Love is learning to maintain respect for others. Love is not that spontaneous thing you feel for someone that is merely sensual. That feeling is not love; it dies in only a few days’ time. Love is understanding; it is giving. When you love, you give and give and don’t expect anything in return. And when you learn to give, when you understand that the real law of life is giving, and that the more you give, the more you receive, then you will know that love is giving sincerely, not expecting things from the other person all the time. Your expectations are the mother of all your problems in life: you expect too much from each other; you fantasize about relationships and expect too much of them—and you are then disappointed. Once you realize this, you can adjust your expectations and create harmony in the relationship.

Those who cannot love are actually selfish. But the more selfless you become, the more you will find that you have a kind of freedom that cannot be imagined by your mere mind. In the modern world you learn to live only for yourself, and you learn to value the things that you have or want to acquire for yourself. This is one approach to living. But if you understand that you are meant for others, and if you want to serve others and live for others, that is an entirely different way of living. The first way contracts your personality; the other expands your personality—that is the difference. So far, you’ve formed the habit of being selfish, and you see only your own viewpoint and desires.

All the great people of the different traditions in the world have been selfless. Christ, the Buddha, and Krishna all attained the highest wisdom because they were selfless—but still they remained themselves. Selfishness is not needed; it will get in your way. If you are selfless, your outer individual shell will remain exactly the same, but your inner light will expand to universal consciousness. That individual flame of love will become a conflagration that will burn up the weed of your selfishness. Truth will automatically come to you if you learn how to love.

But don’t approach love in a merely external or superficial way; offering your body to somebody is not love; it is merely lust. I am talking of that kind of love in which you are completely selfless. In such love you want to give, and you feel great joy in giving, and you feel that this is something great for you to do as a human being. You need to learn to give and truly love.

Editor’s Note

This is an excerpt from Art of Joyful Living by Swami Rama, published in 1989, Himalayan Institute India, pp. 138-139