Thursday, November 26, 2015

attachment vs Love




  I feel that  obsession with a loved one are the same as those of an obsession with anything else. However, in the case of relationships, the seriousness is often downplayed. While everyone knows the harm caused by a gambling addiction, many are not so concerned about a “love addiction”. It is considered normal, maybe even romantic. 

The crux of the problem lies in the use of the word “love”: people take an obsession or an attachment and they call it love. This leads them to assume that it is a good thing. Clearly, love is a good thing, but attachment is not. Often we want our person we love  to be attached to us because it provides   sort  of  security   and  also  many of  our  bollyhood songs contain supposedly romantic lyrics about how much someone “needs” another. In practice however, love most easily arises in the absence of need. Love is an unselfish and open state, which is quite the opposite of need.

 When a relationship is based on attachment, we have problems such as selfishness, possessiveness, insecurity, and disappointment. A relationship based on love has no such issues. Therefore, we should avoid attachment in a relationship just as we should avoid attachment in other areas of life. Instead of needing something external for our happiness, we must take responsibility for our own happiness. This does not mean being any less committed to the relationship. On the other hand, it will result in a relationship that is more lasting and stable.

 Often  We  fail  to discriminate between obsession/attached  vs Love  and  end   up being   frustrated which leads us to  loose our  equilibrium .Intimate relationships can be one of the greatest sources of joy in our lives. However, as with most enjoyable things, it is easy to become attached/obsessed . This occurs when we start to seek too much from the relationship, and  see it as integral to our happiness. It is dangerous to seek too much from anything in life. We  keep on  hearing    from spiritual  gurus   that  every one in  this  planet is  responsible for our own happiness and yet  we  seek from  outside thru relationship.

Many  a times  it  has  happened   and  still happening  to  me  and  for  that  matter  everyone  more so  in  our  growing  years where  we  seek happiness out  of  wrong relationship after being  obsessed with   a person  or  a  object  and  end  up hearing  pathos songs ! .May  be I  think  this  is  way  Life  teaches us  the  lesson  where we  are  forced to  get  obsessed / attached to  a  person or  a object  then  losing  it   and  later  on  realising  the   value  of    true Love .As some  one  rightly  said 

“:Nobody gets through life without losing someone they love, someone they need, or something they thought was meant to be or  getting  betrayed ,.  but it is these losses that make us stronger and eventually move us toward future opportunities.'' I think  it  is  part  of  life ‘’. 

Other day I was  reading  extract from  a    book  by Jack Kornfield who  is  a Buddhist teacher and author Bringing Home the Dharma ; Awakening  Right where you  are   where   he  says   beautifully that ‘’The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need them.” Or, “I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.” This isn’t love at all – it is attachment – and attachment is rigid, it is very different from love. When there is attachment, there is clinging and fear. Love allows, honors, and appreciates; attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess  beautiful  thought .. 

I   I know  all  these  sermons  are  easy  to  talk  and  write but  very  difficult to  follow. Yes , Without going into highly debatable explanations and theories, I would say that love is a positive feeling toward something or somebody, and attachment is an emotional need for something or somebody.The major difference is that love is a feeling directed toward the “other” (the other person, place or thing), while attachment is a self-centered—meaning based on fulfilling your need.

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