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Random Forays: True love is indeed a many-splendoured thing
Those who keep falling in and out of love are probably never going to scratch the surface of love deeply enough to discover its real treasures
T’is the season of love, but then love is a perennial phenomenon. There’s no telling when Cupid could strike a receptive heart. Yet, the transient process of falling in love is not really love or is it?
The saint said the journey of true love usually begins once the sheen of initial attraction and razzle-dazzle has faded away. Those who keep falling in and out of love are probably never going to scratch the surface of love deeply enough to discover its real treasures.
There’s no denying the charm of a heart all aflutter, a gaze shyly lowered, the magical moment when the eyes first meet, the throb resulting from a footstep at the door or the sheer thrill of receiving a long-awaited message. Yet, and heartbreakingly so, all such romantic moments must ultimately pass on to the realm of our memoirs, once the caravan of life takes over, quite unyieldingly.
A marriage is meant to be a lifelong tryst, but the initial freshness of any union is bound to be effervescent. A life-time bond depends on friendship and understanding more than attraction and passion, after all. Yes, there are some twosomes who work hard at retaining the romantic touch or manage to keep their chemistry going, come what may. Most others discover that love is about patient acceptance and an accommodative approach rather than being bowled over forever by the persona or looks of the loved one.
A mother’s love never wanes, on the other hand, for it is grounded in a bond which has no parallel in the universe. The purity of a mother’s love is probably closest to the divine love of God for all of His or Her children. Human love can never be perfect, but parents usually come as close to bestowing their love as unconditionally as is humanly possible.
Those who have spent many springs on this planet also realise that when spring is in the air “and young men’s hearts turn to thoughts of love”, such thoughts may actually be better off in adoring the Maker Himself instead of one of His creations.
The sheer magnificence of a blossom in a lush garden or any of nature’s many bounties should actually make human beings wonder at the divine hand behind all the beauty that we perceive. The famous filmy song “Yeh kaun chitrakaar hai?” and several other lyrics hint to us the necessity of admiring divinity rather than other human beings.
But then there is beauty too in a teenage crush or even in the doting love of grown-ups. The only downside is the impermanence of all such loves. The only constant being the love of God, it is important to open one’s heart and soul to the Almighty, sooner or later. Yet, there is no need for either/or here. Loving God and loving fellow human beings are complementary feelings, which need not be exclusive of each other.
Indeed those who begin to love life itself along with its many wonders and all of humanity are those who are truly blessed. And from animal life too, human beings can learn the meaning of selfless love for all. By finding that kind of love within oneself which pours out from every pore of one’s being in every direction, a human being can discover the true meaning of life.
Some rare individuals appear to be absolutely permeated with love. They have clearly won the inner battle. Not for them the pettiness of the average ones who seek confrontation every day. Such saintly ones do not depend on outer comforts for their love-filled inner environs.
“I am in you, and you in me, mutual in divine love,” said William Blake. And by saying so, he gave us a glimpse perhaps of our hearts’ essential desire for true love. A love that does not depend on moods and outer conditions but on deep understanding of life’s essence itself.
Who still loves us, when all others must one day leave us? In this question itself, lies embedded the answer to the human quandaries of love and life.
