7 s.i. LOVE IS A VERY MISUSED WORD, signifying almost anything.

Conditioning is our story (image) overlaid on every sensation, sight and sound. - 751 words

IN WHAT WE call love there is dependence, the sense of attachment that comes from loneliness, insufficiency in oneself, not being able to stand alone, therefore leaning on somebody, depending on somebody. We depend on the milkman, the railwayman, the policeman. I am not talking of that kind of dependence, but of psychological dependence with all its problems: the problems of image in relationship, the image that the mind has built about the other, and the attachment to that image, and the denial of this image and creating another image. All that is what we call love. And the priests have invented another thing, the love of God, because it is much easier to love God, an image, an idea, a symbol created, put together by the mind or by the hand than to find out what love is in relationship.

So what is love? It is part of our consciousness, this thing called love in which there is the “me” and the “you’; the “me” attached to you, possessing, dominating; you possessing me, dominating, holding. You satisfy my physical, sexual demands, and I satisfy you economically and so on. All that is what we call love. And is that love? Romantic love, physical love, the love of one’s country for which you are willing to kill, maim, destroy yourself and others, is that what love is? Obviously love is not emotionalism, sentimentality, the sloppy acceptance of—you know—“I love you and you love me.” Talking about the beauty of love, the beautiful people, singing millions of love songs, is all that love?

LOOK, MAKE IT very simple. All relationship is based on the image that you have built about another and the other has built about you. Right? You can’t argue about it, it is so. And these two images have their relationships. These images are the result of many years of memories, experiences, knowledge, categorization, which you have built about her, and she has built about you. That is part of your consciousness.

But what is the relationship when there is no image at all between you and her, and she has no image about you? You understand? If I may ask, are you aware that you have an image about him to which you are dreadfully attached? Are you aware that you have an image about her to which you cling? Are you aware of this, conscious of it? If you are conscious of it, you see that your relationship with her, or hers with you, is based on those false images. Can those images come to an end? Then what is relationship? If the image has come to an end, it is this content of consciousness that makes up your consciousness, when the various images you have about yourself, about everyone and about everything, come to an end, then what is the relationship between you and her? Then is there an observer observing apart from the thing it is observing? Or is it the total movement of love in relationship? So love is a movement in relationship in which the observer is not present.

The mind—we are using the word mind to include the brain, the physical organism, the totality—that mind has lived within the field of fragmentation, which make up its consciousness, and without this content the observer is not here. (No need.) And when the observer is not, then relationship is not within the field-of-time, (transported from the past), that exists when there is the old image you have about her and she has about you. Can that image come to an end as you live daily? If that image doesn’t come to an end, then there is no love. It is then one fragment against another fragment. It is only conflict.

Now you have heard that, don’t draw a conclusion from it. See the truth of it; and you can’t see the truth of it verbally, or only logically. You can hear the meaning of the words but you have to see the significance of it, have an insight into it, actually see the truth of “what-is.” Then that truth is not within the field of consciousness, nor from previously recorded experiences. It is alive and fresh.

.