"Unconditional Love". Lately I had been thinking of the true definition of Unconditional Love. And it was a paradox because I was looking for the most realistic explanation of 'love'. Yeah. Right!
And today my meditation session took me to that level of distinctness that I could experience it at the most personal yet realistic range.
Today's session was on Love and Kindness. We were instructed to send love and kindness to all near and dear ones. Rather the instructor took it to a new level when he said we should start sending love and light to the present group of meditators, and then people from the past, people who have passed away, people who are in your life now, people from your childhood, faces you get in your flashback and be surprised to see how characters show up before you. He asked us to send love and kindness to everyone we knew and we did not.
As I closed my eyes, the first image I saw was Mom's. I saw the image I used to see every evening when she was here- of me returning, opening the door and finding her leaning on the bed rest playing mythological serials. Of her walking across the sea taking pictures of ferries with her VGA camera that she recently learnt to use. And then she carrying the black bag (that we got free with 1 year subscription of a newspaper) walking towards Immigration looking back at me hiding her tears. I sent her a lot of love and happiness.
I thought of Papa. Parking the car carefully. Stuffing the fridge with my favorite sweets. Of lying that he was comfortable travelling 12 hours by road to pick me. Of giving me Indian Rupees even when I wouldn't be able to spend. Of he wiping his cheeks when I wave at him from the escalators towards the Security Check counters at the domestic airport. I sent him a lot of love and gratitude.
I thought of Bhaiyya (brother). Giving me a high five on sharing 'sibling-jokes'. Of hitting the back of my head and running away, giggling. Of him sitting at the couch, teaching me tricks about torrent files and his blogs. I kissed his fluffy hands and sent immense love and protection.
I felt salt in my mouth. I opened my eyes and realized that I was in deep meditation and my face full of tears (even my nose flowing) The tears actually had flown till my neck.
In that humid-teary-wet face (and nostrils) with little droplets of tears still clinging to my eye lashes I realized the true dimension of love. It begins from the Blood.
May be a new branch of Unconditional Love. May be not the branch, but the roots. The Blood relations. Not just being blood, but the First relations we enter into without actually choosing them. The relations that teach us the First lessons of life- Love, Forgiveness, Trust and strongest attachments.
P.S. Blood is thicker than water
The word ‘love’ is cliché.
ReplyDeleteWhile English language mostly uses the same word for both conditional and unconditional: Indian languages have several words distinguishing the two forms-
Unconditional love is ‘ananda’. When conditional, the word used is ‘sukh’.
According to Buddhism unconditional love becomes possible when you practice cultivating the four states of mind known as the brahmaviharas. Collectively, these four qualities of friendliness or loving kindness (metta) ( maîtri), compassion (karuna), joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha) are the qualities of true, authentic, and unconditional love.
Both Patanjali, who compiled the Yoga Sutra and the Buddha taught the importance of cultivating these four states of mind.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad declares: It is not for the love of all that all is dear; but for the love of the Soul in the all that all is dear.
Why try to define love? Conditional or un-conditional: love is to be savored!
ReplyDeleteAs the poet had aptly said: “anondo dhara bohichhey bhuboney”
A cascade of joy flows through this world and beyond
Night and day, ambrosia spills forth from heavens above
The sun and the moon drink up the sweet nectar in fistfuls
Ever luminous is their inextinguishable glow
Ever bountiful is this earth with life and light
Why are you lost in your own thoughts
Why absorbed with self-centred goals
Look around you
Open up your heart
Value little, this trifling pain of yours
Let love permeate the void in your life
Or what Tupac Shakur sang:
Come listen to my truest thoughts, my truest feelings
All my peers doing years beyond drug dealing
How many caskets can we witness
Before we see it's hard to live
This life without God, so we must ask forgiveness
Ask mama why i got this urge to die
Witness the tears falling free from my eyes
Before she could reply
Though we were born without a silver spoon
My broken down TV, show cartoons in my living room (hey)
One day I hope to make it
A player in this game
Mama don't cry, long as we try
Maybe things change
Perhaps it's just a fantasy
A life where we don't need no welfare
Shit with our whole family
Maybe it's me that caused it
The fighting and the hurting
In my room crying cause I didn't want to be a burden
Watch mama open up her arms to hug me
And I ain't worried bout a damn thang, with unconditional love
Over to Pablo Neruda :
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.