We know all there is to know about love, don’t we? It’s everywhere around us in songs, films and books. It’s our favourite conversation: who’s getting together, who’s no longer together… Yet it still causes us endless heartache.
“I’ve looked at love from both sides now…” sang Joni Mitchell. “It’s love’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know love at all.”
Perhaps we’re not thinking about it the right way. And that’s the problem – when love consumes us, we just stop thinking! For all our evolution and growing consciousness, we humans are still full of inner fears and insecurities. We all long for a happy and loving relationship, believing that this will make all those shadows go away; and, for a while, that’s true.
Most relationships begin with a special attraction. We like someone’s looks, their smile or their eyes, then dopamine and norepinephrine levels shoot up making us energetic and euphoric. Or perhaps it’s how clever they are or what they’re interested in. As we grow closer to someone, they make us feel safer, less fearful.
But the trouble with this, of course, is that we’re handing over responsibility for our happiness to someone else. Our relationships are conditional from the start, believing that nothing will change. Yet change is one of the great certainties of life: people and circumstances change, our interests and perhaps even our spiritual attitudes change. Alternatively, some of us even think we can change our partners, make them ‘better’, which is just another kind of condition.
So, when things go wrong and we are badly hurt, many of us retreat into ‘blame and shame’. But can love really turn to hate? Surely such a relationship was not founded on love in the first place, for genuine love must be unconditional and immutable. And that’s not at all easy to find.
Let’s not despair! Just because a relationship doesn’t last, it doesn’t mean there was no love there to begin with. All our modern expectations of life are very different to those of past generations, and a lifelong marriage may be a wonderful achievement but it’s also very rare. In a fast-changing world, many of us will move onto new paths. Still, that shouldn’t necessarily make us regret the past, or criticise those who have shared our lives.
Well, is there such a thing as perfect love, a feeling that is unconditional and unchanging, and a relationship to be treasured even though we may later separate? We are certainly all hooked on stories of this ideal. Romeo and Juliet, Paris and Helen, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn… oops, no, none of those ended well.
We need to look beyond the passion of hormones for the key to happiness. After all, love can take many different forms. Many of us have a deep and long-lasting love of nature that we feel when we’re out in a beautiful landscape or walking through a quiet woodland, proven to lower heart rate and to strengthen the immune system. There’s something about nature that resonates deep within all of us. We can also find inspiration in the selflessness and devotion shown by other species: there are wonderful stories of dogs, for example, saving their carers from great danger with no thought for their own safety.
Human selflessness can be seen in the deep connection we have with a few special friends. These relationships, which might have begun with shared experiences at school or at work, have nothing to do with romance or inner fears. Yet they often evolve into meaningful, caring and loyal ties; true friends will go out of their way to support one another through thick and thin.
One couple who seem to have got this right were Abigail Smith and John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers of the USA. As well as being the mother of six children, Abigail was one of her husband’s most trusted advisors and the couple wrote more than a thousand letters to each other, filled with discussion on politics as well as more personal matters, even while they were married. She once wrote (sic), “There is a tye more binding than Humanity, and stronger than Friendship…”
All these examples hint at something far deeper than physical attraction or shared interests, an inner sense that’s nothing to do with satisfying our inner fears and insecurities. From forests to deep friendships, this awareness of love is at the soul level.
We see it expressed through the lives of some special, inspiring individuals such as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, Sufi poet and Islamic scholar, and Julian of Norwich who wrote Revelations of Divine Love. More recent examples are the Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths and Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
We lesser mortals may have very different lives to these, yet every one of us is capable of touching that deeper sense of love at times. And even if we lose touch with it later, this does not deny that we have known love. The natural conclusion, then, is that genuine love is nothing to do with another person – it is something within ourselves.
Love is a state of mind we can all experience, whether or not we are in a relationship with others. In these moments, however brief or long-lasting, we are sensing our own spiritual identity, our higher selves. It is not a personal connection. We are touching that deep level of consciousness where everything is connected, the place of oneness, where all fears and insecurities evaporate.
When we know this, our minds are opened to different ways of thinking. We become more respectful, tolerant, and we turn away from conflict. We have gratitude for every relationship.
© Nigel Peace, 2024
Nigel Peace is the author of The Unbroken, a story of deep love
and an adventure through mysterious worlds of the mind.
It is published by Roundfire Books (a division of John Hunt Publishing).
www.spiritrevelations.com
Article published in More to Life – Edition 68
