The Art of Love

 The great mystic poet Rumi says, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

Long before love sprouts through your actions, emotions and thoughts, you have to accept your essentially compassionate nature. Accept it and own the feeling. From this point, it becomes easier to scale the ladder to reach the cusp of happiness and joy, which is nothing but realization of your true loving self.

Love is our fundamental nature. Its soft power lies in all of us. Just that it needs to be pampered out of the cocoon. Like you build-up your muscles slowly, dedicating many hours over months and years in a gym, you can sharpen the instincts of love. Love at the emotional level is as good as some goodness in action. These are two sides of the same coin.

There are always parallels between the self inside and the socially convenient identity we have build up for ourselves to survive. Believe me, however hard is the mask outside, it still survives on the intrinsic foundation of what you are in the privacy of your real self at the centre of your being. And that is unconditional love. Our illusions in this regard are simply in proportion to the virtual walls we have allowed to be built between what we appear and what we really are.

Practicing goodness and love in behavior, thoughts and emotions is like any other task we accomplish on a daily basis. Just that our continuous obsession on staying at the periphery of our being has tricked us into believing that it’s an angry world out there. We have to fight or perish. No man, it isn’t so. Most of our fears are the phantoms of our mind. Come out of the virtual world and see the world as it is through clear eyes.

Happiness and joy are simply the warmth of the sun of love. They share reciprocal cause and effect relation.

Denis Waitley sums it so beautifully: “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”

The showers of care and consideration from others nourish you, and your own love-blossoms define the purpose of life.

Lao Tzu: “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

The art of love is basically the art of living. Love is the overarching emotion covering your work, relationships and modes of self-expression. It pulls you into a sphere of all-inclusiveness. This is the top-most art. All other means of self-expression are just byproducts of this supreme alchemy.

Just have a closer look. The things and activities where you feel yourself to excel, they appear so because you primarily love and like them. So love basically is a prelude to liking, which in turn makes you capable of cozy relationships, well paid careers and other creative outpours in the arena of life.