"GIVING AND RECEIVING" - excerpts of an essay by Yogi Amrit Desai
In today's world of self-centered and deteriorating relationships, love has become a very confused and misunderstood concept. Usually what is known as love is no more than attachment. Attachment and love are diametrically opposed qualities. They cannot exist simultaneously; they are mutually exclusive.
Real love makes no demands; it is free of expectations. We love simply for the sake of loving, for the pure joy of loving in and of itself. Love emanates from the center of peace and contentment within us.
In attachment our experience of love depends upon an outside person or object. There is a desired result to be gained by loving; there is a goal in the relationship. Attachment, then, is a contract or exchange. "If you do this, I will love you. If you stop doing it, I will no longer love you."
Thus, attachment becomes an emotional addiction, a dependence upon receiving a desired goal. When the goal is not achieved, what we have called love disappears and pain results...
When we truly love we take joy in others and feel compassion for them, but we do not look to them as the means of satisfying our emotional needs and addictions. We are aware that happiness is something we draw from within the core of our being and then share with others, not demand from others.
Our inner core then becomes the source of our fulfillment. We do not need others, in the sense of being totally dependent on them, for our happiness. When we discover and learn to relate from that inner center of happiness and contentment, all who come near us receive our freely given gift of love.
There is only one way to receive love and that is to give love. Only when we give freely are we able to receive, for in giving we receive inner joy, and that joy is what we really wanted anyway! Many people mete out very carefully the love they give and watch closely to see if it is returned with equal measure.
In truth, not only is there no way to measure love but love given with a desire for return is not even love: it is a contract. So if we want to be loved, we must give love totally, with no thought of receiving anything in return. Then we will experience the state of love...
Love requires continuous practice. The best place to begin practicing is with ourselves, because everything depends on our attitudes toward life. We need to change our habitual attitudes and ways of viewing the world in order to come to that center of inner fulfillment and joy...
When we give love, we are providing security to others. We are caring for them and providing them comfort and ease...
..begin actively to recall all that we have admired in that person, and we discover that our gestures, the words we speak, and the way we look at him or her will begin to change.
Soon we will find that the other person instinctively begins to feel our acceptance and love without ever expressing it in words...As the other person relaxes in the reality of our new, non-demanding love, he or she also begins to change, and then any conflict can be easily resolved.
Source: Kripalu's Self Health Guide: A Personal Program for Holistic Living