UNITED STATES, Dec 25 — How can you tell if love is real? This article can help. Try the following self-tests. Answer yes or no to each question. The bottom line is: Don’t be discouraged by “Yeses
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ow can you tell if love is real? This article can help. Try the following self-tests. Answer yes or no to each question.
1) Does your lover need to hear the words “I love you?” (Yes. No.)
Looking into your eyes, does your lover need to hear you say: “I love you?” “Under all speech that is good for anything,” wrote Thomas Carlyle, “lies a silence that is better.” This is especially true of love. Love’s union is complete when the mind is silent. Saying: “I love you,” (or anything else) disrupts love’s flow.
2) Is your love exclusive? (Yes. No.)
Song lyrics say: “I love only you.” Is your love exclusive? Commitment to a partner should be exclusive, but real love excludes no one. Like the outflow of water from a hose, outflow of love touches everyone around. If your love excludes others, your hose is clogged. The one you are committed to is actually missing out.
3) Is your love conditional? (Yes. No.)
Would your love end if circumstances changed? Would love end if your loved one changed in some way? If so, it is conditional - not the real thing. Self-interest is involved here, and self-interest goes counter to love’s flow.
4) Does it feel like “your” love? (Yes. No.)
Does it feel like “your” love; like something you do; something under your control? The real thing doesn’t feel like something you do. It’s simply experienced. It can’t be turned on and off. It takes you by surprise. If it’s yours to control, it’s not genuine.
5) Could it be an illusion? (Yes. No.)
Did you think-yourself-into love? Are you lost in a dream or fantasy? An illusion of love can easily be mistaken for the real thing. Real love arises in the union deep awareness creates. Thoughts and dreams keep us from awareness. Without awareness, love can be a fantasy - manufactured by mind, a beautiful concept, but only an illusion of love.
6) Does your love have a motive? (Yes. No.)
Do you love in order to be loved? Do you love so as to have what others want (or seem to have)? Any such motive points to an illusion of love. Real love has no motive, any more than a rosebud has a motive for opening
7) Rapture? Bliss? (Yes. No.)
Do the words “rapture” and “bliss” mean little or nothing to you? Real love is extra-ordinary. It can’t be described without extraordinary words.
8) Is there misunderstanding? (Yes. No.)
Have you said that you “just do not understand” the one you love? Deep awareness present in real love creates empathy. You are able to feel what the loved one feels. In real love you would never say: “I just don’t understand you.”
9) Do you blame your unhappiness on lack of love from your partner? (Yes. No.)
If you are unhappy, do you blame the unhappiness on lack of love from your partner? Do you need to be given more love? Here self-interest wants to get love. Real love however, is a giving. Wanting to get love goes opposite to the flow of the real thing.
10) Does your love make you vulnerable? (Yes. No.)
Does your love make you vulnerable? We tend to associate love with weakness, not strength. Weakness and vulnerability however, stem from self-interest -- from fearing loss and wanting. Real love is the opposite. It is selfless. There is no self-ishness in love, no self there to be injured, and so love makes you invulnerable. Love is true strength.
11) Is it on and off? (Yes. No.)
Are you on and off; in and out of love? Look deeper; much deeper. Real love is eternal.
12) Are you still seeking happiness? (Yes. No.)
Are you still seeking happiness? This is the most telling love test of all. When love is real the answer is no. In love, the heart goes out. This act of giving – love’s outflow, is happiness itself. Love and happiness are not two separate things, and when love is real, pursuit of happiness ends. Then you want for nothing - you feel you can “live on love alone.” In real love there’s no seeking. Happiness comes free.
Now tally your “Yes” answers. What do they mean?
For one thing, plenty of “Yeses” mean you are normal. In The Art of Loving (1956), Erich Fromm wrote: “To analyze the nature of love is to discover its general absence.” This does not mean however, that real love is not within you and the one you love.
Imagine the light and warmth of the sun. Compare this to the light and warmth of a star. We are suns by nature, but we shine dimly like stars. The radiance in your true nature is set free in the union awareness creates. How to build awareness is taught in: straight line meditation: How to Restore Awareness and Why You Need To. There you’ll find more love tests. The bottom line is: Don’t be discouraged by “Yeses.” See them as a call to awareness.
Communicate directly with Carol E. Mcmahon, Ph.d., the author of this article. Ask questions, send suggestions, comments, engage in conversation, or perhaps you would like to submit a project.
Click Here to ask a question, send a comment, or proposal.
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