The great poet Hirumi once said,
Your task is not to seek for love,
But merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Our lives are driven by love.
Everything we do,
We do for love.
Although it might seem that we have other motivations like money,
Fame,
Power,
Prestige,
Etc.
But even those motivations are for the love of ourselves or love for the people associated with us.
The ultimate feeling we crave in every case is love.
Ask someone who has been living alone for many years,
What is it that they crave the most and if they are honest,
They will tell you that it is love and connection.
Even if they have all the money and power,
Even if they have travelled the world,
Deep satisfaction only comes when we can share those experiences with others.
When we share prosperity,
When we share laughter,
When we share beautiful moments,
The happiness that we experience is at another level.
Our children can tell you what joy they feel when they share their food with their friends.
Sharing is our nature.
Giving is our nature.
Love is our nature.
Love is our innate nature because the soul is made of love.
Its substance is love.
It is love itself.
The energy that flows through the universe is love.
Hence when we are connected with our soul,
We experience love and we share love.
But when we are disconnected from our soul,
We experience fear and we share that fear.
It is as simple as that.
We believe that relationships are complex but actually they are based only on two emotions,
Love and fear,
Where love is the reality and fear is the illusion.
If you feel happy when you see others happy,
It is love.
But if you feel jealous when someone is happy,
It is fear.
It is the fear that you might not be able to get that thing which the other has.
When you value someone's freedom and give them space,
It is love.
But when you want to cling to a person,
It is the fear that you might end up lonely.
So what does loving from the soul mean?
How is it different from the love that our society has defined?
Dr.
Abraham Twosky,
A rabbi,
Explained it well through an example.
He said that when people say,
I love fish,
They don't actually love the fish.
They love themselves so much that for their own palate pleasure,
They are ready to kill the fish.
So in today's time,
There is too much of fish love.
When a man proposes to a woman and tells her that he loves her,
In most cases,
He actually means that he has certain emotional needs and physical needs and he needs that woman to fulfil those needs.
Similarly,
The woman foresees her needs being met by the man.
In these cases,
The man and the woman love themselves more than they love each other.
So let me tell you now what loving from the soul means.
It means that your love for someone is unconditional and unlimited.
It means that you don't put a condition on loving someone.
When you don't expect anything from the other person,
When you just intend to give love,
That is when you truly love from the soul.
It means that your love for the other person won't ever stop,
Whatever the situation might be.
Why so?
Because you know that the soul is abundant and infinite.
No matter how much love you give away,
You will never be depleted of love.
In fact,
By giving love,
You multiply it many times.
Another way of loving from the soul is when you love without attachment.
Now this might sound preposterous to some.
You might say that,
But Saqib,
Attachment is necessary for love.
Or,
Love eventually leads to attachment.
While I agree to some extent with the idea that love leads to attachment,
I don't really agree with the notion that attachment is necessary for love.
One of the key teachings of Buddha is that attachment leads to suffering.
That doesn't mean that we should not love anything or anyone.
Love and attachment are two different things.
In fact,
I would say they are the opposite of each other.
When you see a beautiful flower on a shrub and you plug that flower and keep it with you,
That is attachment.
Eventually,
The flower would die and neither its beauty will remain nor you would enjoy its presence once it decays.
But when you let that flower stay on that shrub,
Smell it,
Touch it,
Praise its beauty,
But not pluck it,
Then it is love.
By not plucking it,
The flower will live longer and you will also continue to enjoy its beauty and fragrance.
Another example of attachment is when you keep a bird in a cage in your home.
But true love will be when you let that bird free to fly in the sky so that it can enjoy its freedom.
So yes,
It's true that we are attached to a lot of people,
But let's not confuse that with love.
Because our attachment comes from our needs,
Not theirs.
Love is when we let the other person have their freedom and space,
And when we will be happy seeing them grow and prosper.
It is absolutely possible to love without attachment.
In fact,
That is the only way to love.
Therefore to summarize,
Loving from the soul means unconditional and unlimited love,
And love that is without attachment.
It is amusing how we human beings try to put conditions and restrictions on love.
Love is the free flowing energy of the universe.
It is everywhere.
It is what the universe is made up of.
It cannot be defined or confined or restricted.
Your love will be truly unlimited when you don't limit it to a few people or a few animals.
You will genuinely merge with the loving energy of the universe when you love the entire universe and every being and everything that is a part of it.
So how do you love?
Is your love unlimited?
Is your love unconditional?
Today,
Reflect on your relationships.
Not only relationships with the people close to you,
But relations with everyone you come in contact with,
And also your connection with nature and also your relationship with mother earth.
And check if your love for them is unlimited,
Unconditional and without attachment.
If you find that there are certain relationships in which you are limiting your love,
Then take out your journal and write down this question.
How can I have unconditional and unlimited love for this person or thing?
Or in other words,
How can I truly love from the soul?
And then write down the answer that you get from within.
So I hope you found value in this session.
Before I end it,
I would like to tell you that I love you.
Take care.
