We are bound not only by material things but also by our emotional attachments. It is much easier to detach ourselves from things. Not so with people.
I ran away when I was 7 years old. Not away from my parents home but to my parents home from my aunt and uncle's home 5 miles away from where my parents lived.
Even then I knew that it would be better if someone were with me so I took two of my friends from my uncle’s neighborhood and we walked the five miles. We were young and it was fun. It took us two hours but time flew by.
I was lonely at my uncle's home. It was a summer vacation and my parents thought it would be nice for me to spend a week with my aunt and uncle who did not have children of their own. I was a living doll on loan for a week. After three days, I was homesick. I missed my mother but I missed my father most.
My mother was livid that I did what I did but my father just laughed and welcomed me in his arms, and within a couple of hours my aunt and uncle, frantic about not finding me, and the parents of my two friends came to our home, to get to take my friends home. I said goodbye knowing that it will be a long time before we get to see each other again. It was then I knew what it was like to be attached.
One of my colleagues, a wise man, told me a very long time ago, that all relationships end, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.
At that time I thought, wow, that was not a very happy view of life, and yet it is the truth. Even if we love another during a lifetime, there is still death to contend with. Things are impermanent. Ties are impermanent.
In the beginning of romantic love, two feelings are evidently felt: Fascination with the other person, a curiosity that is sustained for a period of time, and the promise of passion, sexual union. There is an illusion that the one person can sustain both with another.
I am thinking of the words fascination and passion. So vivid, so colorful, so intriguing.
Fascination comes every time there is something new and different.
Passion is a need to unite with the object of affection at the physical level.
Fascination ends and passion fades, in time. It is the nature of humans to get bored and tired of something no matter how good. It is only a matter of time.
Uncontrolled, passion can burn. While the object of passion is to unite with the object of affection it is without meaning unless both people have united at the level of the soul.
There is so much energy associated with passion that it is what is required to create. In some it is channeled to a great work of art. With the saints, the object of affection is God.
To use the energy of passion is the highest form of yoga.
It is not possible for anyone to sustain the fascination and passion of another, forever. To think so would be to delude oneself.
It follows that the only kind of relationship that would work long term is the one where there is no expectation beyond the bounds of common self respect. Treat the other person the way you want to be treated. Moreover, you give what you desire the most not because of the hope for a return but because it is the most natural thing to do.
By this I mean that you do not disrespect the other because who you are really disrespecting yourself when you do so. By this I mean that honesty, trust, loyalty and understanding are implicit.
It is a relationship where either person is free to leave at any time and the other would be happy for the other person regardless.
In this case romantic love, the needy, clinging, grasping, possessing quality of it, is replaced by something entirely different. A soul connection. The kind that lets oneself and the other be. Like having your best friend. A mirror of yourself.
It is the kind of love that sees the other person just as he or she is, not through the illusion of perfection, but through the raw and naked quality of that person regardless of position in life, economic status and societal pressures.
I know that this kind of love exists. I saw it in my parents.
In this case the choice to be together is moment to moment rather than a promise of forever.
This is why I am afraid to be in love, again. It is not because I am not able to love deeply, it is because I have not yet perfected this quality in my heart.
And when I have, I will know, and I will be free to love again. And I will offer it freely, without hope of return, without the need for a promise of forever, not even a wish for the person to acknowledge it.
For loving is it's own reward. It is a balm that heals both the giver and the receiver equally.
So I will love, unconditionally, freely and without bounds.
Eventually we will all have to give up all attachments to be really free. A free man does not single out another.
The distinction between love and hate, hope and fear, gain or loss, fame and shame must eventually be dissolved to have true freedom.
The kind of freedom that Buddha attained. I know I will have to do this sometime. We all do.
But for now I will love, live life and be happy.
For now, I will honor my karmic connections in this lifetime and hope that in so doing, I will still be on my path to true freedom.
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