No other words have had such an honorary role and become such an important part of human life than true love. Fairy tales abound in all cultures that are spun around finding true love and then living happily ever after. It is the ultimate goal of most people as it is thought to bring total fulfillment to their lives.
It is easy to confuse our physical reactions with true love. When people feel attracted to someone, the brain releases chemicals such as serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These chemicals cause a person to think loving thoughts, “based on their cultural upbringing”, and experience the physical sensations that these hormones produce. These sensations include an increase in positive moods, such as feeling kindness, happiness, and what is interpreted as love.
What is true love? How does one find their true love or know that a person they meet could possibly be their true love? Is true love the salve that will sooth life’s trials and tribulations? And most of all, is true love attainable? Many people ask these questions as they seek to find a partner with whom to share their life. Sadhguru talks about true love and its real meaning.
Sadhguru: When you talk about love, it has to be unconditional. There is really no such thing as conditional love and unconditional love. It is just that there are conditions and there is love. The moment there is a condition, it just amounts to a transaction. Maybe a convenient transaction, maybe a good arrangement – maybe many people made excellent arrangements in life – but that will not fulfill you; that will not transport you to another dimension. It is just convenient.
When you say “love”, it need not necessarily be convenient; most of the time it is not. It takes life. Love is not a great thing to do, because it eats you up. If you have to be in love, you should not be. You as a person must be willing to fall; only then it can happen. If your personality is kept strong in the process, it is just a convenient situation, that’s all. We need to recognize what is a transaction and what is truly a love affair. A love affair need not be with any particular person; you could be having a great love affair, not with anybody in particular, but with life.
What you do, what you do not do, is according to circumstances around you. Our actions are as the external situation demands. What you do outside of yourself is always subject to many conditions. But love is an inner state – how you are within yourself can definitely be unconditional.
Make love your quality. When you talk about love, it has to be unconditional. There is really no such thing as conditional love and unconditional love. If you are life, it is very natural to love. Every human being is capable of love, but unfortunately, many have crippled themselves with all kinds of belief systems, opinions, philosophies, ideologies – everything except life.
Love is a human emotion. Human beings are capable of love when they are willing. Unfortunately, we want to export everything that is beautiful in our life to heaven and live wantonly on this planet. Love, joy, blissfulness – these are human possibilities.
Love is not something to do with someone else. Love is never between two people. It is what happens within you, and what happens within you need not be enslaved to someone else. For 15 to 20 minutes daily, go sit with something that means nothing to you – maybe a tree, or a pebble, or a worm, or an insect. After some time, you will find you can look upon it with as much love as you do your wife or husband or your mother or your child. Maybe the worm does not know this. That doesn’t matter. If you can look at everything lovingly, the whole world becomes beautiful in your experience. You realize love is not something that you do; love is the way you are.
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