Can you imagine love without jealousy, without possessiveness- love cleaned of all its clinginess and desperation? Let's try. We can take some thoughts from Buddhism: What would it be like to love without attachment? Or to open our hearts to someone with no expectation beyond another heart opening in return? Loving just for the joy of it, regardless of what we might get back?
Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better.
Imagine seeing another in a clean light of love, without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover.
Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together, without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood.
But...but...but. What if you open your heart to someone and you don't like what happens next? Suppose that person gets drunk? Or treats your open affection with scorn? What if this person doesn't fulfill your dreams? What if this one turns out just like the last one? Suppose all those things do happen. What have you lost? A little time, a brief fantasy. Let it go, learn from it, and go find someone more worthy of your love.
Love doesn't much take to being stuffed into forms, which is what everybody's fantasies and imaginings are: custom-built plans for a constructed individual they've created to solve all their problems. Your authors have dream lovers too. But people are not made of clay or stone, and it won't work well to approach them with a chisel. Look what happened to Pygmalion.
How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn't look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, hilding out its hand?
Clean love: love without expectations.
Wishing your love clean doesn't require advanced spirituality or weekly psychoanalysis. You'll probably never let go of every single attachment - at least we've never managed it. But maybe you can let go just for an instant: your history, worries, frets, and yearnings will still be there to come back to you when you need them. Just for now, take a look at the nifty person who is standing right in front of you.
Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better.
Imagine seeing another in a clean light of love, without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover.
Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together, without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood.
But...but...but. What if you open your heart to someone and you don't like what happens next? Suppose that person gets drunk? Or treats your open affection with scorn? What if this person doesn't fulfill your dreams? What if this one turns out just like the last one? Suppose all those things do happen. What have you lost? A little time, a brief fantasy. Let it go, learn from it, and go find someone more worthy of your love.
Love doesn't much take to being stuffed into forms, which is what everybody's fantasies and imaginings are: custom-built plans for a constructed individual they've created to solve all their problems. Your authors have dream lovers too. But people are not made of clay or stone, and it won't work well to approach them with a chisel. Look what happened to Pygmalion.
How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn't look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, hilding out its hand?
Clean love: love without expectations.
Wishing your love clean doesn't require advanced spirituality or weekly psychoanalysis. You'll probably never let go of every single attachment - at least we've never managed it. But maybe you can let go just for an instant: your history, worries, frets, and yearnings will still be there to come back to you when you need them. Just for now, take a look at the nifty person who is standing right in front of you.
