“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the ‘love’ of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 155)
Beyond the Quote (170/365)
This is an important distinction to make. One that many people in relationships fail to recognize. Love is not selective. Love is not an emotion that is rightly reserved for but one person. Love is a way of being. It is an overflowing. It is a contentment, a joy, an excitement, an appreciation, a curiosity, a gentleness, a passion, a presentness that is free of mind and is connected to all that is life.
Real love, when it is wholly manifested from within just flows and touches all that you come into contact with. It is not saved in a container and stored to be used later—it can only ever be used now. It is like a river, alive and forever flowing—not a pond, stale and dead. Love is a force that is moving now within you from your fingertips to your toes. You have but to choose to express it. If it’s not used now—if you suppress it or try to squeeze it neatly into a box for just one person later—it will go bad; it will expire. And that moment of love will be lost. You cannot get it back. Yet, the river will continue to flow and a new moment to love will be available to you anew in the next.
Then what is the problem? You might ask. If there will always be another moment of love available, why do I have to express love all of the time? The answer is simple. Because the more you obstruct your river from flowing, the more obstructed your ability to love will be. You are like a beaver working hard to create a dam. To stop the river from flowing so that you can make a home in the stale, dead water. It is more comfortable there. There are less risks and less vulnerabilities. So you go on, building up your dam higher and higher and blocking love from flowing out of your body more and more. Better to be safe than exposed and vulnerable, right?
Soon, your dam becomes so high and so solid that you forget how to take it down. You have but a trickle of love flowing out of your body and it is because you have been blocking your own river this whole time! You need to reverse the process. You need to start tearing down the obstructions of the dam and start letting your love flow out into the world as it’s supposed to and should.
You need to remove all of the blocks of dissatisfaction and expectation and allow contentment and joy to flow again. You have to take down the walls of distraction, materialism, and glamor that are preventing you from feeling a sense of gratitude and stopping you from connecting to the present moment. And you have to tear down the “fronts” you put on, the acts you’ve embodied, and the false identities that you’ve adopted that are holding you back from expressing excitement, curiosity, gentleness, passion, uniqueness, and vigor. For, who are you really trying to be if you are not allowing those things to flow?
Sometimes we become blind to the consequences of our own actions because we have been living with the effects of those very consequences for so long. We have become used to the feeling. The dams some of us have built are damn near skyscrapers! But, as with any large task set before us, how do we prevail? One step at a time. We remove one block at a time. One moment at a time. One day at a time. And slowly, slowly, our river will begin to flow again.
Soon, it will become an allied force that will help us continue breaking down the rest of what’s left of our barriers and we will gain a powerful momentum! For, that’s what love does. Love breaks down barriers. Love connects us. Love is the state where we feel and act our best. And what better way to find someone to enjoy love with than when we are in that peak state? How can we truly connect to someone else’s love if our love is trapped behind a wall of logs, twigs, and sticks? How can two rivers merge if there is but only one river flowing? Both need to flow. And your river is the only one you can control. Break down your damn dam. And let the flow of love guide you.
Read Next: 50 Deep Love Quotes – And How Love Is More Than A Relationship
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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