Choose True Love – Free from insecurity, suspicion, and doubt

As we enter the second month of the year, we look forward to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s day or Well-in-Time day. Well-in-time to celebrate the essence of love in every relationship. We all seek love from our relationships: be it parents, children, siblings and so on. Here, we present a new dimension to enhance the experience of love in relationships.

Relationships that are full of love indicate abundant happiness. Whereas relationships that are devoid of love just make a lot of noise like empty vessels. To fill our relationships to the brim with love, we must understand the chemistry of love. Love shrinks on being exposed to the air of suspicion and expands when exposed to the fragrance of trust. So to celebrate this day, let us take help of this catalyst called trust, let us permeate the world of relations with love.

Many people feel a lack of love in their relations. They wonder why they do not feel the same degree of love towards each and every person. Why do they express their love differently in different relationships? Some feel that there is more love in blood relations than in distant relations. Others feel the exact opposite. Why is this so?

Our expression of love is different with different people because our level of consciousness varies in relation to different people. Therefore, we feel more love in some relationships and less in others. However, when we attain the highest wisdom, our level of consciousness rises to such an extent that we feel love for everyone. We feel oneness with the whole of creation.

Negative emotions reappear unknowingly when our level of consciousness drops. The influence of negative emotions is such that we tend to like or dislike a person based on the emotions we carry for that person. For example, “This person does what I tell him, so I like him… that person never does anything for me, so I don’t like him… the other person sometimes helps me and sometimes doesn’t, so I find him okay… but this person is my brother, so I like him, and I’m happy my duty is to look after his well-being…”

In some cases, you love someone more because you spend more time with them. The love you experience in that case may be from a sense of duty or because your relationship is close. You are also likely to love anyone who supports you or boosts your ego. However, when your level of consciousness rises, you will realize that every person, is actually in love with their own shopping list. Yes, a shopping list. Everyone has a shopping list that they carry around with them all the time. A list like: love, attention, help, money, good food, jewellery, entertainment, and so on. Such a shopping list exists inside each one of us. We meet people every day while carrying this shopping list in our head. We then begin to, “This person can fulfil a wish of mine, and that person can fulfil another one.” If someone gives us what we want, we feel that the person loves us. If someone cannot fulfil any of our wishes, we assume they do not love us. In this way, we like those who help us get what we want, and we do not like those who do not give us what we expect them to. Thus, we lead our lives on the basis of a shopping list, which results in nothing but struggle, unhappiness, stress, and misery in relationships.

In addition to the shopping list aspect, do you wonder whether you really love people or just your opinions about them? Are they really dear to you, or is it your stories about them that are dear to you? The reality is that if the yarn you have spun about people is to your liking, then you feel you love those people. If you have spun a negative yarn, then you do not feel positive about them. If you are told something bad about someone, then your story (opinion) about that person changes and you develop negative feelings about that person. In this case, is the person actually bad, or is it just your opinion about him/her that is bad?

The key point to understand is that there is nothing happening ‘out there’ in the external world. The game of like and dislike is being played within the mind. The misery that we go through in relationships is owing to our thoughts and the stories that we cook up in our mind.

Similarly, the fleeting joys that we experience are also due to the labels that we attach to the people and events in our life. We hardly ever pause to ponder upon this intricate truth.

Another very important aspect is demanding proofs of love. As individuals, we always feel the need to check whether the other person loves us today as much as he/she did yesterday. We have the habit of demanding that others prove their love for us. We never doubt our own love, but always doubt whether the other person loves us or not. This person has to prove their love by giving something to us. We demand this because we have the tendency to suspect everything; we remain surrounded by doubts and make wrong assumptions time and again. We want to know if their love has diminished or disappeared? The underlying fear is of what might happen to us if their love is gone. How will our wishes be fulfilled? It is due to this insecurity that we want the other person to prove their love.

Here’s an example: A miser opens his treasury, counts his money, and only then is he able to get down to work. He needs to count his money every single day. He wants daily proof that he still has all his money because he is scared of losing it. Similarly, if we do not trust the other person, and are ignorant of true love, we will constantly demand proof of love. But by demanding proof again and again, we actually kill their love. The constant checking for love troubles the other person, who feels, “Why do I have to prove my love every day?” For example, if one day a husband does not bring flowers for his wife, she thinks his love for her has reduced. She does not consider that there could be a thousand other reasons for not bringing flowers.

People also kill their own happiness in this way by always suspecting their happiness. The slightest boredom makes us feel, “I don’t feel as joyful as before. I do not feel as good today as I did yesterday.” After such thoughts, we feel depressed. We need to be reminded that love and joy are always available within us; it is only their expression that is more obvious at some times and less so at other times.

We also demand people to prove their love for us in order to impose our own ways of expressing love. We think, “They should use the same words that I use when I love someone.” We always desire such proofs. Yet proof is needed only when something is not steady and true. This is why proof is needed to overcome doubt in a court of law; otherwise there would be no need for evidence. Thus, it is better that you maintain this understanding in every situation and not try to bind others by demanding evidence of love from them. In this way, their love for you will be sustained. Otherwise what little love is left will be lost due to your imposing behaviour.

Choose love
Generally, people feel they can express love only when they experience the right feeling. They think, “I never feel like speaking nicely to this person, so I won’t unless I feel like it.” However, does a student say, ‘I won’t study until I feel like it’? Those who fall into this trap fail in their examinations. But sincere students decide, “I don’t feel like studying, but I do have a choice. I want to achieve my goals, so I will study even when I don’t feel like it.” Similarly, even if we do not feel love, we can choose love. We need to realize that we are making choices every moment of our life. Those who can understand this, change their approach. They choose love in all circumstances. If we keep waiting for the feeling to arise, we will never be able to love all through our life. Hence, make a higher choice. Choose love. And keep loving relationships away from suspicions and assumptions.

So this Valentine’s Day, let us bring back that unconditional love, free from suspicions, assumptions and conditions. Understand that we are the source of love and therefore consciously choose love over any other negative emotion. Let us understand the true meaning of love in relationships and feel that abundant happiness in every relationship we have.