Monday, April 18, 2011

Everlasting Love

Love is eternally present no matter what we do or think, so why is it that people have difficulty sharing love with another human being for a long period of time?  Media depictions of love, sexuality, and relationships are geared toward fantasy, entertainment and exploitation, rather than reality and informative purposes.  Romance, passion and excitement are crucial selling points of movies, television programs and modern music.  Many people are influenced by this pleasurable fantasy, and they seek and expect its manifestation in reality.  Love endures and remains, while the dreams, emotions and fantasies are impermanent and fleeting.  We must learn to share this omnipresent ocean of Love that flows between the shores of our souls.

Passionate, emotionally-charged feelings make choppy the waves of love.  These waves tumultuously toss people involved in relationships based on passion and romance up and down, throwing them out of balance.  This carnal, emotional attraction comes and goes, but spiritual, intimate love lasts.  Commitment, caring, and honest self-disclosure are the structural components of lasting love.  To maintain these structural components, we must base our relationships on “what is” rather than “what we think should be,” on reality and truth rather than fantasy and illusion.

Commitment reflects a vow to remain with someone no matter how life unfolds, through pleasure and pain, peace and hardship.  This commitment truly lasts when we commit to love itself, to life itself, instead of being determined to please or control each others’ desiring minds.  By committing to the presence of Life/Love/God and the quest to become more aware of it, perceived divisions between beings dissolve.  Life gives itself to us unconditionally, and when people commit to this love affair, they open the present and rise to the newness of Love.  A lasting, spiritual love is realized and shared between two beings, who dance in harmony and intimacy as Love unfolds unto Love.

Caring about reality and honesty is essential to loving unshakably without fear.  Every one of us attributes worth to everything in life, which sets our intent on certain priorities that are aligned with what we care about.  Each person’s life must be “valued as an end in itself” instead of being valued by how each person can be used.  Lasting love is shared when people recognize and treasure the spirit, humanity, and uniqueness of one another.  Caring about physical appearance, passion, and pleasure keeps relationships from being sustainable and fulfilling.  Lasting love is shared when we intend on the life within, around and throughout us.  To neglect the nurturing of the life within ourselves, our significant other, or our children would be detrimental to attaining and retaining Love everlasting.

Consistently engaging in honest self-disclosure is an important communicative element to building truthful trust, a necessity if people are to partake in the dance of Life with a partner.  Self-disclosure is the revealing of our hopes, our fears, and our everyday thoughts to others so that we may be mentally naked with each other.  Dishonesty, manipulation, and deception build up walls between one another, and the integrity of the relationship is slowly crumbled.  We must seek to understand, in order to be understood.  Without mutual, honest communication, this seeking will not be fruitful.  We cannot be open to Love, synchronically savoring the blissful presence our being alive, if we remain opaque and hidden.

Lasting love is shared when our perception is cleared of falsehood, when the dust is swept off the mirror of Life that we are.  When people commit to and care about this quest for truth, and walk the path together, honest communication (verbal and non-verbal) and genuine expression naturally occur.  We are communicating all the time, with and without vocalization, and imprecision and misinterpretation of these messages abound when people are not conscious of their deep, spiritual connection.  The foundation of an enduring relationship is not passion and emotion, but honesty and truth.  If the relationship has an unshakeable foundation based on “that which is,” the communication will be honest, expression (including sexual) will be genuine, and intimate love will last.

Simply being with one another and loving without fear is possible if both people intend on becoming more aware of the limitless, undying Love that flows within us and without us.  One-hundred billion neurons in the human brain manifest an interconnected, fluctuating network of patterns and perceptions.  This network extends throughout the entire human body which shares the body of the universe, responding to itself in compensation, operating and molding toward equilibrium. Life moves in an infinite rhythm of perfection.  We are aware of life unfolding, but not in control of it.  Love unfolds unto Love.  Beings that help themselves and each other seek to become more aware of these truths merge eternally, experiencing the journey of Life together, uniting with All That Is.