I ♥ U

I love you. One declarative statement promises intimacy, offers refuge, and suggests assurance. Perhaps love is the highest of the virtues.

Those three little words enrapture the mind and intoxicate the imagination. They have been the subject of our grandest poetry, ballads, and film. From the sappiest pop song to the opulence of the Taj Mahal, people seek infinite expression for the love they feel.

Yet, expectations of love build walls of hostility when we confuse love with other emotions and activities. Love morphs into possessiveness when the lover attempts to own the beloved. Love mutates into jealousy when commingled with fear of loss. Inordinate love for one's homeland devolves into nationalism. Love gets mistaken for sex when passion moves south.

In the blink of an eye, love ain't what it used to be.

When we say, "I love you," what are we really saying? It communicates several messages that have nothing to do with love.

A husband mistreats his wife. When he attempts to bandage the wound with "I love you," he hopes to magically mend the damage. He is really saying, "Ignore what I've done."

A mother spanks her daughter. Afterward, she tells her, "I did it because I love you." Now the child and the mother associate love with authority, fear, pain, violence, and anger.

A lover ends a relationship. His distraught partner weeps, "Don't go. I love you." She derives her sense of identity from her association with him, and she describes her neediness as love.

A cleric tells his congregation, "God loves you. But if you don't love him back in the worshipful way he demands, he will torture you with never-ending torment." The cleric has substituted threats of retribution for love.

To enter into love it is necessary to see what love isn't.

To achieve clarity on what love is we can ask three interconnected questions. One, who is the "I" that loves? Two, who is the "you" that I love? Three, what is the love that I am experiencing?

We're accustomed to thinking of ourselves as isolated, independent, and individual beings. I exist in my mind, and my mind stops at the borders of my skin. "You" are anything that is perceived to be "not I." Love is usually understood as the warm passion, touching ardor, or avid impulse I feel for you.

In this customary view, as long as you supply me with something that pleases me, I can reach beyond the boarders of my selfness. If you don't give me something to love, then I loathe, neglect, or ignore you. "I love you" ends up being "I love me." Quickly, "I love me" turns into "I want you to love me too."

What we tend to call love (and what we confuse for love) takes several forms.

First, it can be the feeling of what I hope to receive from you. I perceive myself to be lacking something, and I believe you can supply it. With this belief, I assume that I love you. For example, I am lonely and you provide me company. Because you fill a void, I may believe that I love you.

Second, love can take the form of mistaken identity. I see a quality in you that I admire -- beauty, intelligence, humor. When I long to acquire or be near the attribute, I confuse my appreciation (or desire) for that trait with a love for you.

Third, self projection obscures love. Unable to recognize you for yourself, my passion for you is little more than an expression of my strong feelings for myself. You are my spouse, child, or deity; therefore I love you. The emphasis is on me, not on you or on love.

Fourth, duty, compulsion, and expectation are not love. Love does not emerge from shared DNA, cultural convention, birthplace, or contractual obligation.

Fifth, religious impulse does not amount to love. Dedication to a deity or devotion to a faith or may arise from fear, desperation, or greed. You may seek a blessing, salvation, or enlightenment from a spiritual source. You may believe you have received a gift from God. In exchange, you name your emotion as love. But would you still feel love if your prayer goes unanswered, if you do not receive payment, or if the gift was taken away?

So, what happens to my love for you when you no longer provide me what I hope you will? Where does my love go when I see that you do not possess the quality that I believed that you did? And how I can love you if I ultimately loathe myself and hope that you will love me? Is love a commodity that can be parlayed into ambition, acquisition, or accolades?

However when we perceive "I" as more than the secluded skin-encased individual full of self interest, and "you" as more than anything that is "not I," "I love you" can surge from within the souls depths with endless sincerity.

Love as love swells from the unmediated fullness of being. Love doesn't love because of the people, pleasure, or principles involved. Love loves because it is love. This explains why Jesus could teach love for neighbors, enemies, and God with equal veracity.

Individual demonstrations of love's fullness express themselves through fearless compassion, courageous generosity, and uncalculated respect. Love does not strategize.

The scriptural assertion, "We love because he first loved," illustrates the selfless nature of love. In loving, we enter into the flow of love. When you love, you love as God. You know the infinite source of love firsthand -- not from receiving, but from giving. The graceful reception of love can deepen and widen the channel for love to stream, but love always originates from the source. In loving, we partake of the divine nature directly and consciously.

How do you know if the love you feel is a selfless revelation surfacing from a spirit of noble intent? Consider this. You tell your beloved, "I love you." Do you expect -- or even demand -- that your beloved replies with a similar declaration? An answer may be forthcoming, and it is certainly welcome in love. However, if a reply is mandated, the original announcement of "I love you" is not love.

Unrequited love cannot grow bitter any more than sugar can because love is sweet by nature. Love remains love whether it is answered or not.

Love needs no object. When you love, you love. The fact that you may feel joy, gratitude, or satisfaction in your loving remains secondary to the love itself. It is a fruit of your love; it is not a prerequisite for loving.

Don't artificially impose a "you" onto love. "I love" is sufficient for love because love springs from deep within. It bubbles from the headwaters of the river of life and doesn't run dry depending on who "you" happens to be. With love, "I" can honestly love "you" without confusing "I love you" for "Please love me."

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Originally published in the ezine Parousia, July 6, 2009. Free subscription here.