.
@ Pixie – Absolute and relative are complementary. One can’t exist without the other. We can’t measure one without the other.
If jealousy is born out of fear what is fear born out of?
@ Aggie – Excellent point. If you read the communist manifesto it sounds perfect on paper. What Karl missed is that you can’t have a perfect society with imperfect people.
@Khushy – So we should love God more than anything else.
@ Phd in yogurtry – We all do it Phd. Life is a constant learning process, like it or not. Getting better is all we can do.
@ Talon – Children have that capacity of unconditional love, therefore I believe that deep inside buried beneath tons of BS we have been fed all our life there is that capacity for unconditional love.
This post was a wonderful way to start my day.
Malcolm
Well said. And unfortunately in the moment that we hurt them we don't remember that. So, we keep practicing. Practicing ourselves right out of our egos (hopefully:)
I agree with Aggie, "imperfect people cannot practice perfect love". We can, however, learn from our loving relationships and how we behave with our loved ones.
Well written - nice words.
Btw: Thanks for stopping by and leave a nice comment - now you have a friend in Norway :-)
Wow, you certainly are back from your holidays, with a sense of prose that's better than ever! I only wish I'd stopped by sooner :-)
Valuable insights as always. You bring such a human element to the art of blogging. There's only one Buddha of Hollywood!
Ok, enough gushing :-p
@ Sun Singer – Thank you so much for stopping buy and for the wonderful comment.
@ Molly – Ego is the problem we all are trying to overcome. It takes a lot of work but it can be done.
@ Stacey – Perfection is something impossible to attain but at least it is a good direction to aim for.
@ Spiritual Blogger – I’m not worthy of your praise. I am still learning and I still have a long way to go. I am glad I have friends like you on my journey.
Excellent post, Buddha. Makes me think of something I'd like to address in a future post.
I like, "Love is giving what one doesn't have to one that isn't there."
In Hinduism thought is considered half action. So thinking that I will kill a person is also bad. The idea is that as we get more and more enlightenment we remove more and more of our negative thoughts.
Unconditional love, well we all have our moments before we become selfish again.
And half of an act is still no act. So thinking it only would be "not" doing it. Yes?
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