________________
LOVE
What is love? Inspite of all that the philosophers have told us, we do not want to understand the true nature of the most potent force in the world. We believe in the movie myth that love means physical beauty and poetic passion. All that, may well be a thrilling experience but that is not love, that is conditional love. When the condition is gone, frustration sets in and love disappears. Although we all are capable of unconditional love-the essence of Bhagwan Mahavir's teaching, loving with conditions is far more common with human-beings.
Compassionate Heart
When we love another because he or she meets our needs, we are loving conditionally. Similarly,
when we give to get, we are placing conditions on our love. This is the way love is usually defined and the way most of us are brought up to understand it. But respecting others by seeing and accepting them as they are is an expression of unconditional love.
The nature of consciousness is unconditional love. We love people when we love them, for what they are and not for being young or old, beautiful or wealthy. Love is the greatest of all soul forces. It is the feeling of fullness that grows inside us from self respect and love, until it over flows and must be given away. It is the silver link that binds all living hearts together in unity and harmony. Love is the vision that helps us to see ourself in all life force and all in ourself-microcosm in macrocosm and macrocosm in microcosm.
When in today's world people are intoxicated and under the spell of prejudices, hatred, envy, jealousy greed etc., the spirit of infinite love is most needed. "Love is the foundation and the apex of the pyramid of our existence", says Wilferd A. Peterson. Today we have made pieces of love and have lost our peace. Throwing pieces of love here and there we are splitting ourself within. When we have love for few chosen that means we exclude others. This is conditional love. This condition roots from our inability to love ourself completely and our inability to receive love from others. There is nothing more painful than being alone together.
The essence of love is relatedness. Relatedness to a person, to one's self, or to any life form. To relate means 'to carry back together'. So relatedness in love means to bring back together what is one but seemingly has become separate. That which separates us from the feeling of oneness with all life force is our ego and our greed. That is the reason when we do not love we disconnect ourself from others and become separate. When we are disconnected we can do anything to hurt others. When we are connected we can understand the feelings of others and experience a sense of wholeness and unity. Mr. Leonard Laskow, M. D. says, "Love has the power to create an energy field that affects all that enters it. It is said that loving field of Christ and Buddha was so powerful that people were healed in their presence".
Love has three aspects to it: awareness, feeling, and action. Love is our awareness of the inherent connection that we share with all life; we experience it as a feeling; and we express it as an
action.
The story which you are about to read describes all three aspects of love found in one person.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
