The Beatles sang ‘all you need is love, love is all you need’ and they were right. It is fundamental to being spiritual to truly love and cherish those around you in your life.
Love is the ultimate emotion to which man can aspire. In ‘normal’ life this is unquestionably true but even in the most hopeless, awful and desperate situation you can still know bliss and contentment through the contemplation of loved ones.
Practising loving kindness is also fundamental to spiritual behaviour and could be defined as having a strong wish for the welfare, well being, and happiness of others. This may take the form of things like consideration, compassion, empathy, sympathy, wanting the best for others, or support for others all motivated by warm hearted affection.
On a day-to-day basis consider what practical steps can you take to put your love for those around you into practice?
Your primary relationship with your partner
It is important to remember that how we feel comes from within. We are reminded of this because the feelings of love and joy that we experience when we are ‘in love’ exist in us already and the object of our love is simply the catalyst who awakens these feelings in ourselves. However we must not be reliant or completely dependent on others for our happiness. To be happy you must firstly love yourself, and then you must have some sort of interior life - your own interests, hobbies and indeed other friends. I have seen this expressed as ‘we must have a relationship with ourselves before we can be in a true relationship with another.’ It is a heavy burden to make another human being feel responsible for our happiness. Furthermore in the long run life partners need to feel proud of and respect each other, and for this to happen you must have more to offer each other than simply loving the other person.
Building on this you have a lot of control about the relationship you have with your partner. It is often true that you get the partner that you deserve as your partner will take their lead from you. Think about being a good partner yourself rather than constantly questioning whether your partner is one. It is largely true that if you are loving, loyal, kind and considerate to them then you will receive this in return. Your primary relationship will largely be a mirror of your true self. Unconditional love for someone else is not however about what love you get back. When we feel unconditional love it is reflecting the love that is in ourselves and our spirit soars. The love that we feel does not come from the other person but is awakened in us.
Being with the right partner is about how you are when you are with them and what they awaken in you, and secondly and equally importantly whether you feel unconditional and unselfish love for them and their well being.
It is fundamental that you cherish your partner and encourage them to be themselves. It is by allowing them to be free and to follow their ambitions and explore their talents that you ‘possess’ them. You must recognise your partner’s individuality and give each other space rather than making them account for everything and seeking to control them. Your partner should feel that you are totally on their side wanting the best for them and similarly you too should feel that, more than any other person, your partner is totally on your side. This mutual ‘supportiveness’ is one of the most crucial factors to a successful primary relationship.
The person that you believe your partner to be is a projection of your mind. It is likely that you glorify and idealise them but in practice they have faults and have traits that are not always nice just like you do. Similarly, just as you do, they will have secrets and thoughts that they will not wish to share with you. So be realistic with regards to your expectations of your partner. When you argue and your partner is not as you wish them to be take the wider view and remember all the things that unite you. It is likely that you are far more alike than different.
And what if you are unattached and looking for love? In our culture today many people see love as the solution to unhappiness and by love in this context I mean a new primary relationship. You frequently see people advertising for a ‘soul mate’ in dating columns like they were ordering a pizza. But until you have become a happy person in yourself and cultivated inner peace a new primary relationship will never be the solution to unhappiness. The best advice to people in this situation is to concentrate for now on developing the spiritual behaviours discussed here, and secondly stop trying to force their imagined agenda and instead concentrate on broadening their social circle by taking up new activities rather than chasing romantic liaisons. You need to be open, loving and flexible and allow life to unfold in its mysterious way. If you do this I guarantee that, when you are ready, love will find you.
You also need to ask yourself honestly if you are ready to be ‘in love’. To be in love you must be ‘in love’ material; this is just the same as to have a best friend you must be ‘best friend’ material. Maybe you are not ready yet and maybe that is why it has not happened yet. You must be capable of giving unconditional selfless love to another human being and to genuinely want the best for another person. For it to be possible for another person to awaken these qualities of generosity of spirit in you, they must be present in you already. Maybe, if you are honest, you like your freedom too much to really want the day-to-day negotiation that being in a relationship demands. Remember that your emotional life is largely a reflection of your inner self. It is far from being just dependent on meeting the ‘right’ person or finding your ‘soul mate’. In truth most people who have successful relationships would admit that there may be other potential partners out there with whom they could be happy and make a life. The truth is it is much more about you being the right person than you not finding the right person. The potential to be ‘in love’ must be inside you but the good news is that everybody can, if they really want to, become a worthy candidate.