1. Love is mistaken for DESIRE
When you go to the
movies and watch the classic love story there is usually a moment when he says
to her, Darling, I love you.” But what he really ‘means’ is, “I want you. I
want to be with you. I want you to be mine...tonight!”. And of course she reciprocates with an, “I
love you too.” Which often means, “I’ve got you!” But true love doesn’t desire or possess. True
love doesn’t want anything. Authentic love is already complete and its only
intention is to connect and to give, not acquire.
2. Love is mistaken for ATTACHMENT
When we say, “I love
my football team or I love my new car or I love my garden.” It’s not love. What
we really ‘mean’ is, “I am attached to my football team, I am attached to my
new car”. And love is not attachment, if for no other reason than all
attachment causes fear, and fear in this dualistic world is the opposite of
love. Fear is love distorted by attachment.
3. Love is mistaken for DEPENDENCY
When we say, “I love
my cocaine. I love my morning coffee. I love the food they serve”… this is to
confuse love with dependency. Love is not dependent on anything. We are really
saying we believe these things make us happy. They seem to, but it’s not
‘authentic happiness’, only a temporary stimulation or relief from
suffering.
4. Love is mistaken for IDENTIFICATION
More commonly some
say, “I love my nation, I love my country.” Again, this is not love it’s
identification. We are identifying with a nationality, which in itself is a
mistake. The self has no nationality. Love does not identify with anything that
is not itself, which is everything! As soon as we identify with something that
we are not the ego takes birth, suffering arises and love is impossible.
It is these illusions that keep us searching for love. In
our search for love we will look in almost every corner of the world. We seek
love as acceptance and approval in our many relationships. We desire the ideal
love in the fiction of the perfect romance. We expect to find love in what we
do, what we acquire and even in the places we go. There are always temporary
satisfactions on these roads, but disappointment is also inevitable, until we
realize they are deadends.
Only by acts of selfless kindness, unconditional forgiveness
and limitless compassion is love felt. Only by the intention to benefit ‘the
other’ before the self, is love made real and realized. And yet, even this is
only possible when it is not a deliberated act, when motive is innocent. The
motivation ‘to love’ is not love, for love needs no motive.