LIVE LAUGH LOVE

 by Prof. Shafiya

Love is a feeling of well-being and of good emotions. It is an activity that keeps us in good spirits and happy emotions. Let us engage and create feelings of love by making ourselves capable through appropriate changes in our dealings with others. There is no other way to love and be loved.

People often fail to conceive love as pious in essence. Physical intimacy which is devoid of good feelings is not love but lust.

While dealing with others, let us take care that our dealings make them cheerful, by helping them to come out of their problem, appreciate their successes and be grateful for the help received from them. All these activities are to express love.

The benefit of giving love to others is that it appeals to our hearts and makes us connected to others, provides stability and security, removes fear and gives a feeling of being good toward other people. One can get to know love by first generating such feelings of being good to others. How can a person feel love from others if he is filled with ego, anger, and selfish tendencies? These negative emotions suppress the inner urge to love others.

Love is a divine energy. I had a very vague idea about love initially. As I tried to understand more about it, a completely different perspective and thinking developed that explained the true essence of love. I have come to know from spiritual literature that love is God and God is love. It appears too abstract in the first instance, but the more we tend to think of God will make we to love God and all other creations of God. It is like energy flowing within us derived from the Ultimate that thinks positively and helps in inner purification.

Albert Einstein discovered the energy mass equation that explains the interconnection of material and energy. It revolutionized the thinking of the present century by using a small amount of mass to derive tremendous energy. Hence, along with our material existence, somewhere we are also part of the divine energy lying within us as dormant. Logically, this divine energy which is nothing but love brings us close to the Ultimate.

I can imagine that every one of us has a great capacity of this divine love within us, but it is hidden, untapped and misdirected. Great saints have worked on human beings from time to time by developing intense feeling of love and concern for others. This has helped them to achieve higher levels of spiritual growth and closeness with the ultimate. The true meaning of love is inner purification of soul. This is the real purpose of love.

Love is nothing but inner need and the reason for feeling happiness. Fill the requirement of soul by being in love with other person. The other person whom you love is only the recipient of our loved. It is our own emotions that create love for that person.

People love someone if they feel that person is an object of love. This feeling comes out of inner need. This is the reason that when the object of love is same, but still different people react to it in a different manner.

A person may become an object of love for someone but similar feelings may be missing in the heart of other person. The feeling of love resides in us. The other person becomes only a facilitator to bring out this feeling. Irrespective of how good other person may be, love will have to originate from you to create that loving emotion. All other things follow thereafter. These emotions come when we feel need of love as against negative emotions of anger and hate.

The advantages of giving love to the other person are essentially to fulfill our inner need and to generate happiness. If we demand love from other person, we may not be able to feel it when our inner condition is filled with negative feelings.

Love is an activity of thinking good about others, doing all that can be done to make others feel good and acting in a manner that other person feels comfortable. It is not something to be demanded as it cannot be preserved. We cannot take it or feel it unless we make ourselves capable for it.

Everyone feels the impact of love in their life. When you think good of another person, you are in same wavelength as your inner self (soul), which makes you feel light and joyful. Such feeling is love. It is not easy for a person to love someone as it takes time to understand and then develop liking of that person.

Media influences the understanding of various issues in life including perception of love. Love has different connotations in the media, which is not actual reality.

The people in love as shown in media are projected somewhat special. It makes us think that we are incapable of offering or getting that sort of love. People often adore type of love which is without any argument, full of sacrifices and tolerance from the other person. The media glorifies love and shows loving couple who do so many unusual things to attract each others’ attention. It affects the perception of love.

We imagine women in love as beautiful, sacrificing and never arguing. The media depicts love based on physical attraction. In actual life situations, things are different.

Love does not mean that there will not be any differences and the other person will always remain dumb. It does not mean that a person who is not handsome or beautiful will be less attractive and loving in nature.

The attractiveness of a person derives from the overall personality that is a combination of physical looks, positive attitude and confidence. The love stories as reflected in media and narrated by other persons mostly narrate physical aspect of love. It does not emphasize on the emotional closeness and spiritual part of the love which is more subtle and enduring. Our perception of love is thus limited in nature.

Life is not always about happy or sad situations. It has its own moments of ups and down. How to adjust in each situation and take it in stride will greatly affect the quality of life and relationship with other people.

The perception of love as being devoid of any problem, trouble, and pain is thus a misconception. People feel more and more pain as they are not able to live in love in a relationship with other people. Our perception of love has to change. We have to live with all the problems that we face in unison, sort out our differences, and make change in our life style to bring a semblance of love and tolerance in our attitude. We have to meet the need of the soul to develop spiritual love for other persons which goes beyond physical attraction.