Selfish Love/ Selfless Love

''Nit khair manga soneya main teri, dua na koi hor mangdi'' 

(I always ask for your wellness, there is no other prayer in my heart) ~ Sufi Song sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Sufi songs overflow with Love, where singers and poets talk of their piya (Beloved) and their unending quest to be reunited with their Supreme Lover, which is their Spiritual Master or God. These poets never aimed to be famous, but simply sang the song of their heart, and here we are centuries later, still humming these words. Such is the power of the Heart and the ocean of Love within it.

It is a well established fact now, that we all, every one of us, is looking for Love. It does however make me wonder, how many of us are looking to get Love and how many looking to give Love. THAT is the question. We look for Love so we can get Love, appreciation, praise, care. We give so we can get. Seldom do we give for the joy of giving. Thus, we fail to see that the 'Love' we think we fall in, is a selfish Love, which in truth cannot exist since Love by virtue is selfless. When we realise that the joy of Love is within it's giving, within it's flow and the purpose of Love within it's fulfillment, we will connect with True Love. A Godly Love, wherein the presence of Love itself is so overwhelming and powerful that you only pray for the wellness of your Beloved. Such a Love draws more Love unto itself, and we realise that, that which we crave for in a 'selfish' Love, we graciously receive in a 'selfless' Love, as a 'by-product' of giving. This evokes awe, wonder and deep gratitude for Love, the Lover and the Beloved for no longer now do they exist as three entities, but only One. 

Rumi beautifully says that the purpose of Love is total annihilation, complete destruction of self. It burns this house you call your own, to show you the wonder that exists beyond these physical and tangible forms. Love does not cage you into self, but frees you into abundance and selfless joy. Till you reach that madness, he says, call not your needy emotions Love. :)

When you truly breathe the essence of Love, you are so awakened that everything flows out of your being just as effortlessly as it flows into it. In the current of this flow, the selfish 'me' is destroyed and gone, from the ashes of which a New Love is Born.

• © Sneha Singh 2010

Welcome

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival. 

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor. 

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight. 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. 

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond. 

From Essential Rumi, by Coleman Barks

I've read this verse by Rumi over and over again in the past few days, and it made me aware of how I welcome joy, smiles and happiness but become laden with sorrow the moment things appear to start entering an unfavourable situation. The mind automatically starts judging and analysing, creating and spinning stories and outcomes which are often just as fleeting as the thoughts that give birth to them. 

I read once, that if we truly try to befriend everything and everyone that comes along, joy will never leave us. If we can understand what an important role sadness, solitude and disappointment play in our lives, we would never resist them or oppose them, but instead welcome their lessons with the same love as we welcome happy moments and contentment. For the minute we understand that they're all just different forms of a Teacher that has come to impart divine knowledge to us, all our resistance to it will disappear.

Just as the Rumi verse says, we have to learn to let pain in just as warmly as we open our doors for happiness. In 'A New Earth' by Eckhart Tolle, the writer explains that when you truly befriend that which gives you pain, you overcome it. It no longer hurts or serves you. You transcend it. Welcome and love pain as a guide of what it has been sent to make you aware of within yourself - that is the real challenge, not overcoming the pain itself or resisting its transformation into resentment or anger. For every wound that hurts can only be healed by showing it some Love. :)

• © Sneha Singh 2010

All there is.

One day, this world will fall apart
As beings all over will break open 
Lashed with sorrow and hatred,  
Tired of circumstance and battle.  
And that day, through visible cracks 
In bodies and buildings, 
Light will unveil itself. 
That day, you and I,  
We all will know, that, 
Love is all there is.  


We can spend our days, running away, and running toward what the world tricks us into believing will make us happy. Or we can take a moment of silence and listen to our hearts and let its divine wisdom lead the way.  

We can argue and blame, create stories and defenses or we can take a moment of silence and open ourselves to accepting reality for what it is, and dissolve all internal resistance to it.  

We all know our need of Love but often look at ourselves as a separate from another human being, with a 'special' set of needs. But the moment we see that it is the very existence of this 'need' of Love that joins us as beings. That, Love in its essence is so beautiful that it does not need language, and is recognised by all beings, everywhere!  

A deep realisation of that, and you'll never snap out of awe and wonder for the God who created us in Love.

© Sneha Singh 2010

Letting Love direct your course

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. - Khalil Gibran, The Prophet.

So really, how often do we let Love take it's course? And how often to we warp it, knead it, bend it according what gives us pleasure? Isn't the whole idea of Love not giving us peace and joy at all times a little absurd? Isn't that the very nature of Love - to fill us with joy at every waking moment, for the joy of true Love is never ending, unfathomable, uncontrollable and incomprehensible? And yet, we wrap Love into layers of longing, jealously, sorrow and tears. But to understand that they too are a part of Love, which is there to direct your course and guide you into patience - that is the mission of Love. It teaches one surrender, not unto another human being, but unto Love itself, unto God Himself. Love as an energy has been designed with such beauty that it gives us the chance to awaken to its reality every moment. Every moment, we can flow into the beauty of Love or we can intellectually analyse what we're gaining by being in Love. The very Nature of Love is to shine - just like the stars and the sun. It is the seed, the root and needs no anchor to sustain. So if we let Love flow, trusting its intelligence, how can it be wrong? In the midst of disappointment, we automatically get overcome by insecurity rather than learning to trust that there is a reason why the given moment is of such a nature - may it be good or bad. The choice to welcome and allow love to be dominant at all times is difficult, especially when we live in a world surrounded by conflicting emotions and constant drama. If only we remember, each moment to keep going back to the constant Seed within us, the root of us, the very energy that created us - Love.

• © Sneha Singh 2010

Born Again

You feel angry, and then you tire. 

You feel hateful, and then you tire. 

You feel let down, and then you tire.

You feel resentment, and then you tire.

You feel helpless, and then you tire.

You feel alone, and then you tire.

You feel tired, and then you tire.

And, then, at the end, from that tiredness

A peace is born.

When you know, you are enveloped by something bigger than the trivial ongoings within your small head.

When, what you thought gave you joy, only stroked your pleasure nerves, a source so temporary, an illusion unveiled.

And from that, a Love sprouts open from its shell of insecurities, judgement and justifications.

A Love that peels away your layers of fear. 

One layer at a time.

And there you shine, 

A new plant, 

Born out of Love.

• © Sneha Singh 2010