Hi Lady F,
Zadie Smith, in her book titled White Teeth, writes, “We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”
My questions to you today, are these
- Do you believe that everyone deserves love? Is everyone entitled to be loved, and to love others? Should everyone see love as a right?
Yes. Love is a human birthright. Everybody deserves love all the time – unconditional love – the love of a mother. However, a mother cannot love every child in the world – she might be polite and even noble, and graceful, but she cannot take care of everyone. She loves her own children – to her they are unique in the entire world. Everybody is okay with that since most of us have such small worlds. So we might conclude that everybody deserves love the entire time – but not from the same person. People may choose on whom to bestow their conditional and unconditional love.
Speaking of conditional love – that’s the precious romance everyone craves for. You admire each other the entire time, for having qualities you like – you strive to make each other happy, you are supportive, generous, you exceed yourself – you feel like a loving deity and the world is rolling gently at your feet. All these achievements are for masters of conditional love. You are never bored with each other because all you can think of is yourselves.
Still, there is divine love, and all of us are tapped into it the entire time – and we are never without it, in our entire lifetime, God sees us on the inside and illuminates our being, and therefore we are beings of light. Heaven is an internal state that resides in any of us. We are blessed. So even if we are not enamored, or have no children, we are never left without love. The Sun rises for each of us every morning, we are truly wonderful beings.
You have so many chances to love, that you are even allowed to skip on many of them. You are not obliged to share the affection of every person who loves you, even dearly…you have free will, and that’s the wonderful thing in giving. I believe that people live and meet each other in small clusters, such as spiritual families, or soul mates if you please – in order to arrange the big puzzle, we connect with those who are closest in vibration to us.
To these, I add your family – since families are very important to us spiritually – all those people came into your life for good – you should be able to love and tame your family. Sometimes, they will need a romantic lover, and you will have to give them presents, cards, and flowers, surprise them and write poems for them. They are the people in your life on whom you get to practice your unconditional love and your strive for perfect harmony. The harder the family issues, the stronger the bonds you can make with the family, once you have perfected your unconditional love for them.
- If we are attracted to or love someone who loves or is attracted to a third person instead, should we feel bitter about it? Should we feel entitled to their love/attraction/attention just because we have romantic feelings for them? Or should we realize, as Zadie Smith writes, that not everybody deserves love all the time?
If you love somebody who is attracted to another person – you suffer, which means you develop yourself. If you are romantic – then you are prone to suffering. You cannot force anyone to love you, so don’t judge people, who are immensely attractive – even they don’t have the capacity to take care of everyone who loves them. But suffering does not mean being bitter – on the contrary – you deserve to be merry and bright and accept everything with a smile. For your chance is on your way.
I have been loved, and often from people who did not attract me sexually. It’s a wonderful chance to develop a brother-sister relationship, which makes everyone happy. They get to communicate with you, you get to enlighten their world, both parties are extremely happy. I have caused great disturbance to people who loved me, and I rejected for various reasons – here you have karma, which means in several lives you might find yourself related to them. But in general – you are not obligated to return the feeling, however sublime it may be.
I want to finish with the thought of a spiritually evolved person, who once said to me: “In the world, there are thousands of kinds of love, you have become familiar with a few of them and you think you know everything!”
Then remember F.Scott Fitzgerald, who said: “April is over, April is over. There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.”
You got the answer to your question. Did it solve your problem? How does it make you feel?
Yes, it has resolved my doubts, and I find that I’m more at ease with my doubts, after having read your answer.
But what were your doubts?
I doubted mostly about whether I should love someone even though they don’t/won’t love me back, and my realization was that my loving someone is fulfilling for me, and that should be reason enough. It doesn’t matter whether another loves me back, because they have the same choice I do, but I shouldn’t hold their decisions against them. If that makes sense…
It makes perfect sense…
