Real love…hmm—what the hell is it? I know I’m not the only one asking, because “love” is the most googled word there is. I love the quote from Neil Gaiman: “Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” Maybe love is anything that gets below the surface and shatters your armor.
Krishnamurti says that romantic relationships are a training ground for true love. I remember when the movie “Love Story” came out, and my dad laughed at the now-famous line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” “Are you kidding me?” he said. “Love means alwayshaving to say you’re sorry, and also always having to say, ‘I forgive you.’”
People talk about divine love, self-love, mother-child love, husband-wife love; maybe there’s one big love and we’re all trying to put it in a neat little box with a label. Maybe to have an overwhelming feeling of love we need to get out of the way—we need to relax and receive the beauty of this moment. Maybe love is the sunset that I’m sitting here watching from an airport lounge, that for a moment leaves me in awe and suspends my normal tick-tock of thoughts.
I believe that yoga can bring us to a state where we might catch a glimpse of an all-inclusive feeling of expanse, where maybe love makes us lay on our mats with tears streaming down our faces. Relaxation is key—not lethargy, not spending all of our energy on something that doesn’t uncover our vital essence. If we don’t get to know ourselves in this way, how can we tap into that love? And if we don’t tap into that love, how can we share it?
I realize that this is a lot of questions and nothing affirmed. But that’s love, right? Maybe? I don’t know.
Love,
Colleen