the question of love

What is love? sages and shamans, philosphers and thinkers, poets and writers, hermits and ascetics, men of world and men of spirit have all tried to tackle with the question of love. What exactly is it that binds a man so inexorably to a woman and vice versa ( here I am confining myself to discussing what we generally have come to refer to as romantic love). Has this enigamatic question been answered satisfactorily? Of course not, or lest the need for this diatribe hadn't been there at all. We find ourselves increasingly getting embroiled in this whirlpool of what exactly is this feeling, what it should be, how it ought to be felt and acted out, what is the 'proper' or rather the right way to love or act it out or show it, and love has now in the 21st century become less a matter between two individuals or two families as in the 16th century Shakesperean dramas, such as Romeo and Juliet, but is a social phenomenon. It is an issue of the community.

How much my husband loves me isnt just between me and him, no, it is a public statement today - it is symbolic of my intrinsic worth in our patriarchal society. It makes me feel worthwhile in the eyes of the others, hence consequently in my own. Love has lost its essence, its own being, its own worth, its own purpose and has become a tool to something else. And that something else is frivolous and shallow.

How my wife/girlfriend loves me must refelect in her awe of me, she must admire me, keep me at a higher pedestal not only in a traditional sense for we are overall becoming a little modern ( atleast superficially) but her love must translate into an ego massaging excerice 24/7. Why are we so insecure? She must walk two steps behind me and publicly support every stance I take, every move I make, na, every breath I take, my question is why? if you love someone where does it say, I mean in which book of do's and dosn'ts does it say that you must agree with your beloved on every issue for the simple reason that you happen to be a woman??? Hell, I haven't come across any such book yet and even if I do I'm setting fire to it that very second!

Love in our times, which I feel is worse than the times of cholera, is full of misgivings and doubts, it is a love of mistrusts and lies, its based on dissimlitudes and lack. And love is nothing if it isn't full, if isn't complete and whole and entire. That is how I understand love.

For in my opinion one cannot love in portions and in piecemeal, you do it whole heartedly or you don't there are no two ways about it. The most peculiar thing about love is it's indivisilbity. One just can't be partial about it, you can't love with part of your soul, its either all or nothing. Otherwise, its not really love, it may be respect and consideration and regard and affection but not what I would catergorize as love.

Then love has no time limits, it has no boundaries. It is here now, and was there then, and will be forever if there is such a thing. Time has no relevance to true love, it has no bearing on it. Just as time has no bearing on or relevance to birds, trees, sun and the moon, they merely exist; exist outside and apart time, it is man who has apportioned his life in hours, days, mins and so on, and has thus tried to relate emotions to these notions. But what have they to do with moments measured with pendulums and ticking clocks and the rising and setting of the sun thats eternal? How preposterous it sounds and actually is!

I want to laugh when people say that time is running out as in terms of number of years of 'marketable age' where one could go shopping for love or life partners for in my view the two are not mutually exclusive qualities. This isn't how it works - no not at all. We love people, not by concious choice, but because we happen to do so. And, we love them despite all their faults forever, no matter what they do, whether we are with them or not, for love never dies, we may know that they are not for us, thats another issue, but our love for them stays where it was.

Love is a present feeling, it's never a past thing, it's always an active thing. Love is beyond time for it knows not time, love is outside space for it knows no place. Love is. So meet me beyond space and time, for I am there.