Experiencing difficult situations can make us aware of what is easier, allowing us to maintain the right distance from both, so that difficult situations bring resilience and easy situations do not lead to complacency and forgetting oneself.
Thus, what is easy reminds us of the importance of happiness, while what is difficult reminds us of the need to struggle to achieve happiness.
Those who do not realize this only pursue pleasure and fail to understand true love, mistaking mere passion for love.
Love and lust both draw us to what we love and desire, but their pulls bring us closer in different ways. The pull of love expands our feelings of comfort, as this closeness is broader than that drawn by lust, which is confined to narrow ego satisfaction.
Ego draws us through lust, while comfort draws us through love.
Those who are lustful tend to be confident, while those who are full of love tend to be calm.
Love arises from the awareness of dependence on the loved one, while anything other than love expects others to depend on oneself.
The more one loves, the more one depends on the loved one, without demanding from the loved one.
Love cannot be attained solely through ease; rather, it requires a balance between rights and responsibilities, bringing a feeling beyond mere enjoyment but a broadening sense.
So, are you seeking pleasure or nurturing love that transcends pleasure? Because the quality of our life is measured by how much we can feel love through sacrifice (even though love itself is not a sacrifice).
And the greatest sacrifice in humans surpasses that in other living beings, even rivaling the potential of angels. Human potential to overcome difficulties is greater than that of other creatures. That is where human dignity lies, as beings who, through the greatest challenges and sacrifices, can feel the highest love that transcends pleasure.
What is the highest love? Loving God! So, be grateful for those who can realize God, so they can attain the highest love according to their capacity without diminishing, through worship of Him.
Why does the highest love feel through closeness to Him? Because God is boundless, thus loving Him means expanding the broadest compared to the breadth obtained through closeness to His servant, so the breadth of our feelings because of approaching Him will extend comfort beyond mere pleasure.
Those who love will feel inner joy. Those who love can touch tranquility.
Those who do not love only enjoy physicality. Those who do not love only feel physical softness.
Loving is not about touching the physical, but touching tranquility—touching the inner softness that surpasses physical softness.
And the highest love is not about touching God or being touched by Him, but being made aware by Him of complete dependence on Him.
CREATION ALWAYS DEPENDS ON THE CREATOR, SO LOVING THE CREATOR IS THE HIGHEST LOVE WITHOUT DEMAND ON THE LOVED ONE. Because love is sincere without expectation.
BECAUSE LOVE IS LETTING GO AND FULLY RELYING ON THE LOVED ONE, WITHOUT HAVING TO ADJUST ONESELF TO BECOME A RELIANCE FOR THE LOVED ONE.
Loving creatures cannot fully free oneself but must give oneself to the loved one.
Loving creatures involves rights and responsibilities, while loving God completely releases everything except being maintained by Him in rights and obligations, and we only need to enjoy comfort.
If loving still goes through rights and responsibilities, it means it is a process towards love, or if it has approached love, it only reduces rights and responsibilities without completely disappearing.
Loving creation is like standing on solid ground maintaining the state of love, while the highest love is like maintaining the state of love in a floating state without burden.
Loving creation is like standing to maintain stability, while loving God is like lying down or in a swing without burden while still being able to love. That is the state of love that transcends pleasure.
So, "I Love You" means:
- 1. "I Forget Everything Else Except You"
- 2. "I Depend On You"
- 3. "I Rely On You"
- 4. "I Am Comfortable With You"
Now measure how much you love him/her?
And compare it to love for Him that brings the highest comfort.
So what is love, being loved, loving? It is dependence.
- "I LOVE YOU" MEANS "I FEEL DEPENDENT ON YOU"
- "I LOVE YOU" MEANS "I AM COMFORTABLE NEAR YOU"
- "I LOVE YOU" MEANS "I AM POWERLESS NEAR YOU"
- "I LOVE YOU" MEANS "I AM NOT BURDENED BECAUSE OF BEING CLOSE TO YOU"
- "I LOVE YOU" MEANS "I AM NOT BURDENED BECAUSE OF YOU"
So a calm soul is not free from difficulty but accepts difficulty as a process of self-awareness, expanding to achieve the highest tranquility free from any difficulty.
- Thus, those who are free from difficulty are actually those who are achieving true love.
Because untrue love still involves efforts to overcome difficulties in maintaining love.
Worldly love keeps one busy, while loving Him frees one from all busy-ness.
Loving is not about enjoying, but about feeling unburdened.
Love is defined as attraction, but actually, the attraction is due to the effort to always be away from as much difficulty as possible.
Loving plants? Are we free from maintaining plants? Are we free from just looking at plants without being aware of the surroundings? Are we still aware of the schedule that should not be forgotten? Are we free from forgetting other things?
In short, "I Love You" means:
- 1. "I Am Not Burdened (No Sorrow) Because of You, So I Forget Everything Else Except You", or ...
- 2. "I Forget Everything Else Except You", So My Closeness, Always Remembering You, Does Not Burden Me (No Sorrow)
PROVING OUR LOVE IN A DIVINE OR HUMAN WAY?
- 1. DIVINE. "I Love You" means I always remember You, making me forget others, bringing me closer to You, thus eliminating my burden.
Allah Almighty says:
"And when the prayer is finished, then disperse through the land and seek the bounty of Allah, and remember Allah much that you may succeed."
(QS. Al-Jumu'ah 62: Ayah 10)
- 2. HUMAN. "I Love You" means "I feel comfortable and unburdened by you, so I forget others"
PRACTICALLY, PROVING OUR LOVE IN A DIVINE OR HUMAN WAY?
- THE BELOVED. Make the one who loves you as unburdened as possible, or make the one who loves you more grateful. Or make the one who loves you feel comfortable with you. If you do not do all this, it is possible that the one who loves you does not fully love as you think.
- THE LOVER. Do you love someone who does not free you from sorrow? It could be you are deceived by difficult love. Because the process of love is indeed difficult and requires sacrifice, but once love is attained, you should not be burdened by sorrow because of loving them.
Thus, mutual love among creatures requires cooperation in maintaining the state of love without fully forgetting, while loving God, in the end, is not a two-way cooperation but Allah maintaining our state to be free from sorrow and forgetting everything else.
Those who only want to be loved without wanting to care for the loved one are not worthy of being loved, which indicates the involvement of blind love.
Those who love without tolerance from the loved one, who are only demanded by the loved one, forgetting rights and responsibilities, either by the lover or the loved one, means you love and are deceived by love burdened by forgotten rights and responsibilities.
Loving others than Him fully forgetting oneself risks leading to careless harm at any time, while loving Him sincerely is always maintained by His guidance to be self-aware and not forget rights and responsibilities as humans.
MUTUAL LOVE MEANS NOT DECEIVING EACH OTHER BUT COOPERATING TO OVERCOME BURDENS.
MUTUAL LOVE MEANS NOT DEMANDING EACH OTHER BUT STRIVING TO GIVE COMFORT.
So once again, what is love, to be loved, and to love? It means that by loving, one's burdens become more manageable, leading to greater gratitude for one's circumstances.
If something tastes sweet because it’s sugar, or feels hot because it’s heated, then feeling love means burdens are eased when near the beloved.
When love touches us, it’s not just due to physical appearance, but because it diminishes our sorrows.
That’s why we shouldn’t compare love for God with love for humans, because...
- Loving humans involves perceiving their appearance, but how do we love Him who is unlike any creature? Who cannot be perceived by us? Through surrendering to Him.
- If our surrender to Him brings relief, then our love for Him grows.
REALIZATION
Why does sorrow diminish (though we experience what others consider difficulties, those who love Him always see with a positive outlook) only when we draw near to Him?
Because the absence of sorrow means the absence of burden, which means the absence of obstacles, leading to the diminishing of self-boundaries, and thus the only influence left is from the Sole Cause.
Loving involves awareness of the beloved.
If awareness involves knowing, then knowledge is not because we know, but because the state changes our awareness, making us know (be aware).
Like smooth sand, it’s not the sand that claims "I know," but the wind that shapes it, revealing certain forms (knowledge).
Even when we direct our awareness, we do not understand knowledge but capture it.
And what we capture is called knowledge because the sand shaped by the wind matches a pre-existing pattern.
Like a painting covered by sand; when the painting is moved, the wind shapes the sand to reveal the hidden pattern, thus "gaining knowledge," the hidden pattern becomes apparent.
So, knowing is limited to realizing (the pattern of) truth within oneself, by removing the veil within us that hides the truth, through interaction with the environment, so that the wind inspires us to unveil the sand to reveal the strokes of truth within the painting (ourselves).
KNOWING MEANS SEEING THE TRUTH WITHIN OURSELVES THROUGH INTERACTIONS THAT CLARIFY HIDDEN PATTERNS (KNOWLEDGE) WITHIN US.
So what is loving? Loving is realizing the beloved. How do we realize the beloved? By our changed awareness that reveals an unburdened pattern.
Like, Want, Need, and Must
When we desire, our awareness changes to a form that complements the beloved.
If you’re a house, I am the roof. If you’re honey, I am the bee. Desire forms a pairing pattern with something, making us seek its complement to complete ourselves. This is the self's attraction, guided by desire.
Similarly, love starts as an attraction because our awareness forms a pattern paired with the beloved, always seeking a matching partner to complete each other.
However, the difference between liking, wanting, needing, or requiring you and loving you is that love not only changes our awareness to a specific form, which can vary among individuals, but also forms a universal pattern of balanced awareness in all.
LOVING MEANS REALIZING BALANCE WITHIN OURSELVES THROUGH CLOSENESS TO SOMETHING THAT CAN BALANCE US.
So, between desire and love:
- - I Desire You means I realize we complement each other.
- - I Love You means I depend on you.
- - I Love You means I am unburdened near you.
- - I Love You means I am comfortable with you.
LOVE FOR CREATURES MEANS A STATE OF BALANCED AWARENESS DUE TO MUTUAL COMPLEMENTATION.
- - I love you, so my state is fulfilled by you.
DIVINE LOVE MEANS A STATE OF BALANCED AWARENESS NOT DUE TO UNION, BUT REALIZING BALANCE WITHIN ONESELF.
- - I love You, so my state is fulfilled within myself through Your help.
Loving creatures means feeling attached to them, whereas loving Him brings comfort without dependence on worldly allure, but only on Him.
TWO TYPES OF BALANCE
- Balance through mutual complementation.
- Balance within oneself without needing external completion.
Point 1 means dependence on others and feeling sad when apart.
Point 2 means independence from others, and though needing external balance for roles and responsibilities, true love itself doesn’t rely on this, so distance doesn’t cause sorrow because balance is already within oneself, only depending on Him.
CONTEXT AND PERSPECTIVE
If you ask about love from different perspectives, avoid getting trapped in perspectives that seem logical but are out of context.
Understanding from a philosophical, psychological, or physical perspective? It means the perspective is irrelevant as it’s out of context.
If discussing from a philosophical context, stick to philosophical perspectives, not others.
DON’T ASSUME IT’S VALID TO BROADEN PERSPECTIVES WHEN OUT OF CONTEXT, unless philosophy and others fall under a broader context of knowledge.
So, love can be understood from different perspectives but within the same context.
FROM A (META) PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE (ABSOLUTE TRUTH)
Human love feels like mutual completion.
Divine love feels balanced within oneself.
Attraction in human love is due to the need for mutual completion.
Divine love attracts because it perfects us, balancing within ourselves.
Loving humans means feeling complete through them, requiring physical closeness, whereas loving God means feeling complete within, not needing physical closeness.
Closeness to humans strengthens our love through physical dependence. Closeness to God strengthens our love through surrender, as physical closeness to God is impossible.
BALANCE
Hence, there is external (from outside) and internal (within oneself) balance. Thus, there is completion with others outside ourselves and completion within ourselves.
Pairing with others outside ourselves forms dependence that balances and fosters love among creatures.
Pairing within oneself without needing external others forms dependence on Him, balancing and fostering love for Him without physical dependence (as God is unlike His creations).
To love Him means to depend on balancing without physical closeness, as closeness to God is impossible, so balance must occur within ourselves.
Thus, those who love others receive their affection, while those who love God not only gain His affection but also develop their potential.
So, if you want to emulate God’s wisdom, even in a limited way, when someone loves you, don’t just meet their needs but also develop their potential.
How is the state of love? It’s balanced, the heart feels comfortable, unburdened, and free from sorrow.
How can sorrow arise in balance? Balance is the best form of compensation.
Thus, the happiest are always balanced.
FINAL ABSOLUTE QUESTION
If there is a vibration of desire due to physical closeness, how can the vibration of love arise from self-balance without physical closeness?
Physical touch can stir a heart filled with love, but how does self-balance stir the heart with love?
Balance isn’t a passive state as in physics where pressure subsides in equilibrium; rather, even in physical equilibrium, particles remain active, though without specific fluctuations.
Because activity isn’t always turbulent, true equilibrium is the most active and strongest vibration. Why?
An unbalanced self, balanced externally, is like an uneven surface where only certain parts are touched, whereas an even surface has all parts equally touched, making self-balance the strongest love vibration, as it’s felt evenly, not narrowly fluctuating.
Like a painting fully colored according to its potential rather than limited colors far from potential.
Love feels complete within oneself, either through internal balance or external completion.
So?
I Love You means my heart vibrates from one-sided fluctuation or self-balance, making me feel all vibrations as a great unity.
My consciousness fluctuates actively, but for creatures, it’s greater on one side, the other unnoticed.
If balance happens within, all self-vibrations are felt, and that’s the strongest love vibration.
IN CONCLUSION, HOW TO UNDERSTAND “I LOVE YOU”?
- CREATURE LOVE. I Love You = I Feel Balanced Because You Complete Me.
- DIVINE LOVE. I Love You = I Feel Balanced Because You Balance What’s Within Me.
❇️ So how to love the best way❓ That is, love with tranquility, so that if we are attracted by circumstances or something, it does not cause an imbalance, and the vibration of love is not due to attraction to one side, but to many aspects of ourselves without realizing it. Thus, what starts as an effort to achieve tranquility will end in a naturally calm state that makes us more sensitive to situations and able to maintain the love's excitement in a comfortable state (even though others might see our situation as a mix of joy and sorrow). This keeps us from being deceived by love (avoiding excessive love).
❇️ And how to love the best way towards Him❓ That is, with a heart full of faith and surrender to Him, so that when we are assigned rights and duties by Him, we obey without arrogance. Thus, HE BESTOWS BALANCE IN MANY ASPECTS OF OURSELVES, so that what starts as an effort to surrender will end in a naturally calm state that makes us more sensitive to situations and able to maintain the love's excitement in a comfortable state (even though others might see our situation as a mix of joy and sorrow). This keeps us from being deceived by love (avoiding excessive love) and our compassion becomes sincere and selfless.
So even if at first we do not know what needs to be balanced within ourselves, by maintaining tranquility towards fellow humans and surrendering to Him, we will naturally be conditioned by a balanced state within ourselves that makes our love's vibration expand stronger and without deception, like the neutrality of a perspective that can see all sides fairly. Thus, the excitement of love can be maintained in a certain direction without being deceived (able to return to the original position - maintaining tranquility - with a fair perspective).
