Teachings on Love (2): Infatuation and Flow
Love has no boundaries as our minds usually conceive them. Real love cannot be contained within a single form, nor can real love be confined by any measure. When properly tapped, love spills inexhaustibly from its source. So exclusivity excludes love. In other words, genuine love does not, and cannot, exclusively and compulsively fixate upon a single object (other than God, which includes all objects). That which we ordinarily consider to be love may instead be called infatuation of some type. Infatuation is sought after because in its initial phase, its expansiveness mimics the unbridled character of real love. Those in the grip of infatuation feel as if the whole world is a magical place where gratification beckons from every corner. Even as a pale reflection of the radically unconstrained nature of real love, the illusion generated by infatuation remains compelling because of the power of the real thing. And in search of the expansive quality of love, people continue to seek out, and fall into infatuation, because they don’t know how to generate genuine love.
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Love is giving and receiving. Love is process. Love is flow. Arriving in a human body, we begin as net receivers of love from caregivers (even if much or most of that love arises from mechanical sources). With the attainment of responsible age, the natural tendency is to strive to give love in turn, in order to balance what has been received. Although most people bestow what they have to give upon a limited number of objects, at the human level the purest form of giving love – the generosity of the saints – is like the pollen of a tree: unconstrained by direction, it travels as the wind takes it, and extravagantly spreads itself widely. There’s no place it doesn’t go. But ultimately love is circulation, and thus encompasses all directions, all comings and goings.
--Rob Schmidt
© 2009 Tayu Order, Inc.
