What Is Love?
What is love? What does it mean when somebody says he or she loves us?
It is easily said, “I love you”. Three words that have a deep meaning to us. Do they? I personally have mixed feelings about people saying I love you. I grew up with a mother who said it all the time but did not act accordingly and a father who did not really say it and did not show it either. To me it is easier to say in English. In German, “Ich liebe dich” sounds so awkward that it is already hard to utter. But let’s say somebody says it to you, what does it mean?
Well this person obviously must like you a lot. This person has feelings for you that go very deep. It is a heart thing is it? This person feels something in his or her heart for you. What is love? Is it a state of egolessness, a state where you forget yourself and are there for another person no matter what? You are there for that person when he or she needs your help? What is the meaning of it?
In my experience it means absolutely nothing. Karma is action and so is love. How does love express itself? I had many people tell me they love me and nothing ever happened, I had others tell me and they backed their words up with actions. How can somebody say she loves me and seconds later lash out at me with words as harsh and as cruel as possible? How can somebody say she loves me, turn around and sleep with somebody else?
Even though I wanted to use all of that to proof that love doesn’t exist I just realized something. Love does exist. These people love me but they are also robots. They are programmed. My mother is programmed and so are most people including myself in parts. There is love but the love is not as strong as the programming. I love you, oh I am afraid of men and I want to make sure you will never stand up to me, this is why I will make sure you have no self confidence when I am done with you. I love you, oh I am afraid that you leave me this is why I am lashing out to make sure I can control you. I love you; oh I want to sleep with other man because I believe that makes me happy.
Love does exist, it is always there but can we love somebody as long as our program is running? Can love and the program coexist? Is there such a thing? I don’t think so. We are talking about falling in love and about being in love but are we even able to see the other person for who this person really is while we follow our programming? Does “I love you” in this case only mean, “you fit into my mental programming that I have to play out”. Maybe it is nothing else then being the perfect candidate to support whatever idea our partner wants to play out. Maybe it is not personal at all. Maybe what we call love is just the meeting of two people with issues that match. Maybe one partner wants to get used and the other wants to use. Or one is afraid of being left and the other one is afraid of staying with one person for a long period of time. And then there is my mother being afraid of men and me being very week when I was living with her. She said I love you all day long.
So I have to take back what I said before. Love does not exist at least as long as we follow our mind. It does exist deep inside of us but is repressed by our ego and our programming. This is why when anybody tells me that he or she loves me it does not mean anything to me. What does this mean? It is like saying I like the color blue. Who cares? It is even worse. The “I love you” term is very often loaded with guilt. Most people want to be loved back. It is like you owe them for loving you. They love you so you have to love them back; you have to be there when they need you.
Love is action. About 4-5 years ago I asked my father and my mother how their love towards me expresses itself. I am still waiting for an answer to this very simple question and I am very confident that I will never get one. How does it express itself? How do we treat the people we care about? How does the love we feel towards them express itself? Are we concerned how they feel or are we only focused on our agenda. And I am not saying that anybody should not do what he or she wants to do but loving somebody means that love takes over and carries us to a different place. Love means not to think with your head and only follow your heart. Whatever ideas you might have had about the world yourself and what you want to do with your life has no meaning when there is love. This is why whenever there is the potential for “real” love, love that is not only a word, the love that can move mountains, the love that can turn the world upside down, as soon as we are confronted with this love most of us run away from it as fast as we can.
Love is seen as this romantic thing that everybody wants but I am saying almost nobody wants it. It is not romantic at all; it is the scariest thing we can face. There is no security in love, love transcends all our lies and love transcends what we believed to be. We don’t want love, we want to hold on to our stories, and we want to hold on to the illusion about ourselves.
Personally I rarely use the “I love you” phrase. But when I do it is very meaningful. It means I would go to hell and back for this person. If they would need my help at any given time at any given place in the world all they would have to do is to pick up the phone and call me. When I say, “ I love you” it means I would die for this person without thinking twice. That is what love does.
So please and this goes out especially to girls who threw the love word at me in the past and were not able to back it up through their actions, please use this word wisely. If I would die for a person out of love how can you say you love me if you are not even willing to let go of some self-limiting beliefs or ideas about how you want to live your life? What kind of love is that? Then love is just a four-letter word, a meaningless word and in this case I much rather have you tell me your favorite color.
"What Is Love" Manhattan, New York City, Sharpies, What is your favorite color? 06-14-08 at 10:09 PM
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