Love or attachment?

Are we able to distinguish between love and attachment? Have we ever considered this?

The inspiration for this article came from a discussion the author had with his wife. Yesterday, after driving back home from a wedding, the author's wife mentioned that she noticed how some people find it challenging to have (or to accept) a friendship between ex-lovers or partners, because there was never really love, but actually only attachment.

This is so relevant and true, that the author thought it would be worthwhile writing a short article on this topic.

In general, we say that we love each other. We love our friends, family, and so on. We even go as far as saying we love food, we love wine, or a TV show. We use this word so often, but do we actually understand what it implies, or has the word lost its meaning, due to being used so casually? Further, are we actually experiencing love in our hearts, or is this just an experience of attachment, a feeling we thrive on for personal satisfaction? Let's go into this a bit deeper.

Attachment. What does this mean? Attachment could mean that we cling to things, be these ideas, people, materialistic items, or something else. We cling to things, because of how they make us feel. It is not about the item itself, but about how we feel about it. We experience moments of joy through something, and then we want to hold on to this sense of joy, of happiness, because is this not what all of us are looking for? Happiness?

So, we experience some short-lived moments of happiness through something, and then our need for constant happiness makes us cling to this thing, whatever this may be. We want something, for the sake of our own happiness.

How do we love each other? 

As with absolutely everything in existence, whatever we cling to is bound to change, bound to impermanence. So, by being attached to something, we are guaranteed to suffer. Why? Because the item we are attached to depends on a set of other conditions to exist. It is not solid or permanent from its own side. As soon as these conditions change, the object we impute our happiness on also changes. Thus, the very thing we are clinging to is dissolving in the way we see it and therefore leaves us with disappointment and suffering.

Think of this, concerning a person we say we love. Do we truly, unconditionally love this person, or are we simply saying that we 'love' this person, because of things this person does that makes us happy or brings us joy? Consider this for a moment... we can ask ourselves the question "Why do I love him or her?" If our answer has anything to do with the fact that this person does something for us, we might want to reconsider whether this is true love, or attachment to the feeling of satisfaction this person brings us.

When we say we love someone for what they do for us or what they give us, we can be sure that this kind of 'love' will cease to exist, because the conditions for this person to provide us with this 'something' may change at any moment. Thus, we can ask ourselves, was this even really love to begin with? Or was it merely a transaction of items in exchange for short-lived moments of happiness?

The author read a quote somewhere, saying something similar to the following; "Love someone in such a way that they feel free". This may not be the exact words, but it went something like that.

When we love someone, we want them to experience unconditional love from our side. Not a kind of love that requires them to do something in return. Even when someone does absolutely nothing for us, and we know that they have nothing to offer us, but we still feel love for them, that is truly unconditional love. Unconditional, because even though this person is not directly benefiting us or harming us, we simply feel that we are loving them. When this person benefits us, we will be thankful, but the love will remain constant, not increase. When this person harms us, the love will also remain and not cease. Is this not an unconditional kind of love? 

Now, we may find it hard to simply love people that are not benefiting us. We may ask, why shall we love someone that means absolutely nothing to us? That is not adding to any benefit in our lives, why shall we love them? See... by asking such a question, we are already having a false understanding of love. A kind of 'love' that can only exist when we are benefiting from the situation.

A pure, unconditional love

Loving everyone is not easy, but when we realize that who we are, at our cores, are exactly the same as everyone else, then our perceptions shift. Because we see that we are all connected, we are all in this together, we are all 'one', how can we not love everyone? Think about this...

Keeping all of this in mind, we can go back to the beginning of this article. How, in general, people find it difficult to remain friends with their ex-partners, or how some of us find it hard to accept that our loved ones are still friends with their ex-partners. Have we experienced this?

When we understand what love really is, we know that it goes far beyond what we see as romance or being 'in love'. Love has nothing to do with attachment, desire, or romance. Love is pure. By keeping this in mind, we can save ourselves from a lot of suffering that we experience through jealousy and attachment. We can really love our partners, friends, families, and strangers, unconditionally, without attachment. In return, we can allow them to love others too, unconditionally.

Imagine such a reality :)

A photo I took of a mother feeding her child, reminding me of unconditional love.
Photo taken at Maitri clinic in Bihar, 2018.