TO LOVE

"Let us keep this truth before us. You say you have no faith? Love (To love) — and faith will come. You say you are sad? Love (To love) — and joy will come. You say you are alone? Love (To love) — and you will break out of your solitude. You say you are in hell? Love (To love) — and you will find yourself in heaven. Heaven is love." Carlo Corretto, - from In Search of the Beyond -
. . . . .
( ) The words in brackets are mine

(I’d like to share with you the same “revolutionary” idea, from one of my short articles, the shortest by far, published in “The New World Renewal ” in Rajasthan, INDIA a couple or so years ago.
CAUTION: You might find it quite tough and “strong” and revealing at the same time! But this is through years and years of reflection in my meditative moods. I got loads of feedback: some “criticising” me, though I was quite right there, they say, shortly after it came out of the press. Since then I received quite a number of letters and e-mails from that article owing to my “big mouth” and my personal style in journalism). I thought you might want to have some feedback for me?
Here it goes!
Whatever the difficulty, whatever the concern, love is the way out; to love, that is; not to be loved every single time. To love, is the only emotional need you must be “concerned” about for by doing so, you’ll get IT (the love) in return. You don’t “need” to be loved, damn it! Well, if you’re a two-year old kid, yes! Let’s not quarrel about that! You mean to say, you’re 20 years old and you need to be loved? You’re 30 years old and you need to be loved? You’re 60 years old (me for instance; I was more than 58 then) and you need to be loved? You’re 80 years old and you need to be loved? Know what everybody is saying? “I need to be loved!”, “I need to be appreciated!”, “I need to be approved!”, “I need to be considered!”, “I need to be affirmed!”, “I need to be accepted!”, “I need to be taken care of!”, “I need to be taken into account!”, “I need to be…!” – Rubbish! This is hard language, isn’t it? YOU don't need to be loved, but rather TO LOVE. This is the only need you need, TO LOVE, and it’s coming; — ok you may say, I’m wrong but, the only emotional need is to love; not to be loved! You need to be loved and the control ("I need to know what s/he is doing")", manipulation ("I'll let everyone else know if..."), the emotional blackmail ("Love me or else..."), emotional barter ("I love you if you love me!") and emotional bribery ("I'll buy you something if you... ") and everything that comes along with it from being loved?
You may need days, weeks and months to reflect and digest this, but to love, just as Jesus Christ DID, not to be loved, is the only way out to have a happy, joyous and blissful life. To love is the best “religion”; not the “religion” of “Lord, Lord…”; "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord...' if you do not do what I'm telling you?") What did Jesus tell us to do? "LOVE!" (I was well aware that this article was meant to be mainly for Buddhist readers). What is the major obstacle to love? Not loving oneself and the expectations from anyone or anything! Only then CAN you love others if you’re capable of loving yourself first, because this kind of love is “first-hand” love. This reminds me of one of the lines of Tina Turner’s song “What’s love got to do with it?” and goes on saying that “Love is a ‘second-hand’ emotion”. Remember this song? Why “second-hand”? Because YOU do feel it first! Does this make sense? So then, if you want pure, undiluted love, it is the one that you give, not the one you receive! Is it bad, or even evil, then, to receive love from someone else? No! Definitely a big NO! It’s alright if you do get it, but don’t go looking after love. Don’t waste time, energy and money to search for it for all that you’ll find, again, is a second-hand love, a short-lived love. Wouldn’t be awful to be getting a second-hand love from a second-hand “lover” (just joking) every time? Would you go for a second-hand car, second-hand clothes, second-hand anything if you can well afford a first-hand, brand new one(s)?
But you see, we’re all into this (monkey) business of receiving, getting, achieving, acquiring, searching and looking for love from… blah, blah, blah … rather than giving it to them. This is what we’ve been trained for. This is what our society had programmed us to be. YES!, the programming! Also, this is what some of our psychologists had told us. And sorry to say, even some of the major religions, to some extent, have told us to be loved in order to be okay, huh! We’ve been bombarded, brain-washed with this viewpoint. An so then comes the emotional dependence: “I can’t live without your love!, without you loving me", "I need and want you for me!", "I need your love to be happy!" "I need you for my happiness” Why not give of yourself and of your love and get everyone’s blessings and love from them naturally.
Quite a revolutionary idea, huh!
May you always have the attitude of loving. It IS the way!
And may you be aware that you are capable of loving beyond measure, capable of cherishing everyone and blessing them.

Have a wonderful, loving day!
Ross