Love
Created on 10/29/2009
Some time ago, I received a letter and since it was corresponding quite remarkably with what I had been trying to understand, I contacted the writer and asked her permission to use her personal letter for this blog.
She said it was okay and here it is:
Dear Olga
I guess many people will recognize the following problem That is why I dare
to ask you to let your light shine over it
10 years ago I fell in love with a man.
For a couple of years, we had a very passionate relationship. When he
decided to separate, it felt to me like an amputation. The pain has eased by
now.
But the fairly easy access I used to have to my inner space seems to be
blocked ever sins. Almost every time I try to go there it is hard to get
around this man.
I really hope you want to give your advice.
Thank you so much
Best regards,
I decided to write about it not because I am in any position to give advice (I am not), but because I relate to it, deeply.
Love is something that has always mesmerized me (I was raised in a Russian culture after all), evaded my grasp often and at some point took me hostage for life and never let me go.
So what is it about Love that has such a power over human beings?
I think we possess an innate drive that defines our behavior profoundly, however, this drive has yet to be recognized. We know about human instincts from psychology and they are all valid and real when it comes to survival, sex, procreation, and even death. The one that is missing from our awareness is the drive to merge with another, and all the pleasures that come with it, and all the pain that losing it creates. It is different from the sexual drive, distinctively, even though most often it becomes attainable through sexual experience. I believe this drive is a powerful force and is being realized with different intensity in different people. I think it is a precursor for the next evolutionary step that humanity is going to undertake. That step is the formation of a collective entity - the noosphere, the world brain, the global mind, whatever you call it. This notion of us becoming parts of one whole system is getting more apparent each day now, but the entire focus on this evolutionary step, so far, is only directed to the social and cognitive phenomenon of social networking. Anything involving an emotional response to this process is considered just a fascinating and curious by-product, at most.
My vision is different. I think we are going through this networking revolution first and foremost due to this innate drive to merge with others. That is why looking for Love and looking for your community becomes more and more similar as our collective experience evolves.
I think this drive is biological and spiritual at the same time, and I also know first hand that when it is fully realized in the experience with another person, it alters you irreversibly. How many amazing books have been written, poems composed, art created to translate this absolute experience of Great Love in our culture. Yet, the experience remains a unique, mysterious calling and complete consumption of one who goes through it. As great as is the pleasure that the realization of this drive brings us, so is the pain of losing it. That is why I could relate to this letter. Because I know the pain of loss as well as the pleasure of Great Love.
I believe now that this innate drive to merge, when it is realized with another person, enhances our identities in a very particular way. It is almost like somebody takes us on a miracle ride and shows us places we never imagined existed, places where we feel so much ourselves, content, and happy that when we return back home we can’t conform to the limited reality of what we were before. Separation is painful because we feel the loss of this identity, literally, you know how people often say, “part of my soul is gone”, “I am not myself” when the person they love is gone. It feels like amputation, it feels like part of my inner space is blocked and I can’t access it.
So what is the solution for pain from loss? We’d better have one because pain is inevitable - people leave, people die and they are not coming back, not in this lifetime, so what can we do to transform the pain?
I think part of the solution is to regain identity, because the merging has already happened, and the part of us represented by the person who left is still inside. So the loss, as real and painful as it feels, is an illusion because nothing from what happened has been taken away. What we really mourn is the loss of opportunities, of the future experiences that haven’t occurred yet. But it only means that we have more space available for other experiences that will bring us pleasure. And we just need to refocus our drive to merge with something else, something that the growing part of self can recognize as nurturing and healing, be it poetry, travel, dreams, or art. I realize that it is quite different from the merging experience with another consciousness - books and art and places can’t replace a person lost. Yet, I don’t think it should be a search for another person, because it can get more misleading and confusing. Also, it is often unfair to another person who is looking to merge with the mirror of their true self and is not looking to become someone else’s shadow. But I think after a Great Love happens, we have another presence left with us, another consciousness that we can continue to connect with and this is Love herself. And after all, Love that is being created through the realization of this drive between two people is a real entity, one of which we both become a part of and, as such, it doesn’t die. It sure can kill, because it can be a ferocious entity, but after it comes to life through the merging of two people, it is going to stay alive and enduring for much longer than our individual existence. And thus, it can give us a glimpse of immortality. That is why I think we cherish it so much and keep longing for it no matter what. Because there are roots of all true magic in Love created by people’s merging.
It doesn’t mean we can’t have relationships after Love. In fact, I think we should because relationships have a lot of other important functions to realize and we can still connect and experience intimacy without this mystical merging. We just need to be specific and honest, and if we know that the Great Love has already happened to us, cherish the memory of it and let the pain go. And speaking of blocking inner space, I don’t think it is a memory of a person that blocks our inner space, I think it is a memory of pain from the loss that scares us from going inside. And I think this is why it's important to purify the memory of happy merging and the sense of self that was rebuilt on that from the memory of loss and the pain it brought, so we keep the gain of evolving together.
It will be really fascinating to see how it is going to play out on a collective level when many people will keep finding new forms to merge and to create new collective entities. But one thing I am sure of, is that any of this would be impossible without Love.
So these are my thoughts on it. As always, I appreciate your attention and any remarks or comments you may have. It is one of those miracles of our days when I can feel understood and share my feelings with somebody on another side of the planet without even meeting you personally.
Love,
Olga
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