Love lies beneath
Bride showing her hands, by Alberta Studios
Why do we bother with love? Love is unexplainable, indescribable. It’s a wonder we trouble with it at all. Why are we fascinated by this emotion that runs over us more powerful than a locomotive? Because it intrigues us. Because we’ve all been hit by its tsunami, in both its pleasant and gut-wrenching moments. It’s true you can’t explain love. And yet you know when you’re feeling it, whether your heart goes for the ride when the school bus motors off or whether it tries to jump out of your chest in magnetism to the beating of another. Love calls to us so much that we buy red foil Valentines and make dinner reservations at the fanciest of restaurants every February; or we feel particularly lonely if we feel the absence of love.
And yet, what is the feeling? At times I fear it’s obsession. Attachment. Codependency… the kleshas (afflictions). But maybe, as Krishnamurti hinted, it’s what’s left when you let go of the desires. Interesting, because love feels like desire in sheep’s clothing. You want to be with the one you love. You want to prevent your love from hopping a train to the opposite coast. But letting go is a prerequisite. If you love something, set it free, right? Sounds like some 70s into 80s hippie-ness into new age let’s-just-love-the-person-in-front-of us-right-now ignorance negating the fact that you are drawn to particular individuals.
Drawn or not, we don’t own each other. We aren’t attached. Rather, we are connected to each other through something much different than physical proximity. In the understanding of this, there is letting go. Letting go of the desire, the attachment, even the longing, and getting a chance to see what lies (or lurks) beneath.
When a yogi starts practicing, they’re not yet sensitive to movements and sensations. They need to practice large movements to begin to tame the body into the mind. A sun breath, a swan dive. With practice, the tiniest of movements becomes apparent. The rise of the chest on the inhale, the feet balancing your Tadasana. In the beginning, we don’t see so well. But given time, our insight becomes keen. We realize that the breath was always rising on the inhale, the feet were always balancing our standing. We just didn’t see it.
What’s beneath the kleshas is wide open space free of grasping. In this space, you’re not greedy or impatient. You’re not pushing and pulling for what you want. Your tactics are laid down and you stand with your arms by your sides, open to receive what fills the air around you. I would argue that this empty space is perhaps not empty at all. It’s full of love. It’s there right now, if you could only see it like the artists see it and come to say: “love is all around.” As you can tell, in this space love isn’t aimed at any particular individual, it’s not labeled familial, romantic or otherwise. Its definition, in this case, of being “that without” leaves it so vague that labels are useless in its presence. Open your eyes and see. You are in the presence of love, no matter the state of your relationships at this moment.
We bother with love because it’s underneath it all, bothering us.