4 - Love

"Love clarifies ambiguity. Love heals pain, but it must be based on understanding."

(A free rendering of Jelal-ud-din Rumi's poem:  II, 1530)

Yes, we all nurture wounds deep down. When lovingly tendered, these may simply leave a scar. Somewhere in our psyche is the chipped pottery, or as Shams Tabriz says, "The palace in a ruin."  It is also the masterpiece in the making. The flaws in an antique are a guarantee of authenticity and may carry their particular charm, if not too devastated. That ongoing work of artistry that is our personality is worth all our efforts in working with it, for the same pain that can blemish our personality can act as a creative force, burnishing it into an object of delight.

Our personal version or concept of pain acts destructively upon us when we wallow in it and fail to see the pain of the one we think is causing us this difficulty, particularly when our anger prevents us from working things out with the other. Pain is never an isolated situation; what we look upon as our pain is our participation in a network of pain that may well extend to the whole humanity. The sting of pain is in the isolation in which we tend to enclose ourselves in our own self pity:  our self-inflicted loneliness, which refuses to see how the other feels or felt.

As we dig more deeply into our own and the other's conscious and unconscious motivations, each concealing and sometimes precipitating another motivation, we come to realize how ignorance of each other's intentions builds up into a totally phantomized mountain of misassessments, one resting upon the other. As one touches the bottom, where it hurts most, one realizes that the worst pain is caused by being misunderstood, or by misunderstanding the other. Communicating with one another will disclose one's real intentions reciprocally.

Where the probe exposes an intention evidencing a disregard for the other, love is outraged by a feeling of betrayal. The usual outcome is a devalidated self image:  one had suspended one's self esteem so precariously upon being loved and the default of love has let one down! Of course, interests cannot always be in synch; one may entertain conflicting aspirations. But love is standing by one another supportively, guarding each other's pride. When admonishing, Murshid says one should take heed that the thin thread linking one reciprocally is not unduly stressed. Its only resilience is the power of one's love.

In this nebulous context of our understanding, our love for the "other" becomes easily jeopardized, eclipsed, even undermined momentarily or irretrievably. This is where only a deep soul understanding of another's feelings can save the slender thread of love from being ripped by the weight of judgment. It is true, of course, that it is one's love that causes one to overcome one's biased judgment of the other in the first place.

Relationship then avers itself to be a thing of beauty, irrespective of or beyond the personalities building it up, a reality having a meaningfulness for the universe built on the sublimation of the mutual pains and joys of those involved in it gained through a respectful and loving exploration of each other's feelings, motivations, ideals, hopes and fears, and need of truth and freedom. When we handle ourselves beautifully in adverse circumstances, they become testing cases upon which each one builds trust in the beauty and meaningfulness of life.
