Love is a relationship

Love is a relationship. It is pleasant to be with someone who is physically attractive, but how long can you enjoy an aquiline nose? How long can you thrill to the timbre of a voice, when it doesn’t say what you like? It’s very much like eating: no matter how much you are attracted to chocolate pie, there is a limit to how much you can enjoy. Beyond that limit, if somebody merely mentions chocolate, your stomach stages a revolt. That is the tragic truth about the satisfaction of the senses: they cannot last. The wave of passions has risen, now it has to fall: that is all. Pleasure cannot last, any more than the tide can rise without falling again. If you want to build a relationship, don’t build it on what changes. Then there is joy in everything, because there is joy in the relationship itself- in ups and downs, through the pleasant and the unpleasant, in sickness and in health.

In Sanskrit, physical attraction is called Kama: selfish desire, in which I ask only what pleasure I will receive. But Kama can be transformed – by gradually changing the focus from me, me, me to you, you, you. Then, in Sanskrit, we say that Kama becomes prema:  pure love, where my attention is not on my own pleasure but on the happiness and welfare of those around me of you want your relationship to blossom, you won’t dwell on each other’s weaknesses. You’ll set to work to correct them together and really learn how to love.

Look at our honeymoon travel ads. They show us a couple of swaying palms, some azure waters lapping at white sands, and then they ask innocently, “Wouldn’t you like to sit beneath these coconut palms and fall in love?” I come from Kerala, the “land of the coconut palm”. You can take it from me: never try to pursue your dreams beneath a coconut tree. Coconuts have a way of falling on romantic heads, and even the smallest nut, if it drops from a height of 50 feet, can put an end to your romance before it starts. What do swaying palms and azure waters have to do with love? Love doesn’t need an exotic setting; it can flourish in the kitchen, in the garden, wherever two people are putting each other first.

Two people like this are no longer really two; they are one. When things are sunny, you may not notice how their relationship shines. But wait until the storms begin to blow outside, when everything is going wrong: you will see unfailing support between them, unfaltering loyalty, tenderness that never ends.

God is love. Love is loving without expecting anything in return; no judgments, no restrictions; no limitations; no expectations!

BE LOVE………….