|
| > Return to Relationship Repairs |
| |
|
Love & Attachment |
| |
| Conditional loves says, “I will love you if you are willing to be what I want you to be and do what I want you to do!” But conditional love is attachment. Attachment is bondage. And if the love you share with your partner is bondage, it is also an illusion.
A self-actualized love of unconditional acceptance will not become attachment. But the moment you say to your partner, “Love only me,” you are attempting to possess. And in possessing, you are making your lover into an object?a thing?something be used.
According to philosopher Immuanel Kant, to treat another person as a means is an immoral act. In other words, if you see your lover as being there for your gratification, or to fulfill your sexual desires, or to provide something else for you ... you are reducing your partner to an object. Thus you are in bondage to each other.
But once you are in bondage, you will desire freedom again. Whatever you get, you will become bored with, and whatever you desire but do not get, you will long for. If you desire freedom while trying to possess your partner, a struggle is assured. In trying to possess your partner, you will end up being possessed by your partner.
The solution is to become self-actualized. A self-actualized individual will have risen above the need to control others. He or she expresses no blame, no expectations and no negative judgments. They will be well on their way to developing detached mind?a level of awareness in which they mentally fluctuate only from positive to neutral as outside conditions change. In other words, they allow negativity to flow through them without effecting them. Self-actualization and unconditional love are much the same. On the surface they both feel a little like indifference, but they amount to accepting someone else for what they are, without expecting them to change to be what you want them to be.
|
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
