Love is something which gets used a lot in so many different contexts.  It’s something that I’ve been mulling over a lot lately and I just wanted to get some thoughts down, and share some perspectives of mine on the matter.

There’s the context of food, as in ‘I love my mom’s cooking’, or ‘I love chocolate’, then there’s relational love between two people, as in ‘I love you’.  It’s this second emotional relational context that I’m keen to explore further.

To start out, I just want to note how clumsy the English language is in relation to the word for love.  Compared to Urdu/Hindi which has a number of different terms to denote the degrees to and the levels of love one might feel towards another.  There are the terms Pyar, Ishq, Mohabbat, amongst others that all relate to love, but some more intensely than others.  Knowledge of these subtly different words might be partly to do with why I’m able to articulate some of these distinctions below.

Briefly reviewing some of the different types of love, there is the ‘infatuation’ type of love, that generally translates into an obsessed, I must be with them type of feeling.

There is also the cutesy high school crush, sort of romantic comedy style love.  Especially common between a young couple that’s freshly dating, and are at the stage where they like each other but don’t necessarily know how much nor do they have deep feelings for each other. Perhaps you might even think of it in terms of the phrase ‘puppy love’.

Then there’s the love that’s very caring, concerned for the wellbeing of another, in a real sibling/spouse/parent child kind of way, where you care about the wellbeing and safety of the other. In such situations you will always ultimately care about the health and wellbeing of the other, but at times you may prefer to not spend all your time with these people, or you may prefer to keep them at a distance, especially when familial relationships are involved, but ultimately if any tragedy were to befall them, or any mishap, you would want to be the first one to come to their aid in their time of need.

There’s also that very platonic kind of all embracing, love everyone and everything kind of love, that a lot of hippies, new age spiritualists, and perhaps spiritually inclined people would engage with, trying to be loving and caring towards everyone and everything.  It’s the kind of love that has you aspire for world peace, the end of poverty, protecting the environment (though many of those behaviours can also derive from a sense of guilt, a desire to escape a certain life, or to just receive kudos, and recognition, as a form of status, as well as the more noble reason of a desire to genuinely want to make a difference for others).

With each of these different forms of love (and I’m sure there are more that I haven’t included), whilst the word love is used, it seems to relate to some very different things.  Even though for the most part it seems that it relates to the relationship between two people or a person (or conceivably any living species that appears to express emotion), there are two more perceptions of love that I have yet to mention, that are remote or different from these.  One is considered truth, or divine love, a state of being, or a state of grace received or entered into through a divine blessing or continuous devotion, prayer and worship.  (There are some commonalities between mystics of different faiths when bringing them together and having them share their divine experiences, especially when relating to or describing a state of ‘pure love’).

Another perspective that is starting to surface is of love as being a force of the universe. Some people describe love as the force that literally holds everything together.  It’s referred to as a subtle force that underpins the whole of reality.  For those of a more scientific bent, this usage of ‘love’ is akin to the scientific theories of everything that describe a sub-atomic component to physical matter which permeates all form in the physical dimension. An energy which exhibits intelligence, forms a non-physical blueprint to the physical universe and informs the creation and evolutionary direction of all that is alive.  A bit incredulous perhaps for some of you readers out there to believe, but a perspective that’s out there in the world nonetheless.

What interests me most, in connection with love, is this idea that there exists an ideal soul mate or a perfect life partner for each of us. Having personally only been in a single romantic relationship in my entire life, and that with a woman that I married, and came to love, over the few months prior to the wedding, knowing that I was to marry her, perhaps my personal perspective on the matter might be a little biased.  Especially as the marriage and relationship didn’t last very long.

But having said that, there are some patterns that I’ve noticed that I believe to be true irrespective of personal experience surrounding the nature of love, and how it affects us.

One observation is that love can be cultivated over time.  Especially through repetition.  The best example I can think of is from my high school days, when we would have the radio on in certain classrooms, in the background.  Certain songs which I found really annoying or irritating when I first heard them, after prolonged exposure to them on the radio my opinion of the song would change and I would start to like, and even enjoy the songs that previously I had considered terrible.  It’s happened quite a few times since as well, that upon repeatedly hearing the same songs over and over again, whether I liked them or not, I would eventually learn to like them if I were exposed to them over time.

This does make me wonder if a direct connection exists between the frequency and length of exposure between two people and how that affects just how much attraction exists between them.

Indeed having seen successful couples spend a lifetime together, through compromising with each other and making an effort at making their relationship work, and ultimately seeing their spouse as a life partner that they choose to spend the rest of their life with, I really do have to question that idealistic notion of a ‘romantic’ love being capable of amounting to anything more than a short term romantic infatuation of sorts.

Even the fact that the majority of marriages in the UK and even the USA as far as I can tell, end up in divorce or separations (I shan’t make any guesses as to the rest of Europe, or other parts of the world, as I don’t know much about those cultures/countries comparatively speaking). However the one country that stands out as the one with the highest percentage of successful marriages is India, and having a Father who was born and raised in India, and having been bought up in Indian Culture, I do know a little something about that too, even if I was born and raised in the UK.

Some people attribute the greater rate of success in Indian marriages down to the societal pressures, and influence of the extended family.  Personally, I’m of the opinion that those factors support and increase the chances of success, as divorce does exist as an exit from marriage, but is just a route less used when experiencing marital challenges in most cases.  Having lived for 6 months in South Korea during my youth, I did learn that there are many Asian family values, that are common across Asia, and so perhaps the notion of successful marriage and the understanding behind what makes a couple stay together in Asian families can help us breakdown further this notion of love.

From my limited understanding of it, love between two people, at least the kind that gets protrayed in films, appears to generally only be a temporary passionate kind of intense short lived infatuation type of love and generally only lasts up until the point that one party has obtained the ‘unobtainable’ object of their desire.  Once that threshold has been crossed, be it marriage, intimacy, or just acceptance from the other and the commitment to be together, then the dynamics of the relationship change and the real ‘relationship’ challenges begin.

It’s at this point that the breakdowns and the cracks in the relationships start to appear, and depending on how they’re dealt with they will either fortify the relationship or begin to rot the foundations of it.  Part of it does boil down to how committed each partner is to the other, and also to how accommodating one partner is of the other.  It’s at this point that I believe love stops making a difference in terms of how things progress.  However it is only because of the original love, that a couple would work through their challenges and find a place of mutual compromise.  In these situations, love has stopped to be a factor, however it continues to be there between the couple.  What I find a little ironic is that the couples that work through their challenges and make the commitment to make their relationship work have a much stronger bond, through their challenges, and whilst their love may not exhibit the same fiery intenseness and spontaneity that occurs in the early stages of an infatuated romance, it tends to be much more enduring, and longer lasting.

When I think of a married couple growing old together, I imagine them to care for each other, to rise above their differences, and to know each other intimately in such a way that they can read each others mind almost, and be able to predict what the other needs.

Ultimately, no matter how much love exists between two people it really doesn’t matter.  For whilst you can always cultivate, or develop your love for another person, it is only a mutual determination or desire to make a relationship work that ultimately leads to there being enough love between two people to sustain a long term relationship, that endures over a lifetime.

With that in mind, I think love is a force, or an energy that bonds people together, or flows between people that care about each other.  Taking a slightly wider perspective, love doesn’t just flow between people, but between all things that are animate and alive, and contain a spirit and contains a form of consciousness. It permeates between all things and beings that are aware.  Hence why people can feel love for pets, and plants, and feel loved by them as well.

It feels like the love we experience from different people is unique to each person, which suggests that love is generated by each person and is a different energy unique to each individual.  But then at the same time, the love that we feel for siblings or parents or our children is different to the love we might feel for a lover, or partner.  This suggests that either we generate different frequencies of love towards different people or that we receive the love and interpret it differently from different people.

Most significantly, in my observation, there are different strengths of love, for example the intensity of a new romance, the platonic almost docile love that comes of a sibling, parent or good friend, but that has a tremendous amount of strength attached to it.  I believe that love is an energy that flows between us, and the more often and the more frequently it flows between two people, be it through caring, and sharing, or through concern, or compassion, the more strongly an individual becomes both a conduit for love for the other person, but also the other person has the potential to more strongly be bonded to that love, if they receive and acknowledge the love they receive.

It’s analogous to molecules in the body, which according to Candace Pert, are capable of experiencing emotions, and over time, the receptors on the cells in the body adapt, to be able to receive and interpret the dominant emotion that exists within the psyche of the individual.  In a similar manner, I’m going to suggest that we are all capable of receiving love from different people, and sending love to different people, and that as we attune ourselves to sending and recieving love to certain people, over time, our sensitivity towards individuals changes, and we become more receptive to, and amorous of people that we have chosen to love, if we so choose to send and receive love to and from those people.

There’s definitely some ‘hard wiring’ of the love receptors and transmitters when we’re born (for example, we receive by default the love of our parents and siblings and even extended family more strongly than anyone else), hence our need to receive a certain amount of love and attention when we’re born, and also the negative consequences that occur when a child is deprived of love and attention.  But that would also account for why ‘families’ mean so much to us, as a way of helping us survive, and be sustained, through their love for us, and our love for them.

The only question that remains, is if we are hard wired to ‘love’ certain other people in our lives.  That whole question of ‘soul mate’ springs to mind, of how different people feel like they are destined to be with another.  Some folks only experience it one way (i.e. they are in love with someone, but the other person isn’t necessarily in love with them), whilst others just have an ‘instant’ connection.. But ultimately, isn’t all of this just opportunities to connect, or make a connection with another person?  It doesn’t always mean we always do, nor does it always mean that we should.  But what of those stray sparks of love, or romance, or passion, that do come onto our radar?

For now, I think I’m going to stay open to the possibility and the mystery that life presents when it comes to soul mates, and life partners, but being single, and alone, it probably biases my perspective a little.  I’d be interested to hear what other people out there think.. Especially those folks that are in loving relationships, or who have made lifetime commitments to an individual, and are living that through.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments, and in your responses.  I’m of the opinion that if you spend the time and attention with pretty much anyone, in time you can come to love everyone, since love develops directly in proportion to the effort, and energy you put into creating it between you and another.

What do you think?

Ideals are a funny one.  They are the things we aspire towards.  They are the things that we want to spend our life aligned with and the things that hold us back from putting something out before it’s complete, and perfect.  Often, that desire for perfection, or our imagined ideal situation stops us from working with what we have right here, right now.

I can imagine that as you’re reading this right now, there’s something in your life that is far from ideal.  It could be your relationship with your spouse, or partner.  It could be your financial situation.  Perhaps your job?  Maybe even your children, or family?  Possibly you’re health, or level of fitness?  It could even just be the degree to which you enjoy each moment in life. Whatever it is, there’s usually some area of our lives that spring to mind as being far from ideal.

Oftentimes we use that lack in a particular area of our lives, as a reason not to do something, as a reason to hold back, as a reason to withdraw from participating fully, and even just getting out there and giving it a go.  We’re great at making up a hundred and one excuses for ourselves, to justify our lack of action.  Yet ironically, the less ideal a situation is, the more time, energy, and attention we have to put into it, in order to turn things around, and bring it closer to the ideal.

If for example our challenge is finance, and we consider ourselves to not have enough money right now, to be able to buy the perfect house, live the perfect lifestyle, or be where we want to be on our own financial ideal, instead of doing something about it, most people will curl up into a cave, and just try to drown out life outside of the necessities of work.  They may turn to alcohol or drugs to dullen their senses, and make them less aware of the lack.  They may turn to video games, or TV, to immerse themselves in a reality that’s far removed from their real world, and thus help them escape the current situation or dilemma.

For me life is all about tackling those imperfections head on.  It’s all about taking those ideals, using them as a guide to get you closer towards what it is that you’re after, but then just going for it anyways; all out.  It’s about knowing that there’s stuff that’s less than perfect, and figuring out ways to use what’s available to take the next step.

Our ideals inspire us, they make us want to accomplish something, or work towards something, but equally they can hinder us, and make us hesitate from taking that first step.  If we waited until we were the ideal weight, until we had the perfect amount of cash, until we had the best job in the world, we would never arrive at taking any action in life.  For me, ideals are a goal to aspire towards, but we should not have the attainment of that goal be something that prohibits or inhibits our ability to progress, and move forward in life.  For then the ideals become burdens.  They become milestones, instead of goals.  Just how often have you heard someone say, once I lose a bit of weight, I’ll start going to the gym?  Or once I have a bit more money, I’ll start saving?  Or once I start to exercise then I’ll start to eat healthy?

Unfortunately, as much as we might like to believe that none of those small steps matter, or that our ideals are practical and realistic, if there is something in your life that you don’t have, and that you want to have, and you’re not already working towards it, or taking some actions to get you there, then I’m gonna bet on the fact that an ideal of some sort is holding you back.  There will undoubtedly be some “if … then …” story that you have started to tell yourself, that prohibits you from properly going after your goals, or reaching that ideal that you aspire towards.

Often when we examine why we imagine we want something, or we hold some ideal situation, or scenario for ourselves, in our mind, and then see ourselves painfully removed from accomplishing it, there is some thought, or belief that we have that holds us back.  We end up no longer seeing the glass as half full, and start seeing it as half empty.  The world seems less full of hope, our dreams, less realistic, and we resign ourselves to the belief that it just wasn’t meant for us, or that we were just never meant to have a certain something?

That’s the cop out.  That’s the painless, easy way out.  That’s when we decide it’s not worth the effort, and we stop taking steps and actions that take us closer to accomplishing our ideal.  An ideal has not served it’s purpose until it’s made you completely aware of how far removed you might be from your desired destination, and only upon reaching it, will you find the peace and rest that comes with living within your ideals.

By all means, aspire to the grandest, most spectacular ideals that you can imagine for yourself.  But then straight after that, don’t forget to start taking steps to bring you closer to that ideal.  Ironically it isn’t the absence of the ideal that brings people into apathy, or powerlessness.  Usually it’s the grandness of their dreams, and visions.  Of what an ideal life might be like, and how much effort and time it might make.  But put all of those thoughts, and visions aside, and strive to reach towards that unescapable truth.  Learn to take the 1st step.  It’s almost always the hardest to take.

It’s the Islamic month of Ramdan, in the year 1430 AH (anno Hegirae /after Hijra).  A month when throughout the world Muslims abstain from eating during the daylight hours.  They wake up early in the morning, to consume some food prior to sunrise, and then wait until the sun sets in the evening to then break their fast, and consume food again.

During the daylight hours not only is food forbidden, but also is the consumption of water, drinking of any liquid beverage, inhalation of smoke, or consumption of any intoxicating substances.  Also forbidden during the hours of the fast are any sexual activities.  Muslims are also advised to pay attention to their thoughts and abstain from thinking any negative, wicked, cruel or illicit thoughts.

Whilst outwardly the Muslim abstains from food, water and any other nourishment, inwardly a Muslim is expected to refrain from any ill thinking and to monitor and control consciously their thoughts.  Even seeing a beautiful woman, and desiring her in an intimate manner, is, if I understand it correctly forbidden during the month of Ramadan.  Of course, there are varying degrees of interpretations of the practices of the fasting of Ramadan, but having been born and raised a Muslim, and as someone who chooses to practice the observance of Fasting, I’m sharing my personal understanding of fasting during the month of Ramadan, based on my own personal experiences and observations.

One of the reasons that I choose to observe Ramadan, apart from being a devout believer in the Oneness of the Almighty Creator, in the perfection of his revealed message, the Qur’an, and in the authenticity of his Messenger Muhammad (pbuh), is because I find Ramadan to be a month of renewal.  Abstinence allows me the opportunity to spend less time occupying myself with thoughts of food, and being consumed with activites relating to eating and drinking.  It’s interesting how when you know that you’ve deliberately chosen not to eat something, and follow through with that commitment, how after a few days your body adjusts to your new eating cycles, and starts to experience hunger at different times of the day.  After the first few days of Ramadan, my body automatically adjusts to my new eating behaviour and starts to get hungry at different times.  A change which happens so quickly each Ramadan, it always intrigues me.

Another reason that I observe Ramadan, is because I realised a while back that naturally when I’m immersed in an activity of some sort, and I’m in flow with my work, that I simply forget to be hungry.  Often, I’ve found myself so immersed in my work, that I forget to eat, or drink, simply because I’m so caught up in the work that I’m doing.  Knowing that that happens naturally, I realised a long time back that Ramadan is actually quite easy, as long as I keep myself occupied and gainfully busy throughout the day.  Something which doesn’t have to necessarily be a bad thing

Before I realised that Ramadan was approaching, funnily enough, a week or two before Ramdan started, I started to think about how abstaining from something is actually very liberating, and empowering.  I’m reminded of a scene from the Hollywood film 40 Days and 40 Nights, where the main character Matt (played by Josh Hartnett) chooses to abstain from all sexual activity for 40 Days, during Lent. During the movie there’s one scene where the women gang up on Matt, in a desperate attempt to have him break his 40 Day vow of abstinence.  In the scene the woman talks about how abstaining from sex has been a way that women have controlled men, and maintained their power over them, and how by Matt abstaining he’s taking back that power, and that for the sake of women, they had to stop him.  Fortunately they don’t and Matt continues the film with his Vow intact.

But it did get me thinking about how restraint is a common practice in many spiritual traditions, and practices.  From Monks and Nuns in the Christian Traditions, to Buddhist Monks, Hindu Swamis, and even Shamans undergoing spiritual journeys.  The practice of abstinence, or chastity as a way of preparation is often associated with a spiritual practice, or spiritual undertaking, whereby people prepare themselves free of distractions and clear headed, having not undertaken any acts of personal gratification, or sexual intercourse as part of their preparation.  This ability to restrain oneself, and abstain from an act of impulse or desire got me thinking.  What if we applied the same restraint in other areas of our life?

What if in the West, we have become so obsessed with trying to please ourselves in every moment, with every whim, that we’ve lost the ability to hold back? To restrain ourselves?  What if in trying to always find the pleasure in every moment, in trying to experience everything and fulfill our every whim, we have lost the ability to hold back when it might serve us best to do so?

Thinking about the current credit situation here in the UK, it occurs to me that credit and debt problems stem from an inability to hold back from spending money.  It comes from a desire to have something regardless of the current financial balance of our accounts. So we go and borrow on our credit cards, or take out a loan, and overstretch ourselves in a desperate attempt to keep up with appearances, even if we don’t truly have the means or capacity to take on that extra expense.  In contrast I’ve met people who choose not to spend money they don’t have, and when faced with an expensive purchase, they simply choose to wait, and set aside a portion of their income each month in an allocated kitty until they’ve saved enough money to make the purchase in cash.

Perhaps restraint isn’t always a bad thing.

Perhaps it is the wise individual who only spends money they actually have.  Indeed most businesses only exist by spending money that they have.  Perhaps our poor money management practices explains why somehwere between 70% – 80% of new businesses end up closing down within the first two years of business.  I wonder how much of the failure of those businesses is just down to poor financial planning, and an inability to work on a cash only basis, after being personally used to always stretching budgets or financial constraints using credit cards and personal loans?

It’s interesting how the management of money can change things so completely, from being completely empowering and liberating when you posess an excess of it, and how it can completely overwhelm and consume you when you perceive a ‘lack’ of it.

My personal experience of money is that when too much money starts to come in too quickly it can become too much to handle, and cause you to lose track of what you have and what you don’t.  You end up spending money not knowing exactly what you have, or what you have already spent.  Similarly too much food entering the human body too quickly, or just generally eating too much can also be overwhelming for the human body.  Current research suggests that reducing your calorific intake can actually increase your level of health, and potentially extend your lifespan.  Experiments on rats and monkeys have so far shown restrictive diets being responsible for increased lifespan, reduced incidences of illness and disease, and potentially better physical and mental responses to boot.

Perhaps the infatuation of always getting what you want straight away, of always pursuing your desires and whims, and of always believing that just because you think you want it, it’s the right thing to have is overrated.  A misguided myth, stemming from an overly self-centred society?

Perhaps there is a great inherent value in restraining oneself.  In holding back.  In allowing yourself to feel and experience desires/wants and needs and urges, and not consciously acting upon them.  Perhaps the hardest part is not in choosing what experiences to have first, but rather to hold off from indulging all the wants and needs that emerge.  From holding back from the impulses and desires of life that we are so used to listening to in every moment.

For me, during Ramadan, I’ll certainly be paying far more attention to how I consciously can extend the power of restraint to other areas of my life.  Hopefully, after Ramadan and the month of fasting is over, I’ll have strengthened my restraint muscles to be able to actively start holding myself back from saying things or doing things that previously I wouldn’t have hesitated to say or do before.  Perhaps by strengthening my ability to ‘not’ act on impulse, and to be able to restrain myself more consciously in each moment, I might create the space in my life, or at least my experience of life, to discover something more meaningful and fulfilling than another material desire of the physical body, or another urge or craving.

Perhaps we need to see our lives as a blank canvas, with restraint playing the role of the empty spaces that sometimes are so essential in a piece of art.  The white, and blank parts can sometimes add so much more meaning and context to a piece of art, that perhaps we should see restraint in the same light.  Perhaps we need to consider restraint as being a necessary tool in our arsenal of life, than when deployed allows us to create the spaciousness, and expansiveness in our daily lives, that we can appreciate those moments that we choose not to restrain ourselves that much more fully.

Perhaps restraint is even more powerful than action, when used wisely, and correctly.

I’ll let you be the judge of that for your own lives.