Selfless LOVE …..

Recently a good friend of mine asked me something, which most of us ask to ourselves as well as others at some point of time in life.

Is it possible to LOVE somebody SELFLESSLY?

This is a very deep, meaningful and thought provoking question, isn’t it?

The answer to this is both simple yet difficult. It is simple to understand yet very difficult to accept and even more difficult to practice.

To begin with first of please know this, that LOVE is everywhere. It is all around us but we seldom notice and acknowledge it.

How, you may ask? Well let me try to explain it with the help of taking Natures example.

Nature is a very good example of SELFLESS LOVE. Our loving or hating does not affect its serving.

The sunlight is very important for us and sun everyday does so when it showers it’s sunlight on us and it do not expect anything in return. Sunrise and sunsets are both considered to be the most beautiful phase and almost everybody just adores the beauty of sun at these times. But at the peak of afternoon the same sun almost burns us.

Like everything else the sun too passes through a cycle wherein it is very cool when it rises and then its heat becomes unbearable as it rises to its peak and then again it starts mellowing down eventually, leading to a beautiful sunset.

So even though sun which is acknowledged and praised for its beautiful Sunrise and Sunsets, the same sun is being cursed for the heat it throws at us during the peak of afternoon. When its summer we wish for rain or winter, when it starts raining we wish it were summer or winter, while in winter we pray for summer. Isn’t it.

So who is to be blamed the sun, or rain or winter?

I feel no one should be blamed. We all just need to have the grace and humility to accept and acknowledge it as it is. It will perform its function the way it is meant to be, that was how it was in past, it is now and will be in future. Our being happy or sad with them will not make them change how they function. But as humans we have the gift and capability to change ourselves and our attitude at looking at everything.

Sun, Moon, Water, Earth, Plants, Air are supreme examples of selfless love. But then love is not just sweet always it comes with its bitterness as well. And we absolutely cannot change a thing about it.

As with sun, Moonlight is important at night, it helps one navigate the path in the dark (but today thanks to technology we do not even give Moon the credit it deserves on a dark night). Water quenches our thirst, yet the same water has brought tsunamis and have caused havoc. Earth offers us its body on which we make roads and buildings, yet at times it caves in. Plants and trees offers us medicine and fruits and vegetables and yet we are ruthlessly choping them off. Air which brings in cool breeze, at times turns into violent storm which destroys everything that comes in its path.

We as humans too go through this same kind of phases which we know and understand as emotions. Sometimes we are happy sometimes we are sad, sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry, sometimes we love sometimes we hate, sometimes we praise yet at several occasions we curse.

So even when we are the same person don’t we all go through these phases. This is how we are designed and this how everybody and everything around us is. We all pass through various emotional phases under various circumstances, and that reflects in the way we react to them.

When we look at others as we are and if we develop the ability to accept them as they are without trying to change them, we will be at peace.

And the day we will learn to acknowledge and appreciate the other person the way they are, we will be able to LOVE SELFLESSLY. However, if we fail to develop this sense of gratitude, then the same love will become a cause of pain, misery, curse and everything else. It will garner negativity in our soul and negativity only destroys it never blooms.

LOVE is one of the most powerful emotion and each of us is equally capable of LOVING everyone else selflessly, but it needs a sense of awareness, realization, patience and above all practice to remain that way always.

Expecting others to LOVE us back is not selfless LOVE. It then will become a business transaction.