There is a profound difference between love and attachment. Attachment says, “I love you therefore I need you. Please don’t leave.” Attachment says, “without this person or this thing then I can’t be happy.” The result is we aim to possess a person, we have to maintain trying to keep them, and then we live in constant fear that we may lose them. It can be an exhausting process.
Love, on the other hand, says, “I love you, therefore I want you to be happy. Regardless of what that means. If that means you being with somebody else, so be it.” Love acknowledges, “I was happy before I met you, and I will continue to be happy after. My happiness is not dependent on anything outside of myself.” This is the only way to truly love. This allows you to completely be with a person and experience them in this moment, rather than being in your mind trapped in an endless cycle of “what if’s” and “I hope’s.”
As the late and great Dr. Wayne Dyer said,
“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.”
I remember hearing a priest tell a story about his wife. He said that in the past people would ask him why he loved her, and he would struggle at first to answer, then he would come up with a number of reasons. Then he realized that his love, by definition, was conditional. What if she stopped meeting his conditions? Did he only love her because of what she did for him? He then went deeper within himself and found the true source of his love. That which cannot be put into words. From that point on he told people, “we love each other for no reason. Our love is unconditional.”
Love is spoiled by attachment with it’s insecurity, possessiveness, and pride. Letting go of our attachment feels scary to people because they believe if they let go they will lose the object/person of their desire. The truth is that letting go is the path to real freedom. You don’t have to give up the object of your attachment, only the attachment. It is like holding onto a butterfly in your hand. If you close your grip you will suffocate and kill the butterfly out of a fear that it may fly away. This prevents you from fully being with the butterfly because you are stuck in your fears and insecurities that it may one day leave. On the other hand, if you open your hand fully, you give the butterfly a beautiful place to rest as you are in communion with it. Will the butterfly eventually leave (either because it flies away or passes away)? Yes. All things in life change. The question isn’t, “will the butterfly be here forever?” The question is, “am I fully present and enjoying the butterfly during the time I have with it?”
As the poet Rumi says, “your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Whatever you’re doing and whoever you’re with, choose to be loving. Here lies your peace. Namaste by friends.
