This time, I was at the receiving end.
“Where the hell have you been?”
(Don’t worry folks. It is Sara. She is now in her first year at college, working her way through music and modern art. A real firebrand; She’s quite protective of me, because she somehow feels I need help even to tie my shoe laces. Damn!!)
Hiiii Sara. I was away- traveling.
“I have been looking for you all weekend, did you know that?”
(It was clear by then, that the coffee shop where we were meeting, was going to heat up soon)
Sorry, firegirl. I had my phone switched off.. I was staying in a village over the weekend…no phone signal. Out of reach!
“Just like you to do that. Running away to talk to chickens and cows”
(I decided to change the topic, for my own safety)
So, how was your weekend? Had fun?
“No, that’s the problem. V-day is so not happening for me.”
V-day?
“Valentine’s day, idiot! Which planet are you in?”
Oh, yeah. Of course! You must have partied all night, for sure?
“No. I stayed at home all weekend”
I don’t believe that. If a smart ‘n pretty girl like you can’t land a date, what will happen to mere mortals like us? Ha ha ha.
“No. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t want to have anything to do with Valentine’s day. No roses, no phone calls. No dates. Nothing; Just stayed put in my room, watching TV”
But why?
“It makes me feel miserable, every year. Counting the roses I get in the mail, trusting a jerk, falling in love, getting attached, the romance, the heartbreak, the split up and the long recovery. It just saps my energy year after year. So, this time I decided – No way. This is not for me. Love hurts; BIG time. ”
OK
“Is that all you can say to me…”OK?”
Huh…a TV expert said “When a woman shares her problems with you, just listen. Don’t offer solutions”. I was only following her advice
“Well, I have news for you. Don’t believe everything you hear about women on TV. Now tell me. Did I make the right decision or not?”
(I quietly checked if there was any heavy object within her reach)
Well…..
“Go on. I am not going to hit you this time”
If you had made the right decision, you wouldn’t be so disturbed now, would you?
“Maybe; but I don’t want to go through all the pain again. So I want to avoid it. Isn’t that fair?”
I don’t know whether it is fair. But I can tell you this – You are trying to avoid an invisible enemy. So, first know what is happening, and then make that decision
“OK. I’ll lay it on the table. Do you think there is something called perfect love? Because that is what I need”
Not just you, Sara. We all yearn for it. But we try to find it in things and people outside us. That is when we suffer. We feel depressed, angry, anxious, hurt, possessive, jealous, let-down.
“Yeah, I know; because people are not perfect. I should lower my expectations of people”
No. Love is perfect. That is its nature. What I am saying is – We are searching for it in the wrong place
“Oh, c’mon. Love is perfect? You are talking of unconditional love. That is just a myth”
You are right. You can’t experience unconditional love, because it is just a concept, an idea.
“Then, what are you referring to?” (She now had a puzzled look on her face, superimposed over her angry look)
You cannot experience unconditional love. But you can experience unconditioned love.
“Now I am curious”
(I picked up the newspaper from the table and did a quick sketch on it)
The white light is unconditioned love. However, in the course of day to day life, we experience it only as colors. Each color is our own conditioning, an emotional state.
Each emotion has its own effect on our body. Some of them cause very strong reactions in us
But the emotions themselves have no power of their own. They get their power from our past conditioning
The person you are in love with is just a trigger for the conditioning to re-surface every time. That is why we go through the same experiences again and again, with different people
(Sara gasped)
Yes, it is. Perfect love is unconditioned. It has been called by many names – consciousness-love, consciousness-energy, bliss, rapture…take your pick. I just call it as it is –unconditioned love.
As you can see, each of us conditions it and experiences it in different ways.
“What has anger got to do with love?”
Sara, be honest with yourself and you’ll see clearly. Each of them is about love, but we project them on to a specific person, as if it’s about them. That is where the error occurs.
“Are you saying that I can’t love a person at all?”
No. What I am saying is – Don’t search for perfect love in someone else. That is the wrong place to search. That person is just another poor soul like you and me. Don’t assign magical properties to them and then, one fine day, walk away saying the magic has stopped working. That is doing grave injustice to them and yourself.
“Some people deserve my anger, for sure!!”, she said
No Sara. People deserve your love. Instead, what you are offering them is only your conditioning. You and they – both deserve better.
“But I can’t be free of all these emotions. You are asking me to live like a zombie”
On the contrary, living with your emotions is living like a zombie. Soon, everyone you care about will know how to press your ‘anger’ button and ‘Jealousy’ button. You will be like a puppet in their hands.
“Then I am jacked. I have to wait a lifetime to get what I am after. Maybe I need a shrink” (her face drooped)
Not really. There is an easier way. Look at the picture carefully, Sara.
It takes many years of practice to avoid the conditioning. But we can trick the system.
We can look at it in reverse.
“In reverse?”
Yes. You can distill every emotion back into love.
Experience every emotion as love; because that is what it is. Red, Blue and so on are just explicit colors. White is implicit in each of these colors
Whenever you feel anger or jealousy or lust or grief or kindness arising, say to yourself “Not this. Just love“. Soon, with practice, the colors will fade back into white. The real firegirl will then shine.
“I get it now. Love by itself doesn’t hurt me. A person by himself/herself doesn’t hurt me. I am the one hurting myself.”
Very sharp, Sara, as always.
“Neat. Leave it with me. I’m going to have fun trying this out. Oh s@!$#”
Now what?
“I realized, I just threw away a good V-day for nothing. Now, I have to wait till next year”
(I grinned). Sara, when you master this, every day will be a V-day.
“Thanks a lot. I feel better now. Share this with others. I am sure it will help them too. I gotta go now. Late for my classes; Oh, and by the way….”
Yeah ? (It was hard to keep up with her pace)
“Tie your shoelaces”
Damn!!
The Urban Monk diaries 