Life Ahead - part 8 -What is love?
As you know, we have been talking a great deal about fear, because it is a very
powerful factor in our lives. Let us now talk for a while about love; let us find
out whether behind this word and this feeling—which for all of us has so much
significance—there is also that peculiar element of apprehension, of anxiety, the
thing which grown-up people know as loneliness.
Do you know what love is? Do you love your father, your mother, your
brother, your teacher, your friend? Do you know what it means to love? When
you say that you love your parents, what does it mean? You feel safe with them,
you feel at home with them. Your parents are protecting you, they are giving you
money, shelter, food and clothing, and you feel with them a sense of close
relationship, don’t you? You also feel that you can trust them—or you may not.
Probably you do not talk to them as easily and happily as you do to your own
friends. But you respect them, you are guided by them, you obey them, you have
a certain sense of responsibility towards them, feeling that you must support
them when they are old. They in turn love you, they want to protect you, to guide
you, to help you—at least they say so. They want to marry you off so that you
will lead a so-called moral life and stay out of trouble, so that you will have a
husband to look after you, or a wife to cook for you and bear your children. All
this is called love, is it not?
We cannot immediately say what is love, because love is not readily
explained by words. It does not come to us easily. Yet without love, life is very
barren; without love, the trees, the birds, the smile of men and women, the bridge
across the river, the boatmen and the animals have no meaning. Without love,
life is like a shallow pool. In a deep river there is richness and many fish can live; but the shallow pool is soon dried up by the strong sun, and nothing remains
except mud and dirt.
For most of us, love is an extraordinarily difficult thing to understand because
our lives are very shallow. We want to be loved, and also we want to love, and
behind that word there is a lurking fear. So, is it not very important for each one
of us to find out what this extraordinary thing really is? And we can find out only
if we are aware of how we regard other human beings, how we look at the trees,
at the animals, at a stranger, at the man who is hungry. We must be aware of how
we regard our friends, of how we regard our guru, if we have one, of how we
regard our parents.
Chris Laro cũng nói nhiều về tình yêu, cũng rất hay.
Countless câu chuện, bài ca về love.
When you say, ‘I love my father and my mother, I love my guardian, my
teacher’, what does it mean? When you respect somebody tremendously and look up to them, when you feel it is your duty to obey them and they in turn expect your obedience, is that love? Is love apprehensive? Surely, when you look up to somebody, you also look down upon somebody else, don’t you? And is that love? In love is there any sense of looking up or looking down, any compulsion
to obey another?
When you say you love somebody, don’t you inwardly depend on that person? While you are a child you naturally depend on your father, on your mother, on your teacher, on your guardian. You need to be cared for, to be provided with food, clothing and shelter. You need a sense of security, the feeling that someone is looking after you.
But what generally happens? As we grow older, this feeling of dependence continues, does it not? Haven’t you noticed it in older people, in your parents and teachers? Haven’t you observed how they depend emotionally on their wives or husbands, on their children, or on their own parents? When they grow up, most people still cling to somebody; they continue to be dependent. Without someone to lean on, to give them a sense of comfort and security, they feel lonely, do they not? They feel lost. This dependency on another is called love; but if you observe it very closely you will see that dependency is fear, it is not love.
Most people are afraid to stand alone; they are afraid to think things out for
themselves, afraid to feel deeply, to explore and discover the whole meaning of
life. Therefore they say they love God, and they depend on what they call God;
but it is not God, the unknown, it is a thing created by the mind.
...
Ambitious men and women do not know what love is—and we are dominated
by ambitious people. That is why there is no happiness in the world, and why it is very important that you, as you grow up, should see and understand all this, and find out for yourself if it is possible to discover what love is. You may have a
good position, a very fine house, a marvellous garden, clothes; you may become
the prime minister; but without love, none of these things have any meaning.
So, you have to begin to find out now—not wait until you are old, for you
will never find out then—what it is you actually feel in your relationship with
your parents, with your teachers, with the guru. You cannot merely accept the
word ‘love’ or any other word, but must go behind the meaning of words to see
what the reality is—the reality being that which you actually feel, not what you
are supposed to feel. If you actually feel jealous, or angry, to say, ‘I must not be
jealous, I must not be angry’ is merely a wish, it has no reality. What matters is
to see very honestly and very clearly exactly what it is you are feeling at the
moment, without bringing in the ideal of how you should feel or will feel at some future date, for then you can do something about it. But to say, ‘I must love my
parents, I must love my teachers’, has no meaning, has it? Because your real
feelings are quite different, and those words become a screen behind which you
hide.
...
As you know, we have been talking a great deal about fear, because it is a very
powerful factor in our lives. Let us now talk for a while about love; let us find
out whether behind this word and this feeling—which for all of us has so much
significance—there is also that peculiar element of apprehension, of anxiety, the
thing which grown-up people know as loneliness.
Do you know what love is? Do you love your father, your mother, your
brother, your teacher, your friend? Do you know what it means to love? When
you say that you love your parents, what does it mean? You feel safe with them,
you feel at home with them. Your parents are protecting you, they are giving you
money, shelter, food and clothing, and you feel with them a sense of close
relationship, don’t you? You also feel that you can trust them—or you may not.
Probably you do not talk to them as easily and happily as you do to your own
friends. But you respect them, you are guided by them, you obey them, you have
a certain sense of responsibility towards them, feeling that you must support
them when they are old. They in turn love you, they want to protect you, to guide
you, to help you—at least they say so. They want to marry you off so that you
will lead a so-called moral life and stay out of trouble, so that you will have a
husband to look after you, or a wife to cook for you and bear your children. All
this is called love, is it not?
We cannot immediately say what is love, because love is not readily
explained by words. It does not come to us easily. Yet without love, life is very
barren; without love, the trees, the birds, the smile of men and women, the bridge
across the river, the boatmen and the animals have no meaning. Without love,
life is like a shallow pool. In a deep river there is richness and many fish can live; but the shallow pool is soon dried up by the strong sun, and nothing remains
except mud and dirt.
For most of us, love is an extraordinarily difficult thing to understand because
our lives are very shallow. We want to be loved, and also we want to love, and
behind that word there is a lurking fear. So, is it not very important for each one
of us to find out what this extraordinary thing really is? And we can find out only
if we are aware of how we regard other human beings, how we look at the trees,
at the animals, at a stranger, at the man who is hungry. We must be aware of how
we regard our friends, of how we regard our guru, if we have one, of how we
regard our parents.
Chris Laro cũng nói nhiều về tình yêu, cũng rất hay.
Countless câu chuện, bài ca về love.
When you say, ‘I love my father and my mother, I love my guardian, my
teacher’, what does it mean? When you respect somebody tremendously and look up to them, when you feel it is your duty to obey them and they in turn expect your obedience, is that love? Is love apprehensive? Surely, when you look up to somebody, you also look down upon somebody else, don’t you? And is that love? In love is there any sense of looking up or looking down, any compulsion
to obey another?
When you say you love somebody, don’t you inwardly depend on that person? While you are a child you naturally depend on your father, on your mother, on your teacher, on your guardian. You need to be cared for, to be provided with food, clothing and shelter. You need a sense of security, the feeling that someone is looking after you.
But what generally happens? As we grow older, this feeling of dependence continues, does it not? Haven’t you noticed it in older people, in your parents and teachers? Haven’t you observed how they depend emotionally on their wives or husbands, on their children, or on their own parents? When they grow up, most people still cling to somebody; they continue to be dependent. Without someone to lean on, to give them a sense of comfort and security, they feel lonely, do they not? They feel lost. This dependency on another is called love; but if you observe it very closely you will see that dependency is fear, it is not love.
Most people are afraid to stand alone; they are afraid to think things out for
themselves, afraid to feel deeply, to explore and discover the whole meaning of
life. Therefore they say they love God, and they depend on what they call God;
but it is not God, the unknown, it is a thing created by the mind.
...
Ambitious men and women do not know what love is—and we are dominated
by ambitious people. That is why there is no happiness in the world, and why it is very important that you, as you grow up, should see and understand all this, and find out for yourself if it is possible to discover what love is. You may have a
good position, a very fine house, a marvellous garden, clothes; you may become
the prime minister; but without love, none of these things have any meaning.
So, you have to begin to find out now—not wait until you are old, for you
will never find out then—what it is you actually feel in your relationship with
your parents, with your teachers, with the guru. You cannot merely accept the
word ‘love’ or any other word, but must go behind the meaning of words to see
what the reality is—the reality being that which you actually feel, not what you
are supposed to feel. If you actually feel jealous, or angry, to say, ‘I must not be
jealous, I must not be angry’ is merely a wish, it has no reality. What matters is
to see very honestly and very clearly exactly what it is you are feeling at the
moment, without bringing in the ideal of how you should feel or will feel at some future date, for then you can do something about it. But to say, ‘I must love my
parents, I must love my teachers’, has no meaning, has it? Because your real
feelings are quite different, and those words become a screen behind which you
hide.
...
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