“True love is when you will do anything and everything that you can just to make your love happy.”
-Anurag Prakash Ray
Kabir – The couplet
प्रेम गली अति संकरी, तामे दोउ न समाई ।
जब मई था तब हरि नहीं, अब हरि हा मई नाही ||
Transliterated:
Prem Gali Ati Sankari, Tame Dou Na Samaai|
Jab Main Tha Tab Hari Nahi, Am Hari Hai Main Naahi||
Translation:
The path of love is extremely narrow, two cannot fit on it side by side |
When I was on it, Hari (The Lord) was missing, now there is Hari, not me ||
My understanding:
When I think of myself, ego surges to the fore, and places me at the center of my private version of the universe.
It took me three days of deliberation with myself to figure out how to get this statement right. So here goes where my understanding brought me to.
Our vision of love is really a sad mixture of attraction (as defined by our physical senses) and an expectation of satisfaction driven by anticipation of some reciprocation from the object of our infatuation. Love, in its true form, is when we are ready to give with no expectation of return or reward. When there is no expectation, rejection does not have existence. Love is a way to ensure that the receiver is satisfied, and it is the receiver who decides what my action will be, since the end result is the receiver’s satisfaction, not mine.
When we can learn to love in this fashion, all negativity immediately vaporizes. But ego sticks it’s thick foot in that door, and disallows such thinking. For where is its satisfaction in this play? So we need to overcome our overgrown ego before we can practice true love. And once we taste true love, ego stays subdued forever!
Which is where Kabir seems to be taking us – the egoless self is no less than God. As long as I am driven my ego, it is all about my ego. Once ego is suppressed, I can learn to understand and practice love.