Love

One of the important elements that is effectively missing in the world today is the element of love. Although the word "love" is seen, heard and used practically everywhere in our lives, the feeling of animosity in our surroundings seem to be gaining in prominence. Wars, terrorism... and nearer to our hearts - the increasing number of divorces worldwide.

It effectively led me to ask myself constantly, why is it so hard for us to love? Do we even know how to love? Are we able to understand what is love to comprehend the feelings that we experience is one of love? Or do we simply confuse love and lust (erotic love)?

Thinking about this topic at the most basic level, I cannot fathom how two people who promise - profess? - the love, commitment and promise of eternal unity in this lifetime can somehow spin the feeling of love to one of hate and, at times, of vindictive nature.

It led me to think that perhaps the word "love" has fallen into a category that we use without having a single clue of what it is and how it is supposed to be felt when love really dwell upon us. The word is certainly used so frivolously at times that I wonder if it is used to ensnare the other party to commit.

I ask: How does one feel when one is feeling in love? Is the feeling of love one of love or lust? Why would the feeling of love turn to a feeling of hate at such high proportions in the world? Are the feelings of love and hate belong to two sides of the same coin (Osho)? Would love be so strong for the person that it becomes unconditional? Is our ability to love able to reach that epic of proportion of being unconditional? Is this earthly love between two people not permanent? Since one will have to eventually deal with the loss of the other through death anyway, so do we boldly prepare for the loss with grace right from the beginning?

Love and hate being on the two sides of the same coin is probably one that is easiest to understand for me. I would not be able to feel the extremities of love without feeling the other side of the spectrum. The sweetness of a ripened mango cannot be comprehended and appreciated without tasting the sourness of an unripened one.

On erotic love, the book on the philosophies of Socrates, edited by Robert Van de Weyer, wrote: For Socrates, love in the spiritual sense is also erotic. He describes in the most vivid terms the madness of being in love with another person, in which that person appears supremely beautiful. And he explains this as the first step on a path that leads to the perfect divine beauty beyond the heavens.

That paragraph intrigued me for years. I've been asking that same question as I, for one, is not one that fuse erotic love and spiritual love together. However, over the years, it seems necessary. The binding of two human beings at the beginning of totally different upbringings, backgrounds, baggages, principles, values, habits, ideals, hopes and dreams would be necessary with that of lust or erotic love.

Socrates explains why erotic madness is the form that interest him most is that of falling in love with another person. "The beauty perceived in the object of love is a sign of perfect divine beauty; thus, erotic madness can become the soul's first steps on a path that leads upwards to God."

So to start with erotic love is the most enticing and exciting part of the blossoming of love. The excitement and joy of pursuit; the exploration of the object of interest that renders one mind's out of sync with the world, is the one of the most addictive and exhilarating experiences. However, in reality, erotic love does not last forever. Some people I know would pursue new objects of interest to keep feeling the stages of erotic love. So I could conclude that it is suffice to say that erotic love is not the grand plan of things. The progression to understand and be aware that this lust eventually may run its course; therefore, spiritual love must take its place. Without spiritual love taking over, we would probably be searching for the next erotic love to build.

Then the next question is - what is spiritual love? I have yet to find an answer to that as I am neither one without flaws nor one that has the perfect notion of love. But I feel that spiritual love (that leads to unconditional love) can be worked on by two people who are in erotic love. The harmonious and tremendous energy between two parties that could agree and work out evolutionary ideals like trust, respect, responsibility, accountability, empathy and eventually, unconditional love. The strength of two people in love is probably the best partnership that one can tap on and evolve towards highest good.

It finally leaves me with the final question of how to find the one person to build all these upon? Can it happen at an age when so many relationships are crumbling around me?

I started asking myself if it is possible to start with self love and self preservation? Then we are able to attract a kindred spirit with the same notion and aspirations towards spiritual love? Can we start from being in love with one self, to be selfish - without being narcissistic? Selflessness comes next in natural progression? Can I treat myself as well as I treat the person when I am feeling that initial erotic love? What are my intentions when I treat someone else better than I treat myself?

Osho once said,"In being selfish, you will find all the altruism that you have been seeking and seeking and not finding...we have been told to love thy neighbour... you are loving the neighbour and you know nothing of love...and the neighbour who is loving you also knows nothing of love...such insanity is happening in the world...people are loving each other who know nothing of love...it is like beggars begging from each other... thinking the other party is an emperor... but when truth manifests... anger, violence and hatred entail...they don't know what love is...then you [sic] think you've [sic] been cheated...the beggar trying to prove that he is an emperor... the absurdity of it! You have to begin with yourself...".

The Oxford dictionary's definition of "selfish" is "concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure". I have been asking myself the very same question over the past few years. To love is not a case of one's feelings when one is feeling in erotic lust. To have the ability to experience the power of self love and a great sense of self preservation take precedence before I can even talk about loving someone else or on a greater scale, the world. To many, the statement stems from selfishness; to me, the statement gravitates towards selflessness. I need to have something in abundance and the spillover is the amount that I am able to share. The current mental state of confusion in so many people deemed to be in love but have only the capacity to be in lust. They are not able to give more, not because they do not want to, it's simply because they do not have the capacity to.

With self-love, the needle that toggles to and fro in the heart remains stoic and centred, in spite of the upheavals, in our sometimes torrid and sometimes emotionally arid conditions with our erotic lovers. Our functionality, proper state of mind and spirit will not be affected or wavered by the torrents of jealousy or insecurities created by any erotic partners who have no intentions to progress to being our spiritual lovers. However, when the right erotic partner comes along and over time progresses to be our spiritual lover, all the negative torrents will stop flowing forth. Thus, the self-love must manifest its full glory first for us to bask in the wondrous after effects of love with a partner.

We are all searching for the perfect partner to manifest that perfect love... such little do we know that this love has to be seeked within ourselves before the right partner can even be found...

Connie

Dear Connie,

It's been such a long time, how are you? I saw your teacher scolding you for colouring the sky cyan the other day before I left. Are you feeling alright now?

I'm so sorry I've to leave for a period of time and you didn't have someone to talk to about your confusion on why you were scolded - for you really saw the sky in that beautiful hue vividly in your dream just a night ago. I would be sad if I were scolded for expressing something that I witnessed too. Yes, and you saw daddy in the sky smiling you too... and you did not have time to draw him in as you were made to stand.

You want to make the world that you have woken up into as beautiful as the one you saw in your dream - and make daddy proud. You have pictured yourself in the dream, twenty-seven years from now, all happy and beautiful.

You are scared that the image is going to be a just a fragment of your imagination as you do not have the ability to make it happen. You are afraid that you are not going to grow up into the lady that you keep dreaming about, for you don't see yourself growing up to be the lady in your dream when you look in the mirror. ... You feel very much alone with no one to help you since daddy is gone. I understand that.

When you wake up and you will find this letter placed next to your pillow. You will read this letter as you sit on your tiny bed, the morning sun will pour blessings and warmth on you through the window above you. I want you to close your eyes and count to ten.

Yes, do it now... One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten...

Feel the warmth and the glow pouring in... filling you with love...

I want you to remember this happiness that you are feeling right now. You are being one with the elements, being loved and looked after by the one that has left you this letter. I want you to remember this each time you feel sad or scared. You are not alone and you are always being protected.

Connie, the very moment you decided that you want to be that beautiful someone in your head - when you were four - things are already in the works to help you get there. And because you want to be someone as great as the one that you have dreamt of... The journey to get there will not be easy. The training that life will give you to get you there will be a tumultuous.

If I dare say, losing daddy is part of that challenges to help you get there. Life works in strange ways, doesn't it? To lose people or things that we love dearly is to teach us on the simple concept of learning to let go. Connie, you will be losing more people you think that you love, for freedom is to be able to let go when the time is right. To live the experience now, not hold on to it or fear that you lose it, is freedom in its own right. Losing daddy now is only one of the many loses that you will need to battle.

At times when things look so dark and scary... I want you stare at the darkness and challenge the darkness to see how much darker can it get, for no darkness last forever. And when you do not allow yourself to wallow in pain but come out of it better, then you are one step closer to your goals.

Your dreams will come true, Connie. You may stumble and fall sideways at times... but remember that when you cry in your sleep, you are never alone in your path to perfection.

I know that because I am you.

Always loving you,

Eswari

A Letter To My Astral Baby

There were times when I asked myself if you are to be brought to this world through me and you are supposed to be the one that is going to make positive and powerful changes to our ailing world.

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I ask myself constantly, 'What if you are the one that will bring hope of change that will subsequently restore joy, peace and abundance to the world? Am I preventing you from fulfilling what you are destined to do?'

Our world is in such dire straits now, love, and we are in a desperate need of a charismatic leader that can influence that radical change. Could it be you?

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We require a strong and steadfast leader - one that sees the harm that humans are causing to our world and has the courage to put the damaging ways of harming our earth to a stop to let her recuperate. This leader will not be controlled and will not be led by the nose by the rich and powerful companies - a small group of big giants that deplete the earth's resources to sell us goods to make more money. This leader will put a stop to all these giants' profiteering ideas and teach us to love our world more by using less and wasting less.

We owe our world that much and all we need to do is to let her take a breather and rejuvenate. Yes, strangely it is that simple, love. Sadly, our world is in ruins - the good lands left may soon be gone too if these big giants find valuable minerals in the soil and they start to dig.

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But you may ask, 'Aren't the rest of the humans aware of our world's plight then?'

We are filled with too much greed and indulgences to care that the resources are depleting fast. The world's resouces like the Amazon forests, food and clean water are depleting so fast that I don't know if there is enough for you and your friends anymore to survive on and live to a ripe old age. I can only imagine the worst - a world filled with thirst, hunger and chaos due to barren lands, dry lakes and empty seas. Mommy would not be around to shelter and protect you forever for my life span does not permit as such. By then, I do not know if you will even hate me for your generation's sufferings as it is my generation and the ones before mine that are the cause that left you and your friends with absolutely nothing to live on.

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I used to imagine bringing you to see the marvellous animals that co-exist with us here. I know that you will love them for they are so pure, innocent and adorable. We can spot the koalas in the Tasmanian forests when we go trekking in Australia; or watch the fishes swim by amongst the reefs of dizzying array of colours when we scuba dive in Maldives. You have to be gentle and quiet as you observe them in their habitat though, for they startle easily.

I would love to bring you to see the other wonderful creations that live here with me; however, the numbers of these beautiful and amazing creatures have dwindled to a point that the number of humans outnumber them by several thousand times. Too many have been eaten, killed for their pelt or robbed of their home when we destroy their habitats. We do not have the decent respect for their rightful place on this earth and that we are supposed to share the world's limited resources together. Humans are eating and ravaging the earth like she solely belongs to them only. It is shameful and inconceivable for us to be so stupid - to make the world almost unlivable for our children in the future; for afterall, we claim that we are the thinking species and thus so, the most intelligent amongst the creatures that live here. Strange yes? We know the harm we are causing and yet we are so slow and reluctant to take the right and necessary steps to correct ourselves. All I can say is that humans have become to indulgent to care.

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Love, mommy is also part of the human species but I am trying my best to do things right. Please do not feel too ashamed of me. You have to have that faith in mommy. And I must also tell you that there are also good and heroric aunties and uncles out there that are fighting daily, trying to persuade the current leaders, the people and their friends to start loving and saving our world in a simple way - by just letting her breath.

Their voices are not taken seriously, I'm afraid.

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Love, please understand that it will be so unfair to you if mommy brought you here to live with me. Mommy grew up in a world that had fresh and crisp air; my garden was filled with bees and butterflies that hovered around the tiniest patches of flowers. Now...sightings of such insects are a rarity, in fact I must say, I don't see them in the garden anymore. And the air... mommy is suffocating in poor air quality most of the time and oddly, the only time that I feel that the quality of air that I breath is good is when I'm in an air-conditioned room where air is filtered. Imagine, the air that mommy has to breath is to be purified artificially for it to be fresher? You must be wondering, 'Why is the air so bad?' It is because there are too many moving machines on the roads now and these machines produce really bad gases. Also, factories and incinerators add to the volume of bad gases. Sigh. Mommy wants the best for you and that includes breathing the kind of air quality that I did when I was a child.

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Let mommy fill you in a little more on my childhood - I remember that I used to play hide-and-seek with all my friends amongst the trees in my school during lunch breaks - mommy won most of the time. Laugh.

But I'm sad to break the news to you that there are no more huge and majestic trees in schools anymore for you to play with your friends as we do not have space. Children now have less space to run freely. Remember mommy told you just now that we outnumber the animals in thousands of times? You get the idea why.

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The world is getting warmer, mommy can feel the increasing difference every year. Trust me, I do fear that I will be surrounded by a hot desert with no water in the near future. The heat will be so unbearable. You know, mommy used to wake up at six in the morning for school when I was a kid and I would shudder as the air outside was so chilly - I had to gulp a cup of hot milk to quell the shivering.

Now, mommy is perspiring at six in the morning as I am writing to you. I can only imagine how much warmer and unbearable it will be for you when you are much older. I'll blame myself for it for bringing you here to suffer as such. You don't know how much I worry about the state of this world in the next twenty years or more; it is a scary thought now when I postulate the scenes in my mind based on what I know of now.

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After much thought, I've decided not to bring you to life through me as I cannot bear the consequences of what you will have to endure while you are living here. Child, as much as mommy would like you to be here with me physically, I cannot bear to put you through the pains of living here like everyone of us. It is tough for me to see you struggling through the regiments of school; the constant need to excel in your examinations to get into a good class, then qualify for a good college; the need to find a good job to sustain your livelihood; the need to finance a home; start a family; worry about your children and your wife's welfare; and fulfilling your life's purpose - but these are necessary and tolerable for we all struggle through these challenges to make us stronger - and hopefully, we will leave this world knowing that we have done a darn good job in making this place a much better place than before we came into it. However, it is heartbreaking and unthinkable if mommy have to put you in a world that is has dirty air, filled with deserts with little drinking water and food - for it is an impending disaster that will inevitably happen with our current ways of life.

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Maybe you are the one who is to bring the radical change to this world and I am denying you the chance to do so. Maybe mommy is too selfish or too cowardly to bring you to this world to face the challenges; but please, forgive me for such a paradox for mommy is only human.

My Remaining Years Unus

I have been thinking, reflecting, contemplating and introspecting about the function of my life. I realised that asking the question "What is the meaning of life?" is too broad and complex an aspect for me to even contemplate, let alone understand. So I stopped looking around for answers at such a broad capacity - it is simply not meant for me to find out; someone else will, and that someone else will share that aspect with me if he or she wants to and is meant to.

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So I started asking, how is my life suppose to pen out? One thing I'm sure is that my heart has protected me so far and has led me to where I am today - the way I had pictured myself, in this framework, about two decades ago. But running along, since I know that the universe gives me what I want in its due course, somehow or other, I started asking what is the function of it?

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I'm sure so far, my life has not been one that is to procreate and to multiply - if not, I would have - most probably - a quarter of a dozen running around by now. Maternal instincts has neither been cultivated nor activated - there is no inclination to have a child of my own. I just know that the normal way of life of starting and raising a family doesn't apply to me and hankering after textbook normality of life will lead me to desperation and depression - two possible outcomes that are going to lead me to nowhere.

I trust my heart to ask, "Then what is the function of this life and how do I die properly at the end of it?"

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I feel that death is neither dark nor a fearful subject to think about, even though I am not considered anywhere near middle age; but it is realistic to contemplate and prepare on this taboo subject - an event of eventuality. Since I can't avoid it, I might as well think about it and prepare for it.

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I believe that my life is written uniquely - like anyone else's - and I am meant to learn something from this life and add value to the world around me while I’m learning from it. How I’m going to do it? I don’t know, but I am certain that life has its way of leading me to it.

What I can promise is I will do my best to protect the temple that protects my heart; the temple that is needed to house me while I am walking this life filled with unknowns and opportunities and its fair share of treacheries and tragedies.

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I started to appreciate that this body of mine has repaired and mended itself well in spite of abuses and neglect through thoughts, diets and sloth throughout these years. The resilience of this temple is indeed the protection, blessing and miracle bestowed upon me.

I know that it is my responsibility to nourish my body and mind on these three aspects: good thoughts through knowledge and good association; proper diet through eating consciously and selectively; and proper actions through discipline, for I know that this temple is going to carry me through the remaining journey to answer my question on how to die - properly - without feeling that I have not done what was chosen and written for.

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For the rest of my journey, may my heart be led by the divine.

Why I Write

I just finished reading George Orwell's essay "Why I Write" written in 1946. The piece detailed the reasons on what inspired him to write.

What stood out were Orwell's "four motives of writing" that exist in every writer:

Sheer egoism, the desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed
you in childhood, etc., etc.; aesthetic enthusiasm, the
perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement; historical impulse, the desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity; and political purpose, the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter
other peoples' idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.

Orwell, who was renowned to be a political writer, professed to be motivated by the first three in the list - surprisingly.

That led me to wonder: What started me writing? Now that I have Mr Orwell's analysis on different writers' motivation in print, I can use his take on the topic to ask myself that question.

Initially, I questioned if his list is too short and not exhaustive enough to categorise all types of writers - I took his analysis nonetheless. I am basing on the fact that he had written and published so many well-known literature that are still very much loved and well respected by the world to this day; therefore, his observations must hold some empirical truth.

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Honestly, the reason that I write is because writing has made me more sensitive and more aware of my feelings and of others. Whenever I experience something that would arouse my emotions that vary - from sheer ecstasy to utter misery - I will try to put together emotive words in my head to "get THAT right feel for THAT moment"; likewise, I repeat the same process when I see a myriad of feelings coming from characters ranging from reel life to real life.

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A simple example would be how I dislike using "happy" for situations ranging from receiving a pay raise to winning the jackpot. The feeling I get when I can express the different tonations of happiness with words, is like finally being able to bake the perfect pound cake that granny used to make: the right taste, the right texture and how perfect it feels when I put it in my mouth. When I am able to construct the exact right level of tonations using words to express how HAPPY I am for that given instance, that will really send tiny currents of thrill through me.

From the above said, I can say that I love collecting emotive expressions using words.

Another group of expressions that I thoroughly enjoy collecting are beautifully crafted expressions to describe the most mundane of the physical senses: hunger, thirst, cold, a tummyache or simply a description of how irritating a painful pimple can get. I collect them as how people would collect movies and music and stamps.

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It is without a doubt that it was confusing when I try to fit myself into any of the four groups on the list. The initial thought would be that I am writing out of sheer vanity and having a need to show how clever a piece of my writing can get - I feel that most people would be aroused to write due to these two reasons, to be honest. Orwell was not wrong when he wrote that writers are vain. They need to be vain and to be sheer egoisticical to start writing; however, being sheer egoistic cannot be the main reason. The main core must be topic relevant: what compels the writer - me - to write? After much given thought and having written so much about it, I can honestly say that I get aroused to write due to some form of sheer egoism. The big compulsion to do so is due to an underlying motivation that ought to be aptly placed under the category of aesthetic enthusiasm.

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Woman

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin...

I am the barren one,

and many are her sons...

I am the silence that is incomprehensible...

I am the utterance of my name.