Ancient and respectable spiritual traditions preach free love – this ability to give love to others, without expecting anything in return. This may sometimes sound like a kind of super-power, intended for virtuous individuals who are truly able to bring their consciousness beyond the whims of the ego; Those who are not offended, do not hold grudges for injury, do not ask or expect for anything from anyone.
So it is true that for most of us this ability is not trivial, but we can all be like those virtuous people. And why would we put effort into becoming such people? Because it’s really, really worth it. It is, in fact, the most meaningful thing we can do with our lives. In this article, I will present a number of arguments that support this last claim of mine,
in order to motivate us to cultivate within ourselves the most sublime love of all – the one that does not depend on a thing.
Master Shantideva, an Indian sage of the eighth century, described it well:
“Every happiness there is, in the whole world, comes from wanting the happiness of another.
Every suffering there is, in the whole world, comes from wanting only my own happiness”
That is, if I’m looking to be happy – and here I don’t mean this fleeting pleasure or enjoyment, but the deep state of mind of happiness – I have to take care of the happiness of the others in my world.
In Judaism, they tell of that person who asked Hillel The Elder for the entire Torah on one foot, and the latter explained an essentially similar idea – “Love your neighbor, like yourself”.
The secret of happiness lies in my ability to want for the other the same thing that I want for myself, and even work for it.
And on the contrary, to the extent that I only care about myself, I promise myself only suffering.
Why can I only be happy if I also care about the happiness of others?
Well, one major reason is the absolute necessity of releasing the grip on the ego, if we want to be genuinely happy.
Buddhist wisdom attributes our suffering to holding onto and caring for that vulnerable and sensitive ego of ours. Master Shantideva compares the ego to a lump of burning coal which we hold in our hand and shout “Burning!, Burning!” but refuse to release it.
We are used, from the beginning of time, to take care of ourselves – our bodies, our minds; We spend our lives seeking happiness and avoiding suffering. Even people who injure themselves think that this injury will bring relief from pain. But we’ve been doing this for ages, and it doesn’t seem like the level of happiness in the world is increasing. This is because we are looking in the wrong place.
Psychologist Alfred Adler claimed that in order for a person to recover from depression, all he has to do is to devote of himself to the service of others, to help others. If he does this for two weeks, he promised, he will be cured. In one of his lectures, a man in the audience jumped up angrily and said: “I have been so depressed for so long! How can I serve others when I, myself, feel so bad?” Adler thought for a few moments and answered: “Then it will take you a month.”
And we can check this quite easily by remembering more painful periods in our lives; Were we occupied during these times more with ourselves or more with giving to others around us?
And vice versa, what helped us overcome difficulties in our lives? When do we feel a higher level of happiness, when we act only for ourselves, or when we also act for the benefit of others?
Mothers (and yes, fathers too..) can easily describe moments of deep happiness even when apparently the difficulties they have faced can definitely cloud a person’s mood – and this is because their mind was busy worrying about another, in this case, their child.
When I love the other, and work for their happiness, I actually release a little of the grip on that ego that binds me, I expand this “I” that I care so much for and include others in it, and significantly raise my level of happiness.
And why free love? Since if I have any motive in this love that I give, if I condition my giving with something that I will receive from the other side – gratitude, a compliment, maybe even reciprocated love – then I am once again working in the service of the ego – then, I haven’t really done much.
“The Golden Rule” – what you sow, you will reap.
This rule is a fundamental rule in the worldview of many respectable philosophies and traditions around the world.
Somehow, (in a way that we may discuss in the following articles) what I sow in my mind in the present – through my thoughts, words and actions – I reap in the future.
Naturally, the more I tend to act, speak and think in a certain way, this tendency increases, and thus my life is also colored in a shade similar to this tendency of mine. Hence, free love has a central role in creating a happy life that I want to create for myself – if I give happiness, and a lot of it, then I will get it back.
There is a hint of selfish interest in this kind of love. The Dalai Lama calls it “enlightened selfishness”, because if I understand the way the world works, the principle of “Cast your bread upon the waters,for you will find it after many days”, then I am acting in synchronization with the ultimate wisdom that moves the world.
When I give love and give abundantly with the understanding that this is how I create love and abundance in my world, I act in such a way that although I will also enjoy the results of my actions, the result is tens of times more enormous than what I gave in the first place – and then everyone benefits.
Correction of the Soul for the Correction of the World
This wonderful idea has a deeper meaning that we will not discuss in this article, but even at the obvious and immediate level, we can understand that we can only fix the world when we first fix ourselves. We can preach high values to our children even from birth, and in the end, they will do what they see us do.
So in our immediate environment and so also in the wider environment. We can only change the world by being an example of what we want to see in our world.
Mahatma Gandhi coined the idea that appeared thousands of years before him – “Be the change you want to see in your world“. If we want to live in a world where people are generous with love and giving, then we must first be so ourselves.
In conclusion, our mind is the most important resource we have; Through it we experience our world, and through it we actually create it. The Buddhist worldview presents an idea that appears under different names in other philosophies – the idea of emptiness, which will also be discussed in the following articles.
In short, it means that our lives are like a blank screen onto which we project images from our minds. Sages said – “We don’t see the world as it is, but as we are”. Because we have a great responsibility to garden the garden of our consciousness so that we sow seeds of love and giving that do not depend on things – since our happiness and the happiness of others in our world depends on it.
And I will end with more words of wisdom from Shantideva – “There is nothing that does not grow from the power of the habit”.
Every time I engage in an act of free love, I increase my tendency to do so; And so, drop by drop, the bucket fills up, and I too suddenly have the same sublime super-power, I too become one of these people of virtue.
With love, free!
Mindful Education 