It’s a bit late for Valentines but Valentines Day got me thinking about “love”.
The roses and chocolates and the fluffy bears with red hearts for Valentines Day are a bit thin for something that seems to be so significant for human life. For something that is in every layer of ourselves and our human society universally: Love.
The Ancient Greeks had three words for love: Eros, Phillia and Agape. Sanskrit has ninety-six, ancient Persian had 80. In English we label lots of experiences with one word: “love”.
There’s love and marriage, there’s the love of parents for children & children for parents, there’s the soap opera “love”, there’s the compassionate love of people who help those less fortunate, there’s the talk of love for and from a God. Then there’s the lusty love. And the reverse of it all: a lack of love, being brought up without love, not having anyone to love or anyone to love you,
There’s Romantic love the one that great movies portray: you know, the look across the crowded room, everything goes in to slow motion, and then the long and lingering eye contact. And the other side of the coin: the pain. There’s Familial love: there never seemed to be enough of it to go around: some were “loved” and others were “unloved” we can go through our whole lives living out this imprinted “lack of love”. There’s Love of parents for children: a strong bond, closeness, a primordial connection, empathy
All of these “loves” seem like a commodity: it is limited and selective: there are the haves and the have-nots like money or beauty you have it or you don’t you pursue it, get it, and lose it.
What if there was a feeling that surpassed all of them An intense feeling ? Within us? What if there was a feeling within that when it is felt it takes away all lack, all “unlovedness”, that when it ends there’s no pain because it is always there & can be re-visited within again & again, at will; we can go back to it; what if that feeling was totally compassionate because it is always there for anyone who wanted it? Anyone!
What if a beggar could feel it as much as a billionaire? What if it didn’t mind if you were poor or rich or ugly or beautiful or just simply plain? What if you didn’t have to be educated, or it didn’t matter if you were educated? You could have the most sublime wisdom even if you were illiterate? Or the most highly educated and still have an even deeper wisdom? What if you were so ugly and you could know that within you was the most sublimely beautiful being? Or if you were the most beautiful human being, and you could know the eternal beauty (that didn’t fade) within yourself.
If that existed, if that was available I would sure want to know it, every day of my life.
And here’s the happy ending: I do know it. It does take away all the pain & fear, it comforts and embraces, it nourishes and uplifts, it gives joy and understanding. It’s satisfaction for the human heart. And I don’t have any label for it.
But a few words for the Giver: Thank You and I love you.