Falling in Love

by BADRI POKHAREL

FROM ISSUE # 146 (February 2008) | IN THIS ISSUE
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Love is often elaborated. A theme in movies, TV and radio programs, love is present in every song, story, novel or advertisement. But how it happens, when it comes, why it grows and how it ends is a mystery.

One can analyse and look for reason and causes, but it will just take the life out of the experience. Just as life is more than the sum of our bones, muscles and electrical impulses, love is more than the sum of the interest, attraction and commonalties that two people share. And just as life itself is a gift that comes and goes on its own time, the coming of love must also be taken as an unfathomable gift that cannot be questioned.

Hopefully, at least once in everyone's life, the gift of love will come to him/her in full flower, and s/he will take hold of it and appreciate it for all its inexplicable beauty. Perhaps, this is the dream we all share.

But most often, it will come and take hold of you for a brief moment and then move on. When this happens to people, too often they try to grasp love and hold it to them, refusing to see it as a gift freely given. When they fall out of love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love leaving them, they try desperately to reclaim it

rather than accepting it for what it was and then moving on. They want an answer where there is no answer. They blame their circumstances and claim that if they go far away and start a new life together, their love will grow again.

You need to understand this about love, and accept it. You need to treat what it brings with kindness. If you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself and with them. There is nothing wrong with you. Love just didn't choose to rest in the other person's heart.

If someone else is in love with you and you don't love them back, feel honoured that love came and called at your door. Do not take advantage and do not cause pain. How you deal with love is how you deal with yourself. All hearts feel the same pain and joy, though our lives and ways may be different.

All we can really do is accept love for all its mystery. Savour the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away. Give it back to the person who brought it to you.

Many lovers go wrong here. Having been so long without love, they understand it only as a need. They see their hearts as empty places that only love will fill, and they begin to see love as something that flows to them, rather than from them. Instead of becoming people who generate love, they become seekers of love.

They forget that the secret of love is in the giving, and that it can only grow when it is given away.

Love has its time, its own seasons and its own reasons. You cannot bribe it, coerce it, or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives. Love always has been and always will be a mystery. Be glad when it comes to live for a moment in your life. If you keep your heart open, it will come again.

Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses YOU.