Love means to adjust and to understand.
The Odd Couple
One day a sage came to visit a couple. He sang a song for them that explained the meaning of life and the true goal of life. His song expressed that love was the most ancient traveler in the world. From eternity to eternity it travels and in the course of its traveling it gives a message:
“Do as many experiments as you want, learn to love each other the way you understand, but remember that love will not last for a long time if it remains only on the physical level. Love is an uninterrupted flow of the divine and when its flow is blocked it leaves a stagnant pool. If love does not radiate through your family life, the family will also become like a stagnant pool. Love does not know selfishness. When you try to possess love, not only does it disturb you, everyone in the family suffers. You have to find love beyond the body and all the levels of mind and desires.”
“But how?” asked the odd couple.
The sage said, “Have mutual understanding, mutual respect and mutual sharing; always complement each other and avoid the gulf of misunderstanding and misjudging. You can have disagreements but only for wanting to agree and not to split. Learn to talk, to behave with a feeling of giving, for giving is love. But that giving should be in a concentrated form toward only one direction and not scattered about, because it is hard to gather it again. Love can be dissipated, evaporated, exhausted and disappointed, but then talk and thrash out the differences. It’s not difficult.”
I was listening to this song sitting on my window sill in the guest house of the odd couple. I liked the song and have always remembered it, but I don’t know if the odd couple received the message. God knows.
“Will you come back and visit us again, sir?” they asked.
The sage said, “I have sung my song, and that is my sermon. Now you should practise it. See you again.”
After a few weeks this sage happened to pass the same house on his way. The odd couple had been waiting to see him to hear something new from him. They welcomed him and offered him a seat and food and water.
The sage said, “My children, I have not come with any expectation, for I don’t have any. I don’t have any work to do, so I have assumed this duty of visiting homes and sharing my experiences. Do you have any questions?”
The odd couple said, “Yes, sir. We have decided to separate for we are two different people who always think differently. We want to know if you have any suggestions for us.”
Listening to this, the sage said, “The first mistake you have committed is that of marriage. Now, the second mistake you are about to commit is that you are going to separate. You are so young and cannot peep into the secrets of the future. Do you really know what you are up to?”
The odd couple said, “Sir, we want your advice.”
“Well, as you say, you fell in love with each other and decided to get married. But when you were in love, you both presented the best of yourselves and were afraid to present your other side. Do you know, my children, that which is beautiful is also ugly, because beauty and ugliness are inseparably mingled? They are simply concepts created by the human mind for sense pleasure. Fault finding is not a joyous excursion. You should learn to accept each other, understand each other and help each other to grow. What compelled you to get married and establish a home, and what is it that has made you decide to separate and then divorce? Can you explain?”
“We were charmed by each other’s faces, figures and clothes. So we thought that we were the fittest persons to fit in. Later on we found out that we both were good people, but not meant for each other.”
“What is your disagreement?” asked the sage.
“We don’t satisfy each others needs,” they said.
“What do you mean by needs?” said the sage.
“Sir, we don’t satisfy each other’s sexuality,” they answered.
“Is this the point of disagreement, or is there something more than this? I will give you a training program so that you can adjust, accommodate and remain sexually satisfied. But tell me my children, was it only for sexual satisfaction that you got married? If so, that was not enough reason for such a great undertaking. Why did you do this? Are you prepared to realize your mistakes and learn to live together, for there is nothing like incompatibility? This is just a word of conversation accepted by the law. If you want to be together you can be helped.”
The home should radiate love. Wife and husband should learn how to be selfless with each other so they can attain the goal of life. They can create that state of joy at home by knowing the purpose of life and living life as worship.
Woman
Woman is far superior to man because of her delicate qualities, aesthetic sense and natural way of giving. Her real strength is gentleness, which has the power to turn the strongest men into mice or cowardly men into great warriors. She is a many-faceted artist whose instinctual knowledge leads her to be creative and thus she has given birth to many aspects of art such as dance, music and movement. It is woman who has established the family institution and who is the custodian of culture and family life.
Man
On the other hand, man, though he has brute force and can express himself violently, lacks the quality of sensitivity. He is not sensitive to feelings because he tends to function on the mental level rather than on feelings. Man could never go through the pain of carrying and bearing a child.
The Couple
Feeling is woman, and mind is man. Mother Nature has put them in the same cupboard, so these two separate beings, two diverse ends of the same pole, could meet and join together as a ring. Perhaps that is why the couple presents a ring to each other when they get engaged, hoping for the next step. They may think marriage is the answer to all the questions of life, but that doesn’t always come true. The man full of animal passions and the woman full of giving, how enjoyable that these two strangers would decide to establish a home. The man thinks the woman is his and the woman also thinks the same of him. Some people think the institution of marriage is of no use. And you cannot blame them. Man’s ideal of womanhood and woman’s ideal of manliness are created by imaginative qualities according to their hopes and desires. It is a work of art to make a relationship work in a perfect way.
Falling in Love
Male and female are attracted toward each other because of the law of association. You may like a person on first sight, but if you never see that person again in your life, then there is nothing. However, if you continue to meet that person, love grows as you slowly try to understand each other and begin to develop consideration and respect for each other. When you are in love with someone, you are not afraid of anything. As long as you are not in love you have many fears. So better have a good lover!
When two people meet and fall in love, they become philosophers without having any philosophy. You may think you love someone and that person also loves you and will do everything for you. The other person probably also thinks the same. Even though you say you love somebody, you don’t actually love them. You identify yourself with someone and say you love that person because you feel pity for them.
If you find a perpetual smile on your beloved’s face, you can be sure she is in love with you. It is like the smile of a flower blossom. Don’t ever pluck such a blooming flower or expect anything from your beloved, or else she might lose forever the smile she has been giving to you. The voice of a smile leaves the greatest of all imprints in the heart, which no power can ever snatch. A heart full of smiles is like a magnificent vessel of nectar.
Smiling is one virtue that is not found in any other form of creation. The capacity to smile is a gift to humans from the beloved Lord. When someone smiles, it means she has reverence for the person she is looking at. A smile shows respect for the Lord of life. Frowning and making a gloomy face and being negatively withdrawn are not creative aspects of human nature. You have become a victim of these impurities that are alien to human nature. Learn to love and smile, for smiles are the greatest of all gifts the beloved can give. A smile is a bouquet made of the flowers that grow in the garden of delight within you.
Love is a perennial smile that does not decay in any circumstances.
Reprinted from “The Ancient Traveler: Writings on Love” by Swami Rama