Revisiting the Rhythm

(first of the three-part series)

How can I Love? This has always been a disturbing question; to some extent, it seems to bear the same gravity of asking life's existential questions such as who am I or what is my purpose or who is God. Since Love is often misunderstood, we begin the tendency to search, to find the most reliable answers, though at the end we are almost hell-bent and fed up. Everything in this search becomes more futile, confusing and painful, because nothing that we have been searching for outside can satiate the meaning and experience of Love. In this great human consciousness, an answer does not appear somewhere I can perceive, but through this internal discernment when the radiance of Love at the deepest core of my being never fails to shine.

Love is always a moving force. How Love manifests in the Rhythm is such a dynamic of inner movement. In this article, let me expound what has been articulated as the Rhythm. This is primarily a very profound personal experience; nonetheless, I am deeply certain of the universality of its truth. And the way it must be discovered and expressed can possibly radicalize how we see Love as a stirring energy in the context of male-female relationship at its subtlest level, so we could see more beyond the abstracts of its dynamics.


Falling in Love
Perhaps the most famous "category" of Loving is the Romantic Love. If you do your own survey, you might arrive in a conclusion that most people understand that Love is always an intimate relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, a knight and a damsel. Books, films, songs and TV shows are abound with such thematic concepts of romance. When I asked a group of young teenage girls in the early Communes, most of them answered that Love is a boy-girl thing, embracing and kissing each other. Yet, however sweet and delightful the energy of romance can influence relationships, it still leaves a perennial fear of the possibility of pain. Why in the world that such an experience of seventh heaven eventually might become a fiery hell. Falling in Love is painful, or rather, people always expect that Love is pain. Despite the possibility, seeing Love as pain becomes more enticing.

Romance is an aspect of Love, a part, but can never be equal to the whole. Making both of them synonymous is the greatest myth on understanding Love per se. American psychotherapist Thomas Moore writes his definition of romance in his book Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationships. According to him, romance or romantic love is "an illusion, a projection, and an obsession." There is an illusion that I am alone, that I need someone to fill that longing. This attitude motivates us to find that someone at all cost. Our hormones provoke us with fleeting emotions as we meet a particular person, whom we believe as the source of true Love. We sustain that physical connection, leading us to a more tangible intimacy. To maintain that relationship, we must always give and take. We live in the ideal concept of reciprocity, wherein to build a satisfying relationship I must give what my partner demands from me and take from my partner those that I demand. It encompasses many aspects of every day life, and most commonly seen in marital relationships. It is like a business of Love, where Love becomes a commodity of exchange. I can only Love someone if the person is this or that, must do or have this or that. For instance, men demands stereotypical women who are both beautiful goddesses and passionate homemakers. Women, on the other hand, demands stereotypical men who are both adamant gods and inexhaustible providers. These are common human aspiration in terms of settling down for a new family, all rooted in the mode of human survival.

The prevalence of this consciousness is the main reason why most romantic relationship ends in disillusionment. The illusion of romantic perfection unbearably concludes, when we used to believe that everything we feel for someone can last a lifetime. We thought that relationships that have lasted for years may prove its eternal existence. However, treading the rough roads of life seems to disenchant this possibility. On the physical level, a person demands things from his/her partner that will satisfy him/her in a relationship, leaving the other person exhausted. In some ways, a person seems to feel guilty and helpless for s/he cannot fulfill his/her partners demands. Separation becomes an imminent choice, and both lovers are downfallen, and the Love they used to experience has become the source of their deepest pains.

Apparently, it has been proven that everything in this world is a dynamic of energy systems. This explains why on the non-physical level, romantic love behaves in a way that one person gets the energy of Love from his partner, leaving his/her partner drained. We are in this unseen power struggles, pursuing manipulative control over the other. We build this psychological matrix of dependence and codependence. In the context of romantic relationships, a person seeks control over the partner in all aspects of their lives. When control is not achieved, one resorts to emotional backlash. Fear, anger, jealousy and guilt are just some of dense experiences resulting from this struggle. These states are crystal-clear proof where true experience of Love cannot ever co-exist.

The force of Love calls for the Rhythm, when, after falling in Love, there is always a great opportunity to rise in Love.

(to be continued)