Originally posted by: shaktheback
<table width="470" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" height="501"><tbody><tr><td class="bodytext" valign="top" width="454" height="133"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="92"><tbody><tr><td class="bodytext" valign="top" width="475" align="left" height="92"><font size="2">Does love really turn into hate? Really speaking it does
not. Real love never changes into hate or something else.
Krishna says that by deliberation, meditation, or dwelling
upon an object one develops attraction or attachment for
the object. This attachment leads to desire to possess
and enjoy the object. This desire, or kama, is taken or
mistaken for love. But it is only a vritti of the mode
of passion (rajo guna). The modes are always in a flux.
This gives rise to different qualities. When one?s desire
is not fulfilled then anger arises (kamat krodho?bhijayate).
Anger is a family member of hatred, and it leads to destructive
thoughts and actions. </font></td>
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<font size="2">A
soul is part of the Lord?s energy. It can find enduring solace
only when it is united with the Lord. But when the soul identifies
and becomes engrossed in the material body, the outcome is
duality. The soul feels lost like a baby lost from the mother.
In that lost state, out of ignorance, it looks for union in
material relations. The root cause of this urge to unite with
someone in a loving manner is a spiritual one. There is also
an undercurrent of fear? fear of loneliness, fear of losing
one?s self (the body), and the things related to the self
such as family members, relatives and possessions. This is
because of duality arising from misidentification with the
material body.</font>
<font size="2"> There is a deep and unconscious longing to end the duality
and to attain a state of completeness. When one identifies
with the body there is always an inner feeling of void and
emptiness.</font>
<font size="2"> At the physical level nobody is complete or perfect. It
is not possible. One is thinking oneself as a man or woman,
i.e., only one half of the whole. Therefore, at the bodily
level the desire for completeness manifests as an attraction
to the opposite gender. It is like the irresistible attraction
between the opposite poles of a magnet. The sexual union is
the closest completeness one can attain at the level of the
body. This is the most attractive and most satisfying activity
at the physical level. But this is also the most binding and
delusive activity because it completely entrenches one in
the bodily concept of life. To believe that ?falling in love?
is genuine love is the most powerful and pervasive misconception.
This is the definite conclusion of Srimad Bhagavatam. Therefore
all the great religions of the world have laid down certain
restrictions on the union between man and woman.</font>
<font size="2"> The male-female union seems to offer a release from the
deep-rooted state of fear and incompleteness. But alas it
is far from the truth and it is only a fleeting relief. It
is a ?sure to fail? attempt for liberation. It is the ego?s
substitute for salvation. The famous psychologist M.Scott
Peck describes falling in love as a partial and temporary
collapse of one?s ego. He says: ? The act of falling in love
is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the
loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged
with our mothers in infancy.? A newborn baby does not have
its own distinct ego. There is no distinction between I and
you. It and the world are one. There are no boundaries that
separate the infant from the rest of the world.</font>
<font size="2"> But as the child grows and gains experience, it begins to
realize itself as a distinct entity from the rest of the world.
A sense of ?me? begins to develop. Slowly its ego develops.
The baby begins to learn its own size and physical confines.
It understands its voice, its thoughts and feelings. It knows
about its limitations. The knowledge of these limitations
in one?s mind is called ego boundary. This process of growth
of the ego boundaries continues through childhood into adolescence
and then into adulthood.<br><br>
A grown up person feels lonely behind these boundaries. There
is a feeling of isolation, which is painful. Therefore there
is an irresistible desire to break these boundaries and regress
back to the state when one was in the mother?s womb. Falling
in love gives that facility temporarily. It breaks the ego
boundaries and one feels merged into the beloved. One does
not feel lonely anymore. But this is only a temporary relief.
This is how psychologists describe the drive for falling in
love. But from the spiritual point of view it is related with
the constitutional position of the soul. The soul cannot have
permanent happiness until it takes unmotivated shelter of
the Lord. When one does not surrender to the Lord one has
to surrender elsewhere. There is no choice. Therefore Bhagavatam
says that only the Lord and his devotees are free from sex
desire. Even the great yogis like Vishvamitra had their stint
with the opposite gender.</font>
<font size="2"> When one surrenders to the Lord one feels complete and fulfilled.
One becomes situated in one?s constitutional position. There
are no more material desires. The ocean is the source of all
water. The water that is not in the ocean, as in a river,
always has the tendency to flow towards the ocean. Once it
reaches the ocean then it does not move out of it. The situation
with the soul is similar. Unless it recognizes its relation
with its source, the Lord, it has the tendency to unite with
the Lord. But in the conditioned state, out of ignorance,
that tendency is misplaced in a material person. That does
not give him or her lasting peace and satisfaction because
the other person is suffering from the very same lacuna. Therefore,
the so-called love comes to an end, and mostly it turns into
a bitter feeling. This is because your partner sooner or later,
behaves in a manner that does not satisfy the needs of your
ego. The reason for that is that your partner has an individual
ego distinct from yours. His or her expectations and desires
are different from yours.</font>
<font size="2"> When you are in love, there is only partial collapse of
egos. The remaining ego asserts itself. At the physical and
psychological level both you and your partner are imperfect.
Two imperfect entities combined together do not add up to
perfection. Both seek individual satisfaction. This brings
clashes of egos. The feelings of fear, pain, loneliness and
incompleteness, part of egoistic consciousness, that were
covered by love now resurface. The love relationship is like
a drug addiction. A drug makes you high only for some time.
When you become used to it then it no longer works. Therefore,
any love relationship which has existed long enough and close
enough must eventually turn into sour feelings.<br><br>
When the feelings of loneliness, pain and fear strike they
seem to strike even harder than before. This is because you
are not used to them. Your power of tolerance becomes weak.
And the funny thing is that you think that your partner is
the cause behind them. Hence the object of love turns into
the dump yard of hatred. You attack him or her with all the
savage violence that is part of your pain. This sets up a
vicious cycle. He or she counter-attacks and that seems to
confirm your feelings of hatred. Because this so called material
love is in the mode of passion it has to end in misery. Krishna
puts it beautifully (BG 18.38) ?The delight which arises from
the contact of the senses with their objects appears like
nectar in the beginning, but is eventually like poison. This
is called happiness in the mode of passion.?<br><br>
Real love cannot change into its opposite suddenly. Love has
only one direction. It leads to more and more love. If in
your relationship you feel both love and the opposite of love
then know it for sure that it is not love. Any feeling of
love which turns into physical and emotional violence was
not love to begin with. You cannot be jealous of the person
you love.<br><br>
Does it mean that we should renounce all material relations?
This is neither practical nor possible. A human being is a
social creature. No man or woman is an island. We have to
live in the society and we are dependent on others for our
existence. Therefore, we cannot avoid relations, but we must
know the fleeting nature of material relations. Our real relation
is with God. Everything is related to God. He is the source
of everything. By realizing our relation with God we can relate
with everything else. That is real love and it will never
turn into hatred. It can only increase and it will never reach
a limit.<br></font>
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