Whats Love Got to do with it?

Love,
Defined as the giving of one's essence to another without condition, ulterior motive or expectations. The caring for another as if they were ourselves. The putting the beloved first in one's choices and decisions. The celebration of that beloved's achievements, the enduring of that one's weaknesses and the accepting of that one's faults. Keeping the beloved's deep and dark secrets and standing by the beloved even when  that will affect your reputation and people will talk. I do not mean enabling them in their addictions but standing by them when everyone else has given up on them. That which makes you give up your addictions or habits and make tough decisions that make you feel like you have died a thousand deaths for making that decision. Giving up your dreams for a time so that they can achieve theirs when it is not possible at  the moment for the two of you to achieve your dreams simultaneously.
Rejoicing with them in their achievements and weeping with them in their disappointments. Being the shoulder to cry on when they need one even if they may not offer theirs to you when its your turn to cry. Forgiving the beloved 70 time 7 daily; that selfless behavior that seems unachievable and is violently fought by our human ego, that selfless act that makes one look like a doormat, that selfless giving that makes one look like you've lost your mind. Being the constant in their lives when everything else is subject to change. Becoming invisible to their admirers and being okay with standing in their shadows. Creating a platform which is always open and never shut. Arms wide open even when it means listening to them confess that one thing you wish never to hear them mention or do. Accepting them after that confession without withdrawing your affections or yourself ever, that is love.
Is this possible or a pipe dream? Such a love is what the human race admires most in holy men and saviors but shrink from aspiring to, due to the fact that they are ordinary human beings. So what are saints and saviors, God's? They are human beings who decided to achieve the greatest freedom possible and that is selflessness. Love true love is the greatest feeling in the world. It is the greatest freedom in the world. Few achieve it for the journey requires the death of the ego. The crushing of the self and the awakening of the soul. It will cost you everything you know, own and desire and it will bring you to a place where you stand naked owning nothing but having everything. It will give you back all you fought so hard to keep, have and cherish after you laid them down to discover true love. It is the greatest pleasure in this world and beyond and has the greatest peace. In love is detachment, not holding fast to anything and yet enjoying all things in their rightful place and time. It is true freedom for love makes you free to live without offence, disappointments, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, fear and greed. "If you love someone" says the wise ones "you set them free". True love sets you free. It brings healing to the mind, body and soul. To Love is to live. Will you get betrayed, yes, will you get beaten, yes, will you get robbed, yes, will you get accused, yes, will you loose your reputation, money, the beloved? probably yes but will you find yourself? yes. We are on this earth to discover who we truly are and it is the Journey to true love. When we can truly love  another we would have just completed the journey to self realization. So I encourage you to love through the pain, love though the hurt, love through the lies and betrayals and disappointments love through to death and you will rise a man that will be called a saint and others will flock to you to discover just what part of this truth they are ready to embrace for the  time being on their own journey to life.
To Love is to live. To not love is to die. And what a painful death that is. Therefore Love has got everything to do with it. LIFE.

Falling in Love. Fallacy or Reality

I was thinking the other day about falling in love. The passion, sleepless nights and and butterflies in the stomach and a feeling that you will die if you do not get to see the object of your love ever again. Mind you, people fall in love with anything and everything and the feelings are the same whatever your  beloved is. For the purpose of this article I have chosen to focus on falling in love with another human being.
As described above the feeling is great. If it was possible to bottle that feeling and sell it, it will become the most sort after drug portion in the world. Endorphin are so great that we will take anything to keep us having such great feelings. But I wonder whether such a feeling was meant to be prolong for a considerable period.
My answer to that from experience and observation is not really.
Firstly, I began to look at the purpose of "Falling in Love". It is my opinion that it is a prerequisite to marriage and that it is a necessary ingredient in the process of leaving and cleaving. Lets face it, unless you feel that crazy about someone else you will never take the decision to live the comfort zone of your parent's house or your bachelor pad or "freedom" to get hitched to another person.
So the feeling of being in love is part of the universal process of growing into a matured person with the responsibility of taking care of another and possibly having a family. Lets look at an analogy. In this case, the launching of a space shuttle.
When a space shuttle is ready to be launched it is attached to booster rockets that carry enough energy for take off. Without these booster rockets it will be impossible for the space craft to generate enough power to take off to the height it needs to start heading to its final destination. So the engineers created boosters with so much power that it will carry the craft to its required height for orbit.
However if you have ever experienced a space craft launch you will notice that the booster rockets have a specific purpose and distance that they travel after which their fuel and energy is depleted and they fall back to the earth  releasing the spacecraft to continue on its journey into space "the final frontier".
Each space craft is sent on a specific mission and when that is over they come back to earth and in reentering earth, they also have to take certain procedures and the opposite gadgets to boosters are employed for safe return into earth's atmosphere to prevent the craft from burning up before landing and killing its crew.
By now you should be following where I am going with this story. Falling in love is like booster rockets to humans and it's purpose is for us to get to a particular height of experience that will enable us to take the next step in human relationships; which I will call leaving and cleaving. After that step has been taken successfully, humans tend to feel anti climatic and begin to wonder whether they have made a mistake. You see, prior to that feeling, they completely trusted their feelings and all of a sudden they feel naked without that feeling of being in love to guide them. Well the booster rockets have fallen off at just the right place where you cannot just decide to break off the relationship except if you are immature and foolish. I admit that many people especially celebrities tend to do the Vegas rush thing and end up annulling their decisions soon after ; each to their own. However to the majority of humans who understand that marriage is sacred and the vows should not be taken lightly,  they now need help to start the journey with another person together moving forward. That is why I am of the opinion that everyone who intends to get married should go for counselling before and after the wedding on a regular basis to keep them informed and to air out any issues because as different individuals we will have many issues as standard.
Just like the space rocket in space encountering new planets and experiences so being in a marriage will encounter new situations and circumstances. Every time the space rocket travels farther it needs refueling and more energy and it has been equipped with all it will need for the journey. Likewise for a marriage to go the long haul it will need to acquire the knowledge, skill and expertise that is necessary to keep it fresh, and interesting and worth having.
Many people make the mistake that all the work in marriage is done before and for the wedding but that is the least work necessary for the marriage.
Almost everyone who falls in love falls in love with an idea of the beloved not the real person. They make up stories in their minds and in turn believe the stories about that person. After marriage  the scales fall from their eyes and they begin to see the real persona of the beloved emerging and it scares them. You begin to hear the popular saying " you are not the person I fell in love with" etc, etc. But whose fault is it? It is not the beloved's fault that you made an image and created an idea of the beloved in your mind and then fell madly in love with that idea. Now the idea of incompatibility rears its ugly head.
Marriage cannot work on fantasy and vain delusions but on reality, honesty and common sense. You intend to have this person live with you for a very long time so get to understand them and their baggage and then you will fall in love with the real person not the idea you created of them. Usually you will discover that the real person is much more sophisticated and complicated than your idea of them and that in essence that is who you fell in love with at the beginning. Only when you are willing to let go of your idea of them will you be in the position to enjoy the real deal. My advise to you is, do not allow the scales of fantasy to cloud your vision from the onset and you will be able to really truly fall in love. 

Is ultimate intimacy a possibility or just a dream?

Ultimate intimacy is a moment in time where two people share every area of their existence and are in complete synergy. They have mutual love, trust and understanding and have reached a place of total nakedness in every sense of the word. No secrets exists between them not in the least and they are fully aware of every situation and circumstance the other person is dealing with and have come to terms with shifting personas, attitudes, mood swings and environmental, and socioeconomic factors that have a direct effect on  their partner. They have come to mutually accept each other for what they are and have formed a bond that is so organic that they have become one person so to speak. Each of them being completely independent and also completely dependent on one another at the same time and without competition.

The only and perfect example in this is the relationship of what we call the Holy Trinity. This is the relationship between God the Father, God the Christ and God the Spirit as explained in the Christian theology. Three distinct persons but still one person in three. The human mind cannot comprehend this phenomena as it is spiritually understood but God's secrets are revealed in his creation. He created human beings to experience what he as God is experiencing on a moment by moment basis. However, in order for such to take place the fabric of all creation has to be woven with love. Love, that magic ingredient and the most powerful force in all the universe that is not selfish, greedy or manipulative. Love that is not based on fear of rejection or loosing control. That love that is not about receiving but focuses on giving and that love that is not about self but about the beloved. That is the love that will and can take any human being into the ultimate intimacy experience.

I must confess that on this earth very few people ever experience this and that small number still only experience it momentarily as the weaknesses of the flesh means it is a learning and growing experience.
This is because we are yet to know ourselves fully and it is only when we ourselves have known who we truly are that we can find room to want to get to know another human being fully. As no one on earth really fully know themselves we are all handicapped in  getting to know each other. Love as I have stated is the only method of knowing one's self through getting to know another person. The wise ones will tell you to observe your self on a moment by moment basis as you relate to your environment and you will learn a whole lot about your loves, hates, fears, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses etc. It is when we choose to love that we learn so much about who we truly are. Ultimate intimacy starts with knowing yourself. Be intimate with yourself first then you will be confident enough to allow another stranger to get under your skin.

We all want to appear strong and in control and we do not want others to see our crazy and vulnerable side but God knows that when we come to terms with all our oddities and accept ourselves 'warts and all' then we can love others the same way. Any such persons that come together will get to experience what true love is.
We spend too much of our time thinking we are not good enough, beautiful, smart, spiritual intellectual or rich enough and we find the same faults in our partners and so we do not want to accept them because we have not accepted ourselves yet. Not many people will get there because of fear of what they will discover about themselves but take my advice it is worth it. William Shakespeare was on to something when he wrote, "to thyself be true".
 Stop making excuses and blaming others or things for your choices and take a journey of discovery. Get to know who you truly are by asking yourself the difficult questions and not being afraid of the answers that come back to you. Embrace them as your learning experience and change those that you do not desire to keep, but remember they were all your decisions so live with what you have chosen. Wake up each day expecting to discover a new thing about yourself and before you go to sleep, spend time reviewing what you have discovered about yourself. Meditate on what it all means and make plans concerning improvements or embracing your new discovery.
Allow yourself to be you and love yourself. Stop pretending to yourself for that is the greatest deceit of them all. Soon you will realize that people will love you just the way you are when you are your real self and those who don't will fall off your radar anyway. You will soon discover a huge weight has fallen off your shoulder and that you now have wings to fly. You will discover the open secret which is that people love those who love themselves. Now its time to give forward by doing to others what you have just done for your self.  Allow!