Love touches and if felt in what we call our soul. There is nothing religious or mystical about it, it is a real thing. You can call it your heart, but it is more than that. Real love enchants and enlivens every cell in our body, give energy, joy and a love of everything in life. But then fear comes in and kills that. So let’s discuss how to love fully and yet satisfy the fears so they cannot detract from 100% passion.
If the soul, your essence, is the smallest little dot of your being and is covered by layers of ego personality, and there are layers for each experience of your life, how can you ever find it? There are so many layers and distractions to work through, it becomes too illusive.
Each layer is another illusion, which is commonly called, ‘my truth’. Illusions are how we have interpreted situations and developed certain characteristics, and because of that, we create an infinite number of layers to our personality. Each illusion creates another layer by causing another misinterpreted and painful memory.
Then there is the body, and the body has more psychological layers due to its physical injuries. For example if you hurt your arm, you develop a limited range of movement, or if you nearly drowned, a fear of water is created, or fell off a horse, then a fear of horses, etc. Psychological fears are created due to physical experiences.
Every physical injury has developed a new layer. Emotionally, heartbreaks also develop more layers. All these layers are preventing you or your soul from being released, realized and actualized, preventing you from really living because you are kept in the prison of your own mind.
We must remove these layers in order to have a pure loving and passionate experience and truly be able to live.
Any inhibitions, fears or limitations, emotional or physical, need to be overcome. It is as simple as breaking habits, because all of these layers become habits as much as characteristics.
We Are Just a Collection of Habits
Your character is merely an accumulation of habits. It is very feasible to change any habit, some easier than others, but changing your habits removes the layers which then allows the potential of a spiritual experience of love to occur.
These layers are what the Buddha referred to when he said that all is illusion. Our beliefs and fears that control the way we live from moment to moment, our habits, tastes, mannerisms and everything else that makes you you, are all illusions. They are all built on your subjective personal interpretation of the events you experienced and your view of what happened.
Attachment & Commitment
One of the major problems is the concept of attachment and commitment. Due to the heartbreaks, from love to business, many people have developed a fear of commitment and attachment, fearing that the pain will recur.
The principle of having no attachments is correct, but english is a very limited language and those few words make the teaching into a completely different lesson, imposing a global concept to a subtle and complex lesson.
Like many other things, attachment has a positive and negative application. Negative attachment is what we must avoid, however positive attachment which in fact is more neutral, is necessary for personal growth.
Let us first look at the negative side of attachment. This is more accurately described as possessiveness built on desires. Desires also have a good and bad side to them. It is not the emotion but the subject that is the problem.
You can desire a new car, house or diamond ring, but you can also desire to give charity, help the poor, improve your character, etc.
So now we have established that the idea of having no desires is not necessarily correct if taken literally and across the board, likewise, attachment can also be a positive emotion.
Attachment to something in the negative sense as we said is possessiveness, and that is bad. This is because you want it all for yourself, you do not want to share and you do not want to lose it. That is understandable if it is some valuable material object, still not a good emotion, however normal.
When it comes to people, that is completely unacceptable and very destructive. This is also the reason that many people who aspire to be so called ‘spiritual’, defeat their own goals by avoiding such emotional attachments which subsequently shuts the ability to love.
Emotions are the essence of our being and a very profound essential part of spiritual growth. We cannot have pure emotion if we are rejecting anyone or any feeling due to the false concept that to love means to be attached and being attached is counterproductive to spiritual growth.
That entire concept is counterproductive to your growth, ironically done in the name of growth. Preventing yourself from positive attachment, which is really commitment, means you have prevented yourself from being committed to anything, including your own search for truth. All emotions are interconnected and when one is inhibited, so is the other.
If you are not committed because you have inhibited the function of that emotion such that you simply do not have the ability to commit to anything or anyone, then your love cannot progress.
On the other hand, I encourage you to become committed and attached but not POSSESSIVE to another person, to your Love.
The Essential Point
And so we have come down to the essential point, the acceptance that all things will die or leave, or you will die and leave them. This is the essential truth of the universe that humans strive so diligently to avoid, and that avoidance is the cause of your pains and layers.
Allow yourself to be committed and attached with the caveat that you cannot control anything and that one day you will be separated from who or whatever that is. Live freely with this knowledge, appreciating the time you have, moment to moment, living in the full present rather than the future or past.
This will remove the layers of fear and inhibition, while you also move towards breaking any habits or patterns that keep your heart closed to some degree.
The more your heart is open, the more you will feel love, and the more lovable you will be.
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