It is a mystery why we fall in love.
It is a mystery how it happens.
It is a mystery when it comes.
It is a mystery why some love grows and it is a mystery why some love fails.
You can analyze this
mystery and look for reasons and causes, but you will never do anymore than
take the life out of the experience.
Just as life itself is
more than the sum of the bones and muscles and electrical impulses in the
body, love is more than the sum of the interests and attractions and
commonalities that two people share.
And just as life is a
gift that comes and goes in its own time, so too, the coming of love must be
taken as an unfathomable gift that cannot be questioned in its ways.
Sometimes, hopefully
at least once in your life - the gift of love will come to you in full
flower, and you will take hold of it and celebrate it in all inexpressible
beauty. This is the dream we all share.
More often, it will
come and take hold of you, celebrate you for a brief moment, then move on.
When this happens to
young people, they too often try to grasp the love and hold it to them,
refusing to see that it is gift that is freely given and a gift that just as
freely, moves away.
When they fall out of
love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love leaving, they try
desperately to reclaim the love that is lost rather than accepting the gift
for what it was, then moving on.
They want answers
where there are no answers. They want to know what is wrong in them that
makes the other person no longer love them, or they try to get their lover to
change, thinking that if some small things were different, love would bloom
again.
They blame their
circumstances and say that if they go far away and start a new life together,
their love will grow.
They try anything to
give meaning to what happened. But there is no meaning beyond the love
itself, and until they accept its own mysterious ways, they live in a sea of
misery.
You need to know this
about love, and to accept it.
You need to treat what it brings you with kindness.
If you find yourself
in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself. There is
nothing wrong with you. Love just didn’t choose to rest in the other person’s
heart.
If you find someone
else in love with you and you don’t love her, feel honoured that love came
and called at your door, but gently refuse the gift you cannot return. Do not
take advantage, do not cause pain. How you deal with love is how you deal
with you, and all our hearts feel the same pains and joys, even if our lives
and ways are different.
If you fall in love
with another, and she falls in love with you, and then love chooses to leave,
do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame. Let it go. There is a reason and
there is a meaning. You will know in time.
Remember that you
don’t choose love. Love chooses you. All you can really do is accept it for
all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to
overflowing, then reach out and give it away.
Give it back to the
person who brought it alive in you. Give it to others who deem it poor in
spirit. Give it to the world around you in anyway you can. This is where many
lovers go wrong. Having been so long without love, they understand love only
as a need. They see their hearts as empty places that will be filled by love,
and they begin to look at love as something that flows to them rather than
from them.
The first blush of new
love is filled to overflowing, but as their love cools, they revert to seeing
their love as a need. They cease to be someone who generates love and instead
becomes someone who seeks love. They forget that the secret of love is that
it is a gift, and that it can be made to grow only by giving it away..
Remember this, and
keep it to your heart. Love has its own time, its own seasons, and its own
reasons for coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it, or reason it
into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when
it comes to you. But if it choose to leave from your heart or from the heart
of your lover, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you should
do.
Love always has been
and always will be a mystery.
Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life.
If you keep your heart
open, it will come again.
Kent Nerburn
p.s. didn’t wrote this just wanted to share what i stumbled upon today
