Question: If we’re all one, why do we feel drawn toward certain individuals in an expression of “personal love”?

Answer: True love is transcendental. Without recognition
of the formless within yourself, there can be no true transcendental
love. If you cannot recognize the formless in yourself, you cannot
recognize yourself in the other. The recognition of the other as
yourself in essence – not the form – is true love. As long as the
conditioned mind operates and you are completely identified with it,
there’s no true love. There may be substitutes, things that are called
“love” but are not true love. For example, “falling in love”…perhaps
most of us have experienced it. Maybe one or two at this moment are “in
love”, and those who have experienced it have also experienced “falling
out of love”.

We need to remember to understand [the difference between] true love
and other forms of so-called love. We are in the relative as form, and
in the absolute as formless consciousness. The two dimensions that the
human being embodies are the ‘human’ and the ‘being’. The human is the
form, the being is the formless, the timeless consciousness itself. It
sometimes happens that the form has an affinity with other forms. It
could happen for a number of reasons. One being that this form has come
out of another form – called your mother – and so there is an affinity
of this form with that other form. You have a love toward your mother
that might be called ‘personal’. Another aspect of affinity with another
form is male/female. You can be drawn to another body in a sexual way,
and it’s sometimes called “love”. Especially if the sexual act is denied
long enough, it’s more likely to develop into obsessive love…so much
so, that in cultures where you could not have sex until you were
married, falling in love could be a huge thing and could lead to
suicide. Naturally, there is an affinity of the male/female, the
incompleteness of this form. The primary incompleteness of this form is
that you are either a man or a woman. The oneness has become the duality
of male/female.

The pull towards the other is an attempt to find wholeness,
completeness, fulfillment through the opposite polarity, in an attempt
to find the Oneness. That lies at the basis of the attraction. It’s to
do with form, because on the level of form you are not whole – you are
one half of the whole. One half of humanity is male, one half is female,
roughly.

You have the attraction for the other, then there may be finding
certain qualities in another human being that resonate with certain
qualities in yourself. Or, if they don’t resonate, it may be the
opposite that you feel drawn to. If you are a very peaceful person,
maybe you feel drawn toward a dramatic person, or vice-versa. And again,
you are hoping for some completion there. You can have an affinity with
another form, which can be called ‘personal love’. If personal love is
all that there is, then what is missing is the transcendental dimension
of the formless – which is where true love arises. Is that part of the
personal love, or is the personal level all that there is? That
determines whether that so-called “love” is going to turn into something
painful eventually, and frustrating, or if there is a deepening.

There may be an attraction that is initially sexual between two humans.
If they start living together, this cannot endure for that long and be
the fulfillment of the relationship. At some point, sexual/emotional
[attraction] needs to deepen and the transcendental dimension needs to
come in, to some extent, for it to deepen. Then true love shines through
the personal. The important thing is that true love emanates from the
timeless, non-formal dimension of who you are. Is that shining through
the personal love that is to do with affinity of forms? If it is not,
there is complete identification with form, and complete identification
with form is ego.

Many times you may think “that’s it!” and after living together for a
little while you realize “that was a mistake”, or “I was completely
deluded”. Even in parent-children relationships, which is a very close
bond on the level of form, if the transcendental dimension does not
shine through, eventually the love between children and parents turns
into something else. This is why so many people have very problematic
relationships with their parents.

Some relationships may start as purely form-based, and then the other
dimension comes in after a while. Perhaps only after a lot of problems,
and perhaps you get close to a breakup, when suddenly there is a
deepening and then you are able to bring in space.

The key is to ask, “Is there space in this relationship?” Or are there
only thoughts and emotions? It’s dreadful prison to inhabit if you live
with a person and all you have are thoughts and emotions. Occasionally
you are okay, but there is disagreement, friction.

We need to acknowledge that there are personal affinities. But in
themselves, they are never ultimately fulfilling. More often than not,
they are a source of suffering. Love becomes a source of suffering when
the transcendental is missing. How does the transcendent come in? By
being spacious with the other. Which essentially means that you access
the Stillness in yourself while you look at the other.

Not mental noise, not emotional waves. That does not mean that there
cannot be emotions or thoughts, but there is something else present in
the relationship. That applies not only to close personal relationships,
but also to more superficial relationships at work.

With any human relationship, the question is, “Is there space?” It’s a
pointer. Space is when thought becomes unimportant – even an emotion
becomes unimportant.

When people live together, sometimes the other is no longer
acknowledged in daily life because there is so much to do. If you wake
up in the morning, is there a moment when you acknowledge the presence
of the other?

It’s the most wonderful thing if you can be there for the other as
space, rather than as a person. At this very moment, you can either be here as a person, or you can be here as the space.