Everyone wants to be loved and it is the nature of the human soul to love. Love provides a feeling of well-being, contentment, security and support that one cannot get from wealth, power and prestige. Love acts like sunshine, lighting up one’s life, enriching the soul and making it bloom.
But true, unselfish love is becoming increasingly rare. More and more people are ending up disappointed, disillusioned, bitter or cynical after being rejected, betrayed or abused by someone they loved.
To understand why this happens we need to know what the basis of true and lasting love is.
For a lot of people, love has come to mean emotional and physical intimacy. This may be based on several things.
If we love someone because of their pleasant nature, we may enjoy their company when everything is going well, but such people may not necessarily be caring or helpful. When faced with difficult circumstances, they may act selfishly, and that will hurt us if we are counting on them to be nice and cooperative all the time.
Then people are often attracted or impressed by someone’s intelligence, polished manners or talents, and come to love them. They assume that that person must have other good qualities as well. Such a naïve belief can ultimately lead to sorrow because having one or more remarkable qualities does not necessarily make a person loving or caring. On the contrary, someone with exceptional talents may be self-centred, arrogant or callous about others’ feelings.
Physical attributes provide an equally shallow foundation for love. Beauty, as they say, is only skin-deep. If we take a close look at the character, behaviour, and temperament of those who look beautiful, we may find things that are not pretty. Moreover, the body is subject to disease and decay, and love based solely on physical beauty also withers away as the years go by.
Then there is love based on family ties, which too may not last long. Dysfunctional families and fratricidal disputes prove that a blood connection provides no guarantee of love. When the members of a family become self-centred or egoistic, they stop caring about the feelings of those they live with, and such families get fragmented emotionally and physically, with the members going their own way.
Love can be true and lasting only if it is based on truth. The first truth we need to know is that we are souls, not bodies. The soul is the sentient point of light that gives life to the body. Peace, purity, love, joy and truth are the natural traits of every soul. That is why we feel comfortable when we experience these qualities. All human souls are related to each other by virtue of being the children of the Supreme Soul.
Weaknesses such as anger, ego and greed arise when the soul forgets itself and its innate qualities. Unaware of our spiritual strengths and virtues, we turn to these vices in an attempt to get a sense of fulfilment. That inevitably brings sorrow to the self and others.
When we remember our real, spiritual self, the intrinsic goodness of the soul begins to emerge. This self-awareness also opens our eyes to the true identity and innate goodness of others. This spiritual way of seeing others fosters healthy and caring relationships that are not entangled in desires and expectations that arise when we identify the self with the body.
It also helps others realise their own worth and connect with all that is good within them. Relationships based on spiritual awareness help everyone involved develop self-esteem as well as mutual love and respect. When souls experience such love and see that they are not judged, slighted or rejected, they develop the confidence to connect with others on an equal footing.
This is the basis of true love, which God has for all His children and which we can experience and share to enrich ourselves and heal broken hearts.
B.K. Dr. Savita is a Rajyoga teacher at the Brahma Kumaris headquarters in Abu Road, Rajasthan.
