Why do we want great love so much? How to find it and not lose it? Why does love pass? What to do if your feelings are not answered? How to survive the pangs of unrequited love? And does unrequited love even exist? How can you not lose yourself while devoting your life to someone else?
“Love is the foundation of our existence”
The road to your monastery is trampled by the feet of hundreds of young people coming to you to confess. Do you sense from their revelations that anything has changed in their attitude towards love?
I would say that we monks know people much better than they know themselves, because we see them not from the outside, but from the inside. Therefore, my opinion is this: today’s youth have enormous spiritual potential, but they lack a compass. They most often do not know what love really is. They confuse it with falling in love. And they don’t know how to live with it. They watch different films and live according to patterns. Everyone dreams of great love, like in the movies. Already ready, with a perfect partner who would understand them, no matter what happened. And they don’t understand why the same thing doesn’t happen to them. But these loves from books and films are utopian, in real life they don't meet.
However, what is felt by everyone who comes to confession is a tireless search, a desire to experience deep, perfect love. This thirst for love is present in everyone.
- Why do we have such a strong need to self-actualize in great love?
When you seek love, you are actually seeking God. Even if you don’t realize it. Even if you're not a Christian
When you seek love, you are actually seeking God. Even if you don’t realize it. Even if you are not an exemplary Christian, every time you love and are loved, you somehow amazingly feel that there, in love, is the truth. You have been looking for love all your life, you need it, and even when you pretend that you no longer have it, you certainly feel it, you feel it somehow distorted, but still you start all over again. You are drawn to her, you always strive to reach her, because you feel that there is completeness and happiness there.
We humans cannot help but love, not want to be loved. Because this is the foundation of our existence. God is love, and everything in this world thirsts for love. God created everything in His image and likeness, according to His model, the model of the Trinity relationship. We were created as humans to share in the joy of relationship in and with God. To experience love. To be together. That’s why it is said that heaven is communication with everyone, and hell is the inability to love anymore.
Although we have God, we still feel that without the other we are incomplete. Do you need someone else to be happy?
God created people incomplete precisely so that they need each other. After all, if He created us perfect, then we would be self-sufficient. Of course, there are people who give more and people who give less, but you shouldn’t stop at relationships with one person, you need to learn to love all people, reap the fruits of relationships with everyone, not just with your life partner. Every person is a potential gift for us with which we can enrich ourselves.
We dream - almost all of us - of great love that would last a lifetime. And yet, reality shows that love dies, and more often than we would like to think. Why does love fade away?
She dies because there is no God in the equation. This means that we have nowhere to feed ourselves, to revive our love. Without God there is no beginning that generates love. Man himself is a limited being. And grace makes it infinitely deep. Grace is from God. Saint John Chrysostom said that all untransformed relationships degenerate. They are consumed.
Without grace, a person remains in a fallen state. It's the same with love. It fades away if there is no answer to it. If you direct it to God and people, it receives an answer from the infinity of God. And if you direct matter towards yourself, the body, it is consumed, exhausted, because these things are limited. That's why a wedding is necessary. A wedding is a combination of two with a third: with God, Who is infinite.
- Unfortunately, just because you get married in a church does not guarantee stable happiness...
We must learn to see God in others. There is no need to treat a person as something complete. Each person is an endless source, but not freed from rubble.
With love, with the help of God, we can dismantle the rubble so that another can give birth to his essence, lay out his full moral, spiritual and love potential. Because every person is much more than what we see. And love comes and activates in the other something that he had no idea that he had in him.
You need a friend who will give you measure. In a relationship between two people, a person is constantly evolving. And he can no longer get enough of others, get bored, or get into a routine. Because each encourages the other to develop. Each blossoms like a bud, then like a flower, and its blossoming is endless.
Many people seem incapable of deep feelings. This is because they, in turn, were not loved to blossom. However, all this is impossible without God. And without the effort of each to activate His potential, Divine grace, in the other. You need to love - with God in yourself - God in another.
- How should we love, father? Where do we go wrong that we always have to start over?
We don't have the skill of dedication. And love becomes some kind of accessory that contributes to one’s own happiness.
We don't know how to give of ourselves. We don't have the skill of dedication. Modern society teaches people to focus on their desires, teaches them to love themselves first of all, to strive for their own self-realization. And love thus becomes some kind of accessory that contributes to their own happiness. “I have a career, a house, and a lover!” However, we do not truly love if we do not make this experience of losing ourselves and do not begin to practice bestowal, to train our power to love.
To love means to gravitate, like a planet, around the self-realization of another. Thinking about how to help another, how to meet him halfway, how to calm him down, how to protect him from difficulties, how to bring joy, how to cook him delicious food when he is tired. We must learn to live for others and for others.
Love means many actions. Intentions and thoughts in themselves are worthless in the absence of actions. The world is full of intentions. By doing things, you test yourself whether you can truly love. I recently read in a book how a political prisoner - a peasant imprisoned in his old age - received letters from his grandmother, in which she enclosed a dried flower. This is what love means. And even more: to give when you are completely exhausted, when you no longer have any strength. And there are no excuses for not giving.
If you give out of abundance, when it feels good and easy to give, it costs nothing. And when you can no longer, but still want to do something for someone else, energy resources flare up in you that you had no idea about. You receive strength from God and do more than you thought you were capable of doing.
Giving yourself when you can no longer really connect you with another and encourages him to open up and give in turn. In love we must give what we do not have, if we no longer have it. And then, as in the Gospel, this nothingness is transformed, and there is enough bread and fish for everyone.
How long can you give of yourself without it completely turning you into zero? Sometimes it's better to stop if the other one doesn't answer you in kind...
Self-giving is a voluntary act, it is not dependence on another, it is not slavery. You are not required to do it. By self-giving I do not abolish myself, but find myself anew and am enriched by the way of being of another. And having possessed, I abolish myself. Some people are more comfortable letting others have them. This is the case of many women today who go so far as to allow themselves to be enslaved. Their husbands beat them, they suffer, but they are afraid to choose a different path, preferring security. They experience absurd suffering, which is not even salutary. This is some kind of laziness. They refuse responsibility for their decisions and prefer only to execute. But they will never evolve like that.
"When God sends you love,
this does not mean that He sends you love too.”
Not everyone has extraordinary love. Is this our fault? Is it up to us to experience great love, or is it a gift from God?
Meeting a specific person depends on the will of God. But how we react to this meeting is up to us
God has a clear path for everyone. There are no coincidences. Meeting a specific person depends on the will of God. But how we react to this meeting is up to us. Every person we meet along the way is a gift from God, and each time we must ask ourselves: “Why did God judge me to meet this person? What can I make of this relationship? What should I understand? What benefit can you get?”
Then, let's not confuse infatuation with love. When God sends you love, this does not mean that He is already sending you great love in a ready-made form. Falling in love is just a deposit from God. If you spend it out of ignorance, you will never achieve true love.
It may not seem big at first, but love, if you work on it, grows more and more. Love is not a feeling, but a force. God is not flesh, and yet He calls Himself love. So, love is not flesh!
Of course, this component, the carnal one, is included in love, but it is not entirely reducible to it. Love is enormous strength man, received from above, a power that each individual must release and cultivate. I say “release” because most often we love ourselves, and then the love is locked in us, it rotates in a circle. This love is selfish, it is directed towards oneself, instead of being free and not asking for anything in return.
- Is true love always free?
Yes, true love affirms the freedom of the other. Doesn't try to master it. The biggest mistake here is when one tries to change the other, to adjust him to his taste. When you love, you need to get out of yourself in the sense of trying to feel the other, understand the other, see the world through his eyes. If you trample on his freedom, his self-preservation instinct will work. And he will withdraw into himself. He will be wary of you, he will feel that he is being pressured.
In a relationship there should be a balance between closeness and distance. We must keep the secret of another, and not scatter it to the wind. Don’t try to rummage through every corner of his soul, don’t crush flowers with an excavator. Rudeness and impudence destroy the secret of another.
This experience of losing oneself is sometimes painful: it means leaving a safe position, leaving the comfort of one's own way of being, accepting the way of being of another. But this is the only way you can expand, enrich yourself and transform love into a path of knowledge. If you remain within yourself, you remain very poor. Moreover, at some point it turns out that everyone has turned their backs on you. You get lonely.
- Is it then necessary to increase tolerance in love?
We should be practicing otherness, not tolerance. Tolerance is a kind of condescension towards something that does not suit you: you assume that the other has some flaws that you, in your generosity, ignore. That is, tolerance presupposes pride. Meanwhile, in love you are not given the right to consider your way of existence better than the way of existence of another, you cannot demand from the other that he change, but you must demand from yourself to tolerate the other.
In love, you should not be concerned with your own good - you should give yourself to the service of another, your concern should be his development. Its goal is not to decorate you, not to make you feel more beautiful and better. Love, experienced correctly, changes everything for the better in any case. The fact that I give myself completely, that I find myself sacrificing, encourages the other to correct himself, to become aware of himself, and changes him for the better.
Father Theophilus (Pareyan) said that love never counts and love always counts. How to understand this?
Father Theophilus (Pareyan) said that love never counts and love always counts. How to understand this? After all, she never calculates what she gives in order to attract the attention of another: “Look how much I did for you, and now you give me the same amount.” And at the same time, he constantly calculates how much he receives in order to be able to give more. This is true love.
Sometimes, no matter how much you do for another, he remains indifferent and does not give you even a crumb of love for it. How do you know who deserves you to give everything to them?
The natural order of things is not to enter into a relationship until you are sure about it. The potential of feelings and love needs to be preserved until you find a person with whom you really agree, with whom you will approach each other primarily spiritually, and not carnally.
When a normal person met another normal person and sacrifices himself to the end, he manages to defeat the other with love, even if the other loves less. The love of one, with its perseverance, can save the love of another. I know of many cases of miraculous restoration of relationships that were on the verge of collapse, and then became stronger and deeper than before. People need to learn to appreciate crises.
However, there is also a trap here. If you settle on a person, you risk losing everything. And if you always have God in your mind, you will find enough people around who deserve that you give everything to them, without fear that you might make a mistake. No person on his own deserves you to give everything to him. Because this man is not the ultimate reality, but God who is in him is. Ultimately, through man, we actually give ourselves to God.
“If it doesn’t come to a wedding, it means
that God was left out of the equation"
- What then is the meaning of family life?
Relationships and family life are just the framework within which we express ourselves and improve. We practice love, this ability to get out of ourselves in order to become transparent, so that God can fully manifest Himself in us, and we would achieve mutual penetration into each other, we could love more and more. Only if we practice openness do we become wide vessels, able to receive much more than another. And then, through his medium, I can love all people, all nature and all animals, I can accommodate the entire creation of God in my heart. By practicing communication with others, we prepare for communication with everyone, which will take place in the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Do souls exist - soul mates? People around whom everything becomes much easier?
There are, but there are several of them. There is no one person you are destined to be with. But there are a few people in this world with whom you fit very well together. Just because you met one of them and, unknowingly, the love ran its course, does not mean that you will remain alone for the rest of your life. Just like the fact that you have met a soul - your soul mate, does not guarantee that this love will continue if you do not perform its virtues. Without people matching each other, love is impossible. But the coincidence of halves is only a spark. It does not guarantee the eternity of feelings. You don't deserve anything you didn't work for! (Laughs.)
On the contrary, it often happens that this kind of love exhausts itself faster, because everything is fine there and no one makes any effort. Some kind of satisfaction is achieved, since the other perfectly meets my needs, and I - his, and then each loves himself, through the other.
- Is this how jealousy and possessive feelings are born?
Jealousy is self-love through another. If you are jealous, then you do not truly love the other, but believe that you have rights to the other, but someone is encroaching on them. You are afraid that someone will come and take it away from you. But no one has the right to confiscate someone else from you! This distorted love with jealousy and suffering, which makes a person blind and deprives him of his mind, is demonic love. She bewitches in her own way, is very emotional, has excessive eroticism, but causes an incredible amount of suffering, abolishes you as a person. You think you sacrificed yourself by suffering, but in reality you were possessed. Real love, Divine, affirms and does not destroy. She's like a clear sky. There is no confusion and darkness in it.
Today, more and more people are choosing a free form of love. They no longer get married, and sometimes they don’t even live together, but for all that they love each other and live in harmony. Is it a sin to do this?
Love that does not involve responsibility and sacrifice is not real. This is opportunistic love that does not reach maturity. In fact, in such cases they do not reach true love, but remain in the phase of falling in love. If it doesn't come to a wedding, it means God has been left out of the equation. Without Divine grace, man is finite, and his love lasts only for a while. Those who choose this path want a love in which there is nothing to lose, but only to gain. They want to take something that is easy to acquire and always be free in case something more attractive comes along.
When you are in unhappy love, you often think that there could be someone who would love you more, who would understand you better...
This way of looking at things is a consequence of the technicist way of thinking. “A product becomes obsolete the moment an improved version is released.” (Laughs.) That is, it is falling out of use. But people do not go out of use; they are in constant development. It is necessary to deepen and dig the appropriate relationships in order to reach new and new depths. And even if opportunities arise for more good relations, even if we get to know people who seem more suitable to us, we should not change the person. We cannot begin a thousand paths, because this way we will never reach the end.
You cannot endlessly remake yourself according to the models of other women or men, because you wear out like a part, you get to the point where you lose all shape. You think that you have gained experience, enriched your way of being, having a lot love relationship, but in fact you have lost yourself and no longer know what you really are.
In love, as in profession, it is very important to be constant. You can't be a doctor for three years, then an actor for another three, and then after another three years start preparing to become a football player. We must move on. Because the dead end to which you have come in a relationship with another is primarily yours, not the other’s. God intended it for you so that you could overcome yourself and evolve. By cheating on a person, you are running away from yourself, running away from becoming. And the obstacle will appear again, in a different form, no matter who is next to you.
“Nothing happens without sacrifice, without the principle of the Cross”
Why is loyalty so important? I know people who say they love their partners even though they cheat on them from time to time, but that it doesn't matter as long as feelings aren't the focus.
They are deceiving themselves. It is very bad to use others for your erotic needs. In reality, you are using yourself. You are stagnating. Without loyalty you cannot reach deeper levels. This is the only way you can develop. Meanwhile, if you allow yourself some alternatives, it means that you are not inclined to overcome the barrier, that you want to bypass it.
If you refuse the alternative, then you no longer hesitate, overcome the crisis and see what potential there is in you and in others. And you gained more and became richer than before. You reach another level of love - this is purified and very deep love, not reduced to just carnal love.
Little effort means little becoming, it means running away from self-realization. You see, nothing happens without sacrifice, without the principle of the Cross. The sacrifice on the Cross is the window to the Resurrection.
Saint Maximus the Confessor said that in creation everything is required to be in accordance with the cross. This is how God's love for us is manifested. Because such is our fallen state, such is the consequence of the Fall. Nothing is given to us if we don't sacrifice anything. And love is also a sacrifice. You sacrifice your “I” in order to bring the “I” of another closer to you. This is self-denial. Sacrifice gives depth to any relationship. It seals love.
Falling in love is easy, but loving is very difficult. You are running from the cross - you are running from the resurrection, you are running from joy, you are running from true love! It is impossible without a cross. Without the cross, the path is easy and convenient. But, unable to suffer with joy, to fill suffering with meaning, we actually run away from life. And everything we get is second hand. All the joys of love are diluted. Everything we feel is pale.
- Why are love sufferings one of the most painful?
Because a person, by loving, opens up and becomes deep. And then he receives blows right to the core of his being.
If love was with God, but the other still leaves, God will not remain in debt. He will come and fill the voids, because you did not love only the one who left, but also the God in him. You can only be truly broken after a breakup if you don't have God. If you loved wrongly, if you were obsessed with your loved one.
Sometimes after great love we no longer have the courage to move on, to reveal our soul again. How to heal the wounds caused by the suffering of love?
Father Theophilus (Pareyan) said that suffering is a great mystery. You explain it to yourself theoretically in vain - your heart continues to ache. And any external advice remains just as external. Only God can heal such wounds if He sees fit.
However, some of them do not need to be healed at all. Sometimes your heart can only take so many open wounds. Man's capacity to suffer is very great. Yes, we don’t need to be obsessed with the wound healing so that we forget everything. Failure in love does not need to be emotionally abolished. You can lead another relationship with a wound in your heart. And with several wounds in the heart. God somehow gives you the strength to love again. We must move forward, have the courage to open up again, accept (the wounds) again. You can't stop.
"Happiness is earned every day"
- Some people seem to be given only suffering for the rest of their lives...
You need to understand that this is like a game between you and God. Suffering actually hides God's love for you. And then you begin to find meaning in every suffering. Without God, everything ends in great absurdity. And the smallest suffering knocks you off your feet. You no longer understand anything and reach the point where you put an end to your days. And with God, even the greatest suffering is full of meaning and is always accompanied by joy. You should never forget that God loves you and tests you. He tests because he wants to give you something. But give it for some price! You have to earn the gift, you have to rise spiritually to a level where you can accept it. To the next level of the game. In any case, the gift is much greater than the suffering you go through to achieve it.
God cannot give to us freely, for then He would strangle us with His love, crush our being, and would not allow us to flourish freely. God, when he loves, tempts us like silver in a furnace. Because he wants to extract from us the purest essence.
- What to do to be happy?
We must go in search of the truth of love, search with all our might. Let us not search in vain, on the surface, but let us give ourselves completely, to all people and, through them, to God. And give in for the rest of your life.
Happiness is not something given. Happiness is becoming
There is real happiness. And it is here on earth. It is nothing more than the path along which we move forward. Only to the extent that we know how to give, we will receive. Because God sometimes torments us, but also rewards us beyond measure. Plays with us, encourages us to want more, to want more for ourselves, to become something O greater.
Happiness is not something given, not an easy gain, not a fossil that suddenly falls on you. Static happiness would crush us with its terrible boredom. Happiness is earned, it is acquired every day. It is a constant ascension, a dynamic, constantly adapting to our needs. Happiness is becoming.
Love makes you create and enjoy every day. She is always welcome, and her disappearance is heartbreaking. She is strong and elusive. You can't force yourself to love, no matter how much you want to. Her appearance is unpredictable and inexplicable. And although so much has been written about it, and so many people have experienced this wonderful feeling, still few of us understand what love is. Maybe that's why she's so desirable and demanding careful attitude, because it still remains a secret behind seven locks.
Signs of true love
If you look at the divorce statistics, it immediately becomes clear that the majority of the fair sex do not even know what love is. Many have the opinion that this is passion and constant courtship on the part of a man. When the period of falling in love passes, and passion begins to fade, and the partner stops constantly complimenting and giving flowers and gifts, disappointment sets in. Romance is replaced by everyday life when two lovers begin to live together.
You have to look after and take care so that the house is always cozy and clean. Money problems arise, since new goals and objectives require investments, especially if you don’t have your own home, and you really want to have a child. A man becomes more demanding and irritable or completely stops paying attention, getting tired at work. It is during this period that passion is replaced by love, which allows you to survive any difficulties. If it was not there, soon life together becomes unbearable, and the couple breaks up.
Only when two people really love each other are they ready for any difficulties, realizing that if they do not fight them together, their feelings will fade away, and everything that connected them will disappear, and they will only be left with emptiness and pain. After all, love is the desire to help, support, and do something nice. There is no place for envy, mistrust or jealousy. She calms and forgives, cares and warms when the whole world is against you. There are no difficulties that loving person won't help you survive. When they love, they do not think about themselves, any words and actions are spoken and performed in such a way as not to offend or harm the loved one.
True love is always mutual, everything else is just an appearance. Falling in love is a fleeting passion. Crazy relationships are attraction and nothing more. A relationship with a person who does not value you is a pity for him or a desire to prove to someone that everything is fine with you too, and you are no worse, but all this has nothing to do with love. It’s not for nothing that it is written “Love others as yourself.” Love is the ability to treat another as yourself, to care, help and feel their pain as if it were your own.
No matter what happens, a woman who loves is always there. She will support you in word and deed, give hope that everything will be fine, sacrifice herself and stand shoulder to shoulder. She is not afraid of any problems if her only one is in a difficult situation. She will find the strength to tear him out or leave him alone if he does not want to deal with his problems, forgetting about his love for her.
A representative of the fair sex who knows how to love herself will not allow herself to waste money and look for relationships in which there is no respect and love for each other. She is not going to prove anything to anyone, knowing full well that love is a gift. And if you live for others, then you will never meet your one and only, trying to prove to others how successfully and on time you got married. Therefore, a woman who respects and loves herself has the mental strength to wait for fate to give her a meeting with her beloved man, and not agree to a relationship with the first one who suggested dating.
Those who are unable to love are doomed to live a life of pain, suffering, disappointment and difficulty. Only love for oneself, for those who are dear to us, for the world in which we live, can give a chance to survive any difficulties that life presents. Anyone who respects and loves himself finds the strength to learn from bitter lessons and correct mistakes, realizing that he is not worthy of problems. The one who has given up on himself, agreeing with his own low self-esteem and the fact that he is not worthy of being happy, cannot fight problems, sinking lower and lower. He is deeply convinced that he is worthy of the life that he has and he should not count on more. Until such people learn to love themselves, their lives will continue to be filled with troubles and disappointments.
How to recognize love: signs of true love
- Love does not exist without mutual respect. She does not accept neglect, arrogance and pride. You cannot talk about love if one of the partners allows himself to be loved, and the other completely dissolves in him. Real feelings require a person to give more than to receive. He does not ask for anything in return and does not try to please the chosen one in everything. Understanding that disrespect for yourself is disrespect for your partner. After all, everyone wants to see a strong person nearby.
- Those who prefer to constantly insult a woman, point out her shortcomings, criticize and be offended by everything she does are not capable of love. For them, a representative of the fair sex is only an object to satisfy their desires and an opportunity, due to her humiliation, to feel higher and more successful. In such relationships, not only the partner is to blame. The woman herself allowed herself to be treated this way, not putting him in his place in time and not finding the strength within herself to part with him.
- The choice of such men is associated with deep internal problems that were not resolved in time. Representatives of the fair sex may unwittingly repeat the fate of their parents, who were unhappy in their marriage and forgot to instill self-respect in her, focusing only on sorting things out. It becomes normal for her to feel like a victim in a relationship, as long as there is a partner nearby, even if he does not love or respect her. She continues to endure all his unseemly actions in order not to be left alone. But this is not love, but an attempt to avoid difficult work on oneself, which will force one to change and start a full life with another man.
- You can't love someone else more than yourself. You can't be a victim. You are worthy of love and care, first of all from yourself. Only by learning to value yourself, respect for what you do, and work on what you don’t like in your character, can you understand what love really is. By hurting you, a man thereby demonstrates his true feelings. He does not experience love, he enjoys his own superiority and power. When a person loves, he wants his beloved to be on a pedestal, and he can admire her.
- You can recognize a real feeling by a person’s deeds, not by his beautiful words . At the same time, you yourself will not demand worship from him and all the riches of the world at your feet. After all, when you love yourself, you will not demand the impossible from yourself. This means that when you experience real feelings, you will want to give more than you receive, but you will not allow yourself to be used.
- Run away from those who are trying to instill in you a feeling of inferiority and lower your self-esteem to nowhere. A person can never be happy if he gives up self-love. He will forever remain dependent on others, and when their interest or love fades away, the world around him will turn into continuous suffering.
- Love comes in different forms. But she will never require a person to sacrifice his interests. It brings joy, makes you look at the world with gratitude and joy, and not with hatred. Relieves pain and suffering, heals the soul and gives faith. If the feeling you are experiencing does not make you or your partner feel the same way, it is not love.
Trying to understand for yourself what love is gives you a chance to keep this feeling alive. for many years, if you are already happy in your personal life, or meet your prince on a white horse, if this has not happened yet. The ability to love is vital when a representative of the fair sex does not want to feel the pain that love has disappeared from her life. After all, this is not only passion, but also care, affection, attention, empathy and compassion. Love is multifaceted and unpredictable, it does not require actions dictated by crazy passion, but wants a person to become better than he was, showing all his best. best qualities, which he has and which will appear if he does not want love to leave him forever.
True love, no matter for a man, woman, children, parents or friend, is devoid of selfishness. And this does not mean at all that you should sacrifice something for the sake of someone, forgetting about yourself and putting the interests of the object of your love above all else. Without loving yourself, you will never be able to truly love someone. True love, devoid of selfishness, does not speak of self-sacrifice, but of the ABSENCE OF CLAIM FOR RIGHT OWNERSHIP.
What does it mean? This means that when you love flowers, you don’t pick them up to put them in your home and watch how slowly but surely the life leaves them; loving animals, you will not buy meat in the store and put it in the oven in anticipation of a delicious dinner; loving nature, you will not light fires in it, breaking the branches of trees in which life has been growing for years.
Many people often say the word “love” without even realizing what meaning is attached to these words.
People often confuse love with the desire to possess. And this differs from love as black from white, as the sky from the earth, as the moon from the sun.
True love, this is not something that just comes on its own, suddenly falling on our heads, like melting ice from glaciers. Love is something that needs to be learned. It is not enough to experience certain feelings. It’s not enough to feel how quickly your heart beats and wings grow behind your back.
Learn to love. Learn to love without desire for the right to possess. Imagine snow-capped mountain peaks in all their majestic beauty. You enjoy watching them. You like to breathe in the fresh mountain air. You enjoy the natural, virgin splendor that they give you. You love mountains and contemplate them without desire for the right to possess them. You don't want to become the king of these mountains, do you? You are not obsessed with the idea that these mountains should be only yours and that no living creature besides you will be able to admire them in the same way? You don’t even think about whether the mountains themselves love you. If this is so, then this is TRUE LOVE. Bring this into your life! Transfer this attitude to your husband, wife or children. Try to love for real. Remove selfishness from your life! Try to love without the desire to dominate. Then you will have nothing to lose, then you will have nothing to fear, then you will have peace, you will be free.
Selfishness and love are incompatible, just as light cannot be combined with darkness. Selfishness crowds out love. He makes it impossible. “I will love you if you love me”, “I love you because you are good”, “I love you because I feel good with you” - there are no such oppositions in love. Love is total, true love has no limits.
Have you noticed how we try to change people? Husband, wife, children, friends. We impose our opinion, we consider ourselves right, we consider ourselves smarter, wiser, more experienced, we impose our worldview. This is wrong, even with the best intentions. You can't force change. This is impossible without human desire.
A person who knows how to love will never be left alone. A person who knows how to love will support life. As you fill the world with true, genuine love, you will receive it in return.
I could be with you
I could forget about everything
I could love you...
- But it's just a game!
(song of the group “Aria”)
Ah, love - love..! There is not a single person in the world who would not be concerned about it - and not theoretically, but very personally! But, paradoxically, the word "Love" everyone uses it, but ask “What is love?”- and almost no one can explain it clearly... This is despite the fact that so much has been written about love and even more works of art have been created - this topic inspires creators, perhaps more than any other.
To get something started, let’s take a look at Wikipedia, which reflects, perhaps, the most general idea about love:
Love- a feeling characteristic of a person, deep attachment to another person or object, a feeling of deep sympathy.
Love is also considered as a philosophical category, in the form of a subjective relationship, an intimate selective feeling aimed at the object of love.
Yeah, it’s a bit stingy... "Feelings of affection and sympathy, selectively directed", but what is it characterized by? - Both affection and sympathy can have different reasons and motives. For some reason, it always seemed to me that one of the main differences between true love is its infinity in time, which I later found confirmation in a very authoritative source.
And it also seems to me that Love must transform a person into better side and lead him to - after all, she is so often considered and even “the main creative force in the universe”? That’s how “romantic” I am! :) But, first things first.
Love is like a feeling
Once, while re-reading the classics, I was surprised to discover that in our classical literature There are no cases where strong love has a happy ending. Fairy tales from the Arabian Nights and our fairy tales often end with optimistic words: “And they lived happily ever after and died on the same day”.
But these are fairy tales, but here are our literary geniuses, recognized by experts human soul and those who claim the realism of their creations talk about strong love completely different. Remember, from Shakespeare to Pushkin - at least one story of great and passionate love ended well? Either lovers never unite for some reason, or they unite after overcoming many obstacles, but they do not live happily - someone will definitely die, for example. Maybe I missed something? You can give an example from the classics so that "lived happily ever after"?
It seems to me that it is not without reason that our geniuses are so unanimous on this issue. And they wanted to tell us something, to warn us about something... Question - What? First, let's look at what they describe, how Love , and what, from their light pen, do many consider love?
And they describe some all-consuming feeling, reminiscent of a painful obsession, characterized by the fact that the desire to be with a loved one becomes more important for the lover than anything in the world, even life itself... He suffers terribly in separation from his beloved and is incredibly happy together, and these emotions can push him even to commit crimes “in the name of love "
This passionate attraction is usually combined with a romantic idealization of the beloved, which acquires downright religious features - he (she) is attributed features of perfection and is worshiped as a god.
It is this characteristic feeling that is familiar to almost everyone and is considered love. As we know today, it can occur not only between a man and a woman, but is always hormonal. And those who survived it know that it goes away after some time - a person “recovers” from it, like from an illness. The time it takes for everyone is different and the scars remain, but the fact is that this feeling passes. Which is not surprising: any feeling cannot last long - such is the nature of feelings. But what about infinity, “eternity” then? true love?
There is an opinion that hormonal romantic attraction is just "love" characterized by selfish desire "possession" object as opposed to "love" who is sacrificial and forgets herself for the sake of her beloved. But the features of sacrifice are clearly visible in drug addiction. love addiction , which is based not only on hormones, but also on deeply hidden and unhealthy psychological factors. And what a sacrifice!
We have already talked in detail about addiction and what to do with it in the article - you can take a look. It seems that this is exactly the kind of love that the heroes of our literature experienced. Yes, this addiction is much stronger and may last much longer, but in general it sick! “These are serious mental problems that give rise to a painful fixation on one person. If those doctors who included “love” in the directory of diseases had it in mind, then they are absolutely right!
So, love-feeling, as in the easy version "falling in love", and in heavy - "dependencies" always accompanied by the fact that a person "out of my mind", the fact that this feeling passes, and, of course, suffering. No wonder in the Russian language the word "passion" originally had exactly this meaning - "suffering". That’s why people who have experienced such “love” are often disappointed in it and either declare that they “don’t believe in love” or close the doors and windows of their souls so that this misfortune will never visit them again. And they do it right!
What is good about a disease that deprives a person of himself and makes him suffer? There is one plus here - the intense suffering that accompanies such “love” can motivate a person to think and grow, but it is the suffering, and not this feeling itself. It seems to me that this is not love at all, but its counterfeit, which is perhaps what the classics are hinting at. What do you think?
Love as energy and state
Now books and trainings have become fashionable, mainly for women who teach their followers "to be filled with love". The very verbs which are applied to love in such teachings indicate that they consider "Love" some "energy", which, like any energy, is measurable quantitatively, can be accumulated and spent and is absolutely impersonal - not only the object on which it is poured, but also the subject who is filled with it, for it is simply a vessel or carrier.
The accumulation of such “love” occurs with the help of very specific techniques — complete psycho-mechanics! Those who successfully complete such trainings begin to feel an overwhelming bliss and goodwill towards everything and everyone that pours or radiates around them. And he likes himself, and is ready to kiss everyone!
There is nothing wrong with this, but he is absolutely not ready to be compassionate, for example. His “good” is so valuable to him that he tries to emotionally avoid anything that could disturb his bliss. He has to constantly maintain himself in a state of “love” through special practices, because at times reality, in the form of life problems, still overtakes him, at least at first. Again, there is no talk of any personal or moral growth - all concern is about maintaining oneself "able".
Probably, both for the person and for those around him, it is better for him to be in such a blissful state than for him to whine and be irritated. But what does that have to do with Love, if we know that love is still a “subjective, selective attitude”? Perhaps this state was called so because in our language there is no suitable word for it, or because it has some similarities with what happens in happy moments of love-feelings - the desire to love the whole world.
Such books and trainings are based either on Eastern mystical teachings, and they have so much another a view of life and man that it is almost impossible to find analogues for their concepts in our culture. But still, to call this mysterious energy and state "love", in my opinion, it is impossible - if only because of their impersonality.
However, even without Eastern practices it often happens that a person is not looking for another person, but for himself. state falling in love. This state is also impersonal - it doesn’t matter about whom or next to whom it is experienced. Romantic pleasure and emotional uplift - all these “sighs on a bench and walks under the moonlight” become valuable in their own right. A person dreams about them, dreaming "about love", but not at all about the other person and not about the relationship with him.
When real relationship pose some questions and tasks to him when real another person tries to draw his attention to his existence, then he immediately "disappointed". Our “lover”, who only yesterday swore to “ eternal love”, announces that “the meeting was a mistake”, abandons this relationship and goes to look for problem-free “sighs” with the other (with another). Is this familiar to you? This “romance”, no less than dependence, is sung in many of our poems and songs, and hers too love cannot be named.
What happens? Do all the ideas about love that are common among us turn out to be erroneous and do not point to true love? “At least they don’t satisfy me.” What about you? But so far we have examined the question only “by contradiction”, that is, what love is not.
But then what is “love” and does it even exist? I can reassure you - it exists! But everything doesn’t fit into one article, read the next one. In the meantime, I’m very interested in your opinion: do you agree that what is described here is not love? And if you don’t agree, then why?
If you're interested, you can read the participants' reflections on love competition “What is love?”, which took place on this site from May 8 to June 23, 2013. And of course, don't forget subscribe to updates so you don't miss anything.
We are constantly haunted by the idea that Love- that's the only thing that matters. In his article in the magazine " Family life"Paul Popenoe describes what most people think about romantic love: "Love is an incomprehensible obsession that comes out of nowhere and immediately completely takes over you, like measles. You will recognize it intuitively. If it is a real feeling, you will not have to wonder for long. You will see it, without a doubt. Love is so important that you must to give up everything for her. It is forgivable for a man to leave his wife for the sake of love, for a woman to leave her house and children, for a king to leave his throne. She comes completely unexpectedly, and you cannot do anything. She is not subject to man.” But this is NOT true love! Real love is not like that.
Infatuation really comes out of the blue and you can't do anything about it. But true love is devoted and selfless love. This is what she is holding on to. You might be wondering why you need to know the difference between infatuation and love? The reason is this: knowing the differences will prevent you from making a huge mistake. Every year, millions of couples with shining eyes come to church and solemnly vow love Friend of each other for the rest of our lives. For some of them marriage truly becomes an invaluable acquisition. For others, he is simply tolerable. But for half of these couples, marriage becomes a real disaster. After a short period of time, they begin to realize that they cannot stand it at all. life together. What's the matter? The difference is that some couples base their marriage on true love, while others base their marriage on infatuation, which is false love. Such marriages do not last long. How can you tell the difference? During the Gold Rush, many prospectors thought they had "struck a vein." But later, to their great disappointment, they found out that their find was not real gold, but the worthless mineral pyrite. Pyrite is very similar in appearance to gold, but has no value. It is also called "fool's gold".
Like we said, it is NOT easy to tell the difference between infatuation and true love. In his book "Sex, love or infatuation - how to determine it?" Dr. Ray Short gives some key tips to help a person explore their feeling and determine if it is real gold. love or "fool's gold" - a simple hobby.
We'll look at 12 of these keys, but first let us point out the following: (1) The order of the keys does not matter. Each of them has the same meaning as the others. (2) These keys should not be selectively accepted. You have to take all 12 into account!
Key #1 What attracts you most?
Infatuation: When you are infatuated, you are more likely to become more interested in the other person's physical attributes. beautiful face and a good figure are, of course, very attractive qualities, but appearances can be deceiving. It is like the wrapping paper in which a gift is wrapped. It cannot be used to judge what exactly is inside. Moreover, physical beauty not eternal. Dr. Short says: "Of the dozen school meetings I attended as a young man, I remember only one. 'Young people!' - the speaker said solemnly. - Before marry on a girl because of her pretty face and attractive curves, think about what she will look like at 30, "And that stopped me" ?
True Love: If your love is genuine, you will be interested in the overall personality of your chosen one. Surely, physical attraction will also be present in your feelings, but only along with many other qualities that are attractive to you.
Key No. 2 How many different qualities attract you to this person?
Passion: Usually the number of such qualities is small, but they can have a very strong impact on you. A guy can go crazy with his girlfriend's smiles or sexy walk.
True Love: When you truly love, you like all or most of the qualities in the other person. Each of us has many characteristic features, your judgments and attitudes How many characteristics do you notice in another, and how many of them do you find attractive? This is important because once the initial excitement of marriage wears off, you will need many common interests to keep the marriage going and make it successful.
Key No. 3 How did it start?
Infatuation: Infatuation occurs quickly. There is no such thing as true love at first sight, but there can be infatuation at first sight. As one love song says, “the eyes of the lovers met in the crowd, lightning flashed, and they immediately realized that they were made for each other.” In reality, they could only understand what they had done to each other. good first impression.
True Love: True love always comes slowly. It cannot be otherwise. You have to get to know a person before you can really love them, and that takes time, a lot of time, to really get to know someone. Long-term courtship is much better than short-term courtship. A year is better than six months, two years is better than one, three years is better than two, and four is better than three. Three years? Four? Yes, the statistics on this subject are absolutely clear. But most young couples do not want to wait even a year. They are in a hurry to get married and own experience They are convinced of the truth of the old saying: “If you hurry, you will make people laugh.” If you get married too hastily, you will have plenty of time later to regret it.
Key No. 4 How consistent is your interest?
Passion: When you are passionate, your interest flares and fades. One reason for this is that infatuation occurs too quickly and therefore the roots are not deep. And in general yours relationship superficial.
True love: When you truly love, your feelings They will be warm and tender rather than fluctuating from ardent passion to cold indifference, they will be more constant. True love grows slowly, but its roots run deep.
Key No. 5 How does the feeling affect you?
Infatuation: Infatuation has a disorganizing effect on your personality. Makes you less responsible and efficient. Romantic feelings take over you completely, and you walk around, immersed in dreams. The girl who says, "I know he has flaws, but nothing matters except our love" is infatuated... TEMPORARILY! Once married, she will eventually discover that many other things still matter.
True Love: If your love is genuine, your best qualities come out and you strive to become even better. A guy who really loves says about his girlfriend: "I I love her not only because she is so beautiful, but also because she inspires me to show my best qualities."
Key No. 6 How do you treat others?
Infatuation: When you are infatuated, your entire “universe” revolves around one person. The rest of your relationships seem completely unimportant to you. You are even ready to reject family and friends. Your feeling becomes the most important thing in your life. It is the only thing that matters to you from now on. You think that for the sake of this amazing “love” that has entered your life, you can be forgiven for doing any actions. As we've said before, most hobbies don't last, but the mistakes you make while under the influence often have lifelong consequences.
True Love: When you truly love, your beloved person is the most important person in the world for you, but relationships with family and friends do not lose their importance.
Key No. 7 How do others view your relationship?
Infatuation: What others think of your “lover” is a very important test. When you're infatuated, it's likely that your parents and many of you friends will not approve of this relationship. One of the dangerous aspects of infatuation is that you tend to idolize the other person. You don't see flaws because you are "blinded by love." Yours Friends trying to point out some danger signs, but you ignore them. Your parents lovingly warn you, trying to prevent you from making a big mistake, but you don't listen. Young people sometimes say: “So what? We’re marrying each other, not our family and friends.” You can also adhere to this position, but it is unforgivable stupidity to neglect the advice of people who love you. Over the years of your life, both you and your loved one have developed a certain circle of friends. We all strive to be like those we choose as friends; they become like us. Therefore, your friends are, in a sense, your “mirror”. If you're passionate about someone, your friends often don't share the same feelings. If they see red flags, you should pay attention and listen to their opinion.
True Love: When you truly love, there is a greater chance that your parents and most of your friends will approve of your choice. For God to bless your marriage, the consent and approval of your parents is very important.
Key No. 8 How do breakups affect?
Passion: One of the best tests for feelings is the test of distance. If you are simply infatuated, then time and distance will kill your feeling, “This also explains the breakups of those couples whose main interest was physical attractiveness. Over time, another living person nearby will replace the beloved, who remains only in the photograph.
True love: When you truly love, the absence of your loved one only exacerbates your feeling. True love will definitely stand the test of distance and time. It is based not only on the physical attractiveness of a person, it accepts him entirely as a person. Time spent together helps you grow together. Therefore, during separation, you seem to lose your part. Another person, even a very attractive one, cannot fill the emptiness in your heart. Being at a distance, of course, you may experience anxiety and sadness. You will be worried about the thought: “What if he (or she) meets someone else?” And this can happen. But if your loved one is capable of finding happiness with someone else, then it is better to find out about this before, rather than after, marriage. Therefore, if you are facing separation, accept it and do not worry. If your feeling is only infatuation, and it will not withstand such a test, it is better to find out before it is too late.
Key No. 9 How do disagreements affect feelings?
Infatuation: When you are infatuated, you often fight. You can make peace, but over time, quarrels become more frequent and serious. You become like. two porcupines in the cold. When they are apart, they shake from the cold, but as soon as they press against each other, they prick each other with their needles. “Phil and Alice dated for more than two years. During this time, they quarreled and made up at least once a month. Discord arose over any trifle or imaginary offense. Both acted out terrible jealousy. And then Maria, best friend Alice tried to open their eyes. One day, Alice shared with her the details of the last quarrel and threatened: “Let him just try to get me back! I won’t even talk to him!” “I think you will, Alice,” Maria said to her gently, “but I hope that you will firmly tell him: “Goodbye, Phil, it’s all over.” And then she explained her position to her surprised friend: “You both awaken in each other the worst. You fight because you have nothing else to talk about. Strife, tears and romantic “reconciliations” only relieve you of boredom.
True Love: When you are truly in love, you may have disagreements, but true love survives them and quarrels become less frequent and serious. Every couple must learn how to resolve conflicts. It is much better to discuss differences openly and honestly than to let them fester in the back of your mind.
Key No. 10 How do you view your relationships?
Infatuation: When you are infatuated, you tend to think of yourself and your loved one as two people, and accordingly use pronouns in your thoughts and speech: “I”, “me”, “mine”, “he”, “his” ", or "she", "her". You think of you as two separate individuals. True love: When you really love, you usually use words: “we”, “our”, “us”. You think of you as one. This key may not seem so important when you're just dating, but it's of great importance in marriage. When a marriage is based on passion, husband and wife may find more pleasure in pursuing different interests than in joint activities. The husband may be eager and want to “go out with friends” more than spending time at home with his family. Or the wife will become more interested in her social connections than in her household responsibilities.
In families where true love exists, husband and wife enjoy doing things together. A common response here is: "I don't want to go if you can't go too."
Key No. 11 Are you selfish or selfless?
Infatuation: When you are infatuated, your interest in the other person is mostly selfish. A guy can date a beautiful and noticeable girl only because it flatters his pride and raises his prestige. She may be capricious and spoiled, but since she is the "queen" of the school, he becomes the "king" next to her. Exactly the same young woman can hold guy"on a leash" not because she is really interested in him, but because his devotion raises her value in the eyes of others. True love: When you truly love, you like a person for what he is, not because he can help you prove yourself.
Key No. 12 What is the basis of your feelings?
Passion: Is your goal to find someone who will fully devote his life to making you happy? Do you take care of yourself first? If yes, then you are just infatuated. Yours general position selfish - you care most about what you can get from this relationship.
True Love: Love is selfless and committed. You strive to do whatever it takes to bring joy to others. You are primarily interested in what you can give, not what you can receive.
Evaluate your feeling. Take a sheet of paper and carefully study the keys, starting with the first one. Give an assessment of your feelings for each of them. If you want, the keys can show not only whether your love is real, but also a certain degree of your feelings. In most cases, the clues show a mixture of infatuation and true love. Therefore, rate each key on a ten-point scale. Zero will mean infatuation, and 10 will mean love. For example, when looking at clue #1, you might decide, "To be completely honest, I was mainly interested in physical attractiveness, so I'll give myself two points." If, when examining key No. 7, you see that approximately half of your friends approve of your choice, and half do not, then give yourself five points. When you rate yourself on all twelve keys, add up your points. An overall score of 80 or higher shows that your senses are fairly reliable. For your part, you can believe that your love can become the basis for a successful marriage. But that's only on your part. The person you love must also take this test and score large number points. Love must be mutual. No matter how much you love this person, one-sided love will not help. He should experience the same feelings in return. If you score between 50 and 80 points, you will need more time to see how your relationship develops. If the points scored are less than 50, you are just carried away. So try to keep your heart. First of all, do not complicate your relationship with sexual intimacy and do not rush into marriage. Also note the following: A high score on this test does not necessarily mean that you are ready for marriage. First of all, you may still be too young for marriage, even if you have scored a lot of points. Secondly, even if you are the right age, you may simply not know each other well yet. As we have already said, you need to know each other well for at least two years before you think about marriage.