Wednesday 23 January, 2008

The Enemies of Love

“ What I needed most was to love and be loved. I rushed headlong into love, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers of jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by bursts of anger and quarrels.”

-Saint Augustine

Even in the most intimate of personal relationships, most of us still live inside our own private mental worlds. Our attention is often preoccupied – sometimes more in the past and future than the present – so that we have very little attention to give to those we want to love. Despite our best intentions to draw closer, all kinds of distracting thoughts – likes and dislikes, attachments and aversions, private moods, dreams and desires – come in any time they like, keeping other people at a distance. We yearn for closeness and find, more often, disappointment.

Here Augustine echoes the experiences that almost all of us go through, starting often in our adolescence. The journey into deeper consciousness is one we must take up if ever we are to find the love, the closeness, and the fulfilment we all so earnestly desire.

3 comments:

madsolitaire said...

True. We are all quite absorbed in our own "mental world" as you put it, absorbed into our own shifting thoughts and feelings. It is sometimes difficult to bring our mind back to the present moment, to be attuned to our loved ones and to establish that special connection with them. Something that i am still learning and try to do in my daily life. Keep writing!

With best wishes.

Dipti said...

Dearest Krishna ... Indeed.. the wall of "I" that we build around us ...
Regards and best wishes

Krishna. N. C. said...

Dear Solitaire,
I too join you in this tedious process of keeping myself focused only on this present moment,its quite and art though!!
Our mental make up forbids us so often to yearn for the True Love we all so deeply desire.
Thank you so much for your encouragement and goodwishes:))
God bless you always:)


My dearest Dipti,
Thank you so much for your unconditional Love and support!!
I too agree with you when you say that its the wall of this so-called "i" that we must let go of.
Love, hugs and prayers:))