Free Love - 6/28/2011
With the gay marriage bill that recently passed in New York, I've been thinking a lot about how society has been almost adamant in limiting our expression of love for countless ages. Perhaps there's a nefarious agenda behind this, or maybe we're just incapable of ALLOWING ourselves to love freely given our present mindset, but let's look at this logically, without any preconceived ideas or opinions about how love should be shared.
And what is love? I think love is the awareness of our unity. It is the recognition of the Divine in the Other and in Ourselves, and thus a celebration of truth. Love is joy, expressed.
If we were not merely permitted but encouraged to express our love for one another, we would clearly live in a completely different world. If the social stigmas and prejudices about race, gender, age, marriage, etc. were entirely removed, we could enjoy the companionship and love of other people without any fear or guilt whatsoever. Of course, I'm not referring to removing all taboos, I firmly believe consent needs to be involved....and certain groups of people are unable to give that without coercion. But that's not what I'm getting at. I'm talking about love, pure unadulterated affection for the Other. Too often we contain our love, we keep it bottled up inside or hand it out sparingly because we don't believe it will be returned to us. But if the fear of non-reciprocation was eliminated, we would never have a reason to keep love to ourselves. Indeed, we would love all totally; giving, sharing, and expressing our joy to whomever we chose without hesitation.
And what of archaic institutions such as personal relationships and marriages? Do they have a place in such a world? I truly don't think so, but that's not to undermine their significance. They were necessary for a time, when we believed we needed to limit ourselves and devote ourselves to individuals rather than ideas. But hopefully that time will soon end, because I honestly don't think that love for another, at the expense of love for the whole, is true to what love really is. I'm not saying people that are married and in relationships don't share genuine love for one another, but I do believe this love barely scratches the surface of love's true nature. The depth and ecstasy of love cannot be contained in one person, and should not be focused on one if it means cutting yourself and your experience of yourself off from other people.
Don't get me wrong, I love individuals and have been in love with certain people, but I refuse to believe that this love is jealous or seeks to contain them in any way. My love for them has been specific TO them, because they were unique and irreplaceable. There's nothing small about love when it's for a particular person in a particular way, because you are honouring the individuality of that person. You're thanking God for their presence with your love, and thus reaffirming the truth of who they are. But when love, catered specifically to an individual, becomes possessive and needy, that's when love has been replaced by an insidious form of fear. It's the ego, with all of it's rampant insecurity, masquerading as love, and it needs to be identified for what it is, rooted out of our experience, and cast away every time it seeks to take our joy from us.
Love should never be kept to yourself, because true love has never caused anyone to suffer. It's only when love is denied, ignored, withdrawn, or otherwise contained that our souls cry out for the freedom that true, unconditional love affords us.
