Speaking Mute - 018 - "What is love?"

 

Yesterday, my friend called, and we were joking about relationships and the basic tease of dating someone. At one point, she said, "I don't know what love is, so how am I a person to comment?" This statement struck me deeply because many layers of arguments came to mind in a fraction of a second. If you've been reading "Speaking Mute," or any of my poems or stories, you'll see love as a central focus that drives everyone forward. This suggests I know a lot about love, but in reality, I myself find "love" to be something hard to truly know. This is "Speaking Mute," an oxymoronic way of expressing my thoughts.

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

As humans, throughout evolution, we've had this build-up of ego from the time we started getting into our senses as babies. I feel we lost being beautiful once we began to fully engage our senses, and the usage of ego emerged without a complete understanding of it. Here, ego is the self, synonymous with your body. Consequently, all the things you do begin to be viewed from your "I" perspective. This starts to make us own things as our own, but in reality, we don't own anything in the end. After death, no materialistic things can be taken by you, nor will this world remember that they were yours.

However, there's a difference for Love in this, which is that two "I" entities are involved. So, when people say they are in love, they give up the ego, yet simultaneously hold on to the ego that another entity is "my" ownership or bears some kind of relation to it. This is because even when someone says they love another person, "I" comes first. That's how deeply ingrained ego has been.

But let's consider that we now know there is an "I" entity which I can remove and accept that both entities are the same. That's easy to articulate, because it aligns with the idea where all accept all and become one entity with consciousness. This is what is called Brahma Tattvam in the Upanishads, where salvation resides. So, it's not an easy practice, but people have indeed done it. Not a utopia, but rather a reality where no ignorance of ego exists.

“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.”

― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

A deep level of acceptance is crucial for anything we truly love, encompassing both its flaws and its finesse. This raises a significant question: if we offer such acceptance, will the other person reciprocate it? After all, relationships often involve a push-and-pull dynamic. An ideal situation, where no problems arise due to complete mutual acceptance, is not the reality we inhabit. Instead, we typically find ourselves in near-ideal scenarios or situations where some level of reciprocation exists.

One of our greatest struggles lies in confronting consumerism and seeking self-satisfaction from what we receive. We constantly desire more; consider soft drinks, ranging from 200ml to 3 liters, reflecting our immense capacity for receiving. However, our capacity for satisfaction, or the ability to consistently achieve it, often doesn't match. This creates a significant gap that we grapple with.

In the context of the selfless act I mentioned earlier, there is no personal satisfaction, yet seeing everything as love inherently resolves this gap. Even if one person is in this selfless state and the other is in a near-ideal scenario, the selfless person experiences the same profound connection and encourages the other entity to reach a similar ideal state through their projection of love. Outwardly, they are simply striving for equality.

However, when the opposite entity doesn't provide what we desire, it becomes a poetic love, existing only "in the air" while we are limited to breathing actual oxygen—to what we tangibly have. In such cases, it often appears that the non reciprocating entity is exploiting the selfless one, causing more suffering than love. Yet, the selfless person often finds it incredibly difficult to differentiate between suffering and genuine love.

“Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”

― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

This is all well and good when love exists. But what happens if it breaks, which, as suggested in the first episode, "Madness and Death" often marks the final act of any love? It reaches that point and concludes there. So, at that juncture, what is the selfless person to do? According to the preceding argument, they would still love the other entity from a distance, yet receive nothing good in return. It becomes akin to God, who merely hears our prayers and sometimes responds, though often the response is a void, nothingness.

The necessity of being selfless even after the end of a relationship reveals how, as humans, we are capable of altering our personality and character depending on our position relative to another person, while the morality of upholding our own consistent principles becomes null. Therefore, if love is not truly love in its purest form but rather something potentially destructive and leading to madness, then what exactly is love?

I recall stating that in Advaita philosophy, everyone is Para Brahma, the ultimate consciousness. So, when I say "I love you," the "I" refers to both you and me simultaneously, and the "you" reciprocates that understanding. When duality exists, Advaitam declares it an illusion. Perhaps, then, love is the only thing that remains true in the end. Are we, therefore, ultimately accepting that love is profoundly complex, demanding immense selflessness, unwavering acceptance, the eradication of ignorance, and, finally, boundless patience?

Grant me wisdom, I beseech Thee, so that I may not pine for love of Thee in ignorance, Oh Arunachala(God)!  - Ramana Maharshi, Aksharamanamāla 

Leave your thought down and let us know your take on Love or say your stories or question which requires intellectualisation. May it be repeated or may not will try to answer in all possibility. until then Much of Love.