How we complicate love
When Vivekananda says, Arise! Awake! Does it mean that we are sleeping? Of course! We are sleeping even without knowing that we are sleeping. And we pass judgments while we are asleep. We criticize when we are asleep. We condemn when we are asleep. We think we are awake and we criticize. We think we know everything about everything including love.
A small story:
A man had a wealthy old aunt whom he visited regularly.
He coveted her wealth and went out of the way to please her.
She had two cats, which she loved.
The man knew this and would look after the cats religiously hoping to win her over. His secret wish was that she would make him a part of her will when she wrote it out. He would come everyday, feed the cats with milk, play with them, spend a lot of time and go back.
The old lady was very pleased at the way he looked after the cats.
Soon, she passed away. In her will, she had left him the two cats.
You can imagine the disappointment in the man! He must have felt cheated!
With ordinary love, there is every possibility that you will feel cheated. People love for wealth, for the favors that they get done, for the words of advice that they get, for other people's forgetful ways, which they can exploit… and what not. Love always comes with a reason.
But people will never accept this for a fact. They don't accept it because they are deluded by their own ordinary love. They think that that is the way love happens. And they think that while they are so loving, I am simply bringing down their love.
Honestly, if you sit and think by yourself, you will understand that what I am saying is true. Do an honest enquiry on yourself and see. Just sit down and try to visualize how you would react if your father or mother or sister behaved in a slightly different way towards you. You will then understand what I am saying.
We are all the time in need of something from someone and so we are continuously paving the way to get it from them in a smooth way. This smooth way is what we call love. Don't think that this applies to getting only material wealth. Even when you expect a person's behaviour to be in a particular fashion, you behave accordingly with them. As long as both of you are behaving in this fashion, you love each other. If someone misses it somewhere, your love takes a momentary dip!
Take me for example. You all claim that you love me very much. Each one of you has got a particular idea of how I should behave towards you. I simply behave towards each of you in the fashion. That is what I am doing now actually. What happens? If even once I don't smile at you or I say something to you that does not fit me into your frame, you start thinking that I don't love you any more.
You start thinking that maybe I am not so loving after all. You start imagining about why I said a particular thing to you, or why I did not smile at you.
I might have been talking to someone else, or I might have simply not smiled at you, just to allow your ego to settle a bit, that's all! But you miss the whole game and start interpreting my actions with your own dictionary of love. What will happen? You will land up in deep misery.
This is how you simply complicate love. At least when it comes to me, there is no complication added to it from my side! Imagine what will happen when two of you start relating with each other in this fashion? There will be total chaos! You will simply be moving from low love to high love to low love, that's all!
People tell me, 'Swamiji, we love our children…'
When it comes to putting up with their naughty behaviour, how many times have you sworn at them? One girl was telling me at the ashram, 'Swamiji, my mother loves my children only if they behave themselves well. She wants me to bring the children to show them off as her grandchildren to her friends and then scolds me for the chaos that they create!'
When you see children, you are pulled by their innocence. That is one thing. The second thing is, it gives you a feeling of pride, an ego boost, when you see that they are your creation. And of course, you provide for them and make them happy. But what I am saying is, this love also comes with limitations and preferences. It is highly subjective to the ways of the children.
A small story:
A man was laying a concrete road. He had just finished laying the road when a group of children from the neighborhood came running onto it leaving footmarks. The man got very angry and swore at them.
His friend asked him, 'Hey, what is the matter? I thought you liked children.'
The man replied, 'Yes I do, but not on concrete.'
Ordinary love always comes with some condition somewhere! With some fine print somewhere. This is what I am trying to say. We love people subject to name, place, moods and situations.