The Art of Loving

Hey!  Loving is an art. Interesting isn't it an emotional state which happens naturally and there is no art in loving someone. We love people around us, those who are part of our world. It is quite normal to hear these phrases in the world. "I Love you"; "I can not stay without you"; "I can't think of parting from you"; "I am lost somewhere, lost in your thoughts" etc. Do these phrases actually denote love? Love flows between other relationships also i.e. between parents and children; brothers and sisters and between friends also. But be it any relationship, we feel the emotional state of love till our needs and desires get fulfilled. Why these feelings of love die with time. Isn't it need for someone, or habit of someone or the temptation of living with the person; which we denote the feeling of love. Till the time that temptation is there; you love him/her. But what afterwards, Hey! I need you! I want you! And when the desire to stay with that person is over, you say good bye. And again we are set to find someone who can fulfill our needs and desire. But does this search end.
However; one thing is very clear; we love to love and to be loved. We tend to find love around us because seeking for love is our nature. When love is there we feel happy. But this so called state of "falling in love" is a kind of intoxication done by nature; "A false High". As if the nature preconceived this trap of false high for us and we got caught in the trap. It is like a drug induced in our blood which gives us "High temporarily but does not lost permanently". We live with a psychological principle called the "Principle of Hedonism" which states that we seek for pleasure and tend to avoid pain. So seeking pleasure being our nature we tend to look forward for love around us, in someone's company; in our work field; in our own world. And soon we get addicted to our love which can be with a person or place or our work even. When this addiction start giving us pains; we feel that Oh! It was just an illusion of nature. Actually we get trapped in the attractions and charms shown by nature to us and term this illusion as LOVE. But this illusion is temporary high state which is filled with sorrows attached to this false high. These sorrows related to expectations, conditions, boundaries, sacrifices, surrender, toleration etc. which we bear when "The False High" gets over and realities swim over the circumference. When the imaginary love is gone we feel these sorrows because of the ego we have which is the sole creator of these thoughts correlated to the so called feeling of love.
If this is not love, then what is real love? Can it be taught? Can we learn to love? Is it so easy or so difficult to be in love? Love is a highly misunderstood concept. Actually love is our own existence, our basic nature. Had it not been our own nature we would never felt happy when we feel actual love. THE JOY OF FEELING LOVE IS AN ART AND THIS IS NAMED AS ART OF LOVING. Love is a feeling which is ingrained within us. It is the awareness that gives us the feeling of loving anything and everything that comes our way. A true feeling of love comes with complete faith and devotion. When we learn this art of loving, nothing can shake us from the permanent nature of happiness around us. But this feeling of love also starts after the false high is over and we actually taste the bitter part of that false high.
O.K.! What actually happens when we are caught by the emotional state of falling in love with someone? Isn't it a dreaming state, an imaginary world created by us and we feel ourselves surrounded with that someone's thoughts. We become conditioned to see all special things of that person i.e. we tend to get positive feelings and to overlook the negative aspects of that person because of the state of false high we are enjoying. Everything seems to be so beautiful, wonderful. Our senses and mind gets so engrossed with that someone's thought that we tend to forget other things. We always want to be with that person. We crave to see just one glance of that person. This is the situation till the time we don't get the person we love. But once we start living with that person we start realizing that the love we once felt gets distorted.
Now, what is distorted love? When the colours of our imaginatory love gets over, we feel fear, insecurity, anger, jealousy, hatred etc. These are the distortion of love. When love is not intense we are caught by the distortion of love in the form of FEAR & INSECURITY. When a child is crossing the road with his finger in his mother's hand; he has no fear of accident because he has deep love or faith or a sense of security in his mind for his mother. But when love is not intense or can be shaken, then the distortion of fear creeps in. The fear of separation; the insecurity to loose the person we love enters into our mind. Actually we mentally link something to a given situation and caught by the distorted love i.e. the feeling of fear. The illusionary compartments made in our mind for the loved ones make us feel afraid of any kind of separation.
Another form of distortion is anger. We tend to get angry with our love ones because of our expectations from them. When love is not deeply rooted, it will always expect or demand and when these expectations are not fulfilled we tend to feel angry. We are filled with sorrows and pain because of unfilled expectations. The one we don't love; we can not get angry with him. Isn't it? So anger is a form of distorted love, which is felt because of conditional love which is based on Give & Take philosophy.
Yet another form of distortion of love is the distortion of possessiveness. When we think of another person as possessed by us in such a manner that we are unable to share that person with any one else. This kind of distorted love takes the form of jealousy. It is because of this jealousy that we get suspicious and tend to think wrong about the person we love. When love gets coloured with possessiveness; it becomes burden for the person we love.
There is one more form of distortion of love and that is hatred ness. When there is complete distortion it is hatred. When we don't want to see a person, when we think in terms of all No's; it is hatred. We hate a person whom we had loved once. How can we hate a person whom we don't know?
All these distortions of love arise with the situations of "falling in love". Without entering the emotional state of false high; there can be no distortions. But without distortions these can be All Love; Pure Love, which is to be felt in Art of Loving. To actually analyse the state of "Pure Love",
We have to cross the stages of falling in "false love" and to feel the distortions attached with it. Without tasting the bitterness of false love; we can not relish the sweetness of pure love. When the state of falling in love gets over; it is at that time we enter the stage of feeling True Love. It is actually because of the distortions of love which when reaches to the peak; we feel dispassion. It is at this time detachment happens. The worldly love seems to be very selfish and then we understand the importance of pure love. When we drop all doubts; queries; expectations; conditions; boundaries and even the relationships, we can understand the intensity of deep rooted love which is our own existence, without love we can not exist. The art of loving is the art to understand the feeling of love in its true sense i.e. when love flows without conditions, limitations and boundations; it is complete, True; Pure…………… DIVINE.

Divine love is the only love which flows and flows till the time it glows. When love glows it becomes "BLISS"; the eternal happiness for which we entered into the world. When worldly love vanishes, spiritual love happens and we forget all relationships. Actually, pure love knows no relationship. Can we describe our relationship with our own selves? Our inner self can not be separated from our outer self then why any name of relationship should be given to love, let it flow unconditional, without any boundary.
To love and to be loved completely requires learning the wonderful art of loving which can be learnt from GOD only. Look at the purity of the love of God. He is ready to pour his love unconditionally.

"When you look at me; I'll look at you"
The phrase doesn't mean that first we look at him and then he will look at us. But the phrase is so much filled with pure love that BABA says: "there is no time left when I don't look at you but until unless you look at me you won't be able to realise that I'm looking at you." It is actually God's realization which awakens the feeling of pure love with in us. GOD is always standing there without expectations, conditions and boundation. He is never partial in pouring his grace. He never asks for any prayers or rituals from us but is constantly giving us everything that it is always flowing whether we receive it or not. When we are filled with sorrows; guilt and get into trouble because of our own wrong deeds, it is divine love that gives us strength to cope up with all the problems. When we think of doing something good; it is divine love which makes ways for us.
If we learn the art of loving we can feel ourselves bulwarked with divinity. It is the art of feeling blessed always which can make us feel the divine love. When we start feeling divine love, we tend to feel similar craving and yearning for the Lord. GOD being ever new, we are never tired of him and so divine love is permanent. When we are filled with divine love; we start relishing the nectar of GOD which is unfathomable. Divine love leads to fullness after which we are left with no cravings of finding love beyond that. Divine love can not be measured with education or qualification but the only quality which is required to measure divine love is the ability to accept everything happening in terms of our beloved's wishes. When everything is happening because of the beloved; wish; it is always right. Divine love has no queries; no ifs; no buts; no conditions; no boundaries. When we learn to live life with such love, we actually learn the art of loving.
Undoubtedly there are many ways to attain GOD i.e. Knowledge; Action and Devotion. But without LOVE all the paths are incomplete.
This is the art of Loving. It doesn't require making others understand how much love we have in our heart or how much we are surrounded with divinity. The world can not understand the inner beauty of divine love. There is one more story in Bible explaining the depth of divine love. Once upon a time a priest was lost in an island. He found only three men living in that isolated island. The priest had to stay there till the time any help could reach there. He had a dialogue with the three men.
Priest: Do you people believe in GOD?
The Three old men: Yes
Priest: What kind of prayers do you offer him?
The old man: We say "we are three, you must be three. Help us".
Priest: (laughing) Oh! Is this the prayer you do? But this is not the way we should pray GOD.
The old man: Sir! We are ignorant people. Please tell us how to pray. We can learn a new prayer.
The priest helped them to learn prayers for GOD. One morning a boat came and the priest left the island. Late in the evening the priest saw a black dot from far distance. That dot was growing bigger and bigger and was coming closer to the boat. And then he saw, those old men whom he had left on the island were running on water. The priest got the boat stopped for them.
The Three old men: Sir; we forgot the prayers you told us. Please tell us again.
Priest: That is O.K. first; you tell me how you running on water and what were saved you from drowning.
The old man: Sir, when you left we were busy in our work. In the evening we sat down to pray but couldn't remember what you'd told us. We stand near the sea and looked up. We told GOD that we had no boat to follow you so we will run. Rest we left to GOD. And we came running towards you. Now please tell us how to pray.
Priest: (surprisingly) Sir your faith on GOD and your love for him is beyond the level of any wordings. GOD listens to you in whatever form you pray. You don't require any kind of special words to pray.
This is divine love which is inexhaustible, and so we are never tired of it. We are lucky that we've got human bodies which can taste divine nectar. Oh! Dear Lord! Let love flow from me and let love come to me unlimited. Your wish means everything to me. Make me vulnerable to negativities. When the world respects me; it is because of your love and when the world rejects me it is because you want me to feel your Love. Oh! Your unconditional love makes me feel beautiful. Your boundary less love gives me realization of my selfishness. You are the nectar in flowers; the honey of bees; the pure love; the bliss. Let me feel you in such a manner that there remains no difference between you and me. Just Love; Love; Love.