LOVE PART 2: Love or Need for Security ?
Love or Need for Security ?
By: ROCK ROCA
Our Love is Mixed With Need
Our love is still mixed with a considerable amount of need.
Love wants to give. Need wants to take. Sometimes what we
are seeking to take is very subtle and requires deep inner
inquiry.
Whenever we feel pain, fear or anger in our relationships,
it is because we believe that our needs are in "danger"
of not being satisfied. When this happens, our "love"
turns to hurt, disappointment, fear, loneliness, inferiority,
or bitterness, and sometimes, anger, hate, rage and desire
for revenge.
How can love become all these negative emotions? It cannot.
The simple truth is that our emotion never was pure love
to begin with. It was an "attraction" based
to some degree also on need.
This does not mean that we should reject ourselves because
we have seldom really loved purely. As we are not yet enlightened
spiritual beings, how could we? It would be like rejecting
ourselves because we do not yet have a university diploma
when we are still in the first grade or because we are a flower
bud, which has not yet blossomed. It is only natural that
we cannot yet love unconditionally. This is our stage of
evolution.
Freeing our Love from Need
The first step towards opening our hearts to real love is
to accept and love ourselves exactly as we are with all our
weaknesses and faults. Only then can we proceed effectively.
The second step is to begin observing the feelings that
are stimulated in our transpersonal. Through objective
self-observation, we can determine in which situations
we love unconditionally and in which we are feeling "loving"
with specific conditions. Following are some examples
that will help.
Needing Those Who Make Us Feel Secure
We look to others for security. We might seek security from
our parents, spouses, siblings, children, employers,
friends, ministers, spiritual teachers or others.
We do feel love toward these beings, but often that love
is based on the fact that they offer us a sense of security.
If they start behaving in ways that obstruct our feelings
of security or if they decide to leave or ignore us, will
we still love them?
If our employer fires us, will we still love him or her? If
our parents throw us out onto the street, will we still love
them? Or is our love tightly woven with the need for security?
If as parents we dream that our children will become economically
well off and socially accepted professionals, will we
love them the same if they become street artists, beggars
or anarchists? Some parents will be able to; others will
not.
The basic question is whether or not our feelings of love
are steady and consistent regardless of the various changing
behaviors of those we "love". In each case where
we perceive our heart closing, we need to discover what
we fear in that situation. What might we believe is in danger?
Most frequently we lose our love when we fear that our security,
self-worth, freedom or pleasure are in danger.
Only when we have realized total inner security, perhaps
based on an inner spiritual awakening or on our faith in
the Divine, will we be able to love without security attachments.
Only when we know that we can live without others can we really
love them steadily.
Society has caused us to completely confuse this matter.
We believe that if we love others, then we must be totally
dependent on them and should fear that our world would fall
apart if something happens to them. This is insecurity.
This is a lack of awareness of our inner spiritual nature
and our ability to deal with life. It has nothing to do with
love.
Perhaps this is why the Apostle John wrote, "Where
there is perfect love, there can be no fear".
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