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Swami Suddhananda |
“I do not feel loved. I feel tolerated” was the sad complaint of a
person I recently met. There was so much sincerity, anxiety, sadness
and depth that I felt like writing something about it. It seemed to
be a universal human phenomenon, human emotion. Since then I have
asked many people the same question, “Do you feel loved or do you
feel tolerated?” For many, the question has come as a rude shock as
they have never asked that question to themselves. Nor have they felt
the need to question in that line. They have taken for granted that
either they are loved or they are never loved. That they may be just
tolerated has not even passed through their head.
I asked that question to myself, “Am I being loved or tolerated by
people?” The sadness, the burden of the questioner made me probe deep
into the emotions so that I could find a solution for the individual.
Long before I feel overjoyed by the fact or
fiction that I am loved, I must ask a question to myself, “Do I love
myself?” Similarly, long before I feel saddened by the fact or
fiction that I am being tolerated, I must question myself, “Do I love
myself or do I tolerate myself?”
If the answer is, “I love myself for who I am,”
then I cannot but feel loved all the time. But if I have an
emptiness, a need to be needed, to be loved and that is not being
reciprocated, nor spurned, then I feel “tolerated”. People cannot
drop you because you are too powerful to be spurned. Yet they may not
be able to love you as they may feel threatened by your powerful
presence or they tolerate you because you happen to be there as a
part of a family group, a social group, a religious group or any
set-up where your not being loved may not create any problem, but
your being shunned may precipitate a conflict. Hence, one is
tolerated.
Sometimes an insensitive person may delude himself
that he is being loved when in reality he is being tolerated. Only an
awareful, sensitive person will ever try to question the difference
between being loved and being tolerated.
A child has no such doubt. Nor does a grown-up
child called an adult have any such problem. The problem seems to
surface when a person starts gaining and identifying with many
different 'roles' in life when certain roles make him apparently more
important, yet certain other roles are very ordinary. Again, the
comparison between the roles often topples the apparent confidence.
One may feel very important in a small place, office, family or in an
organisation until one finds oneself in a far larger establishment.
Suddenly one's confidence can be shattered. At that time he may start
realising the fact that so far he was just being tolerated, as there
are obviously greater people or roles existing in the world around.
That shattering of confidence clearly establishes the fact that every
man must learn to discover something of an Absolute Existence,
Reality, where nothing can compare or contrast with 'It'. It is an
incomparable existence where there is nothing superior or inferior to
It.
There is Absolute love in such a discovery.
Thereafter, one must learn to be absolutely honest in relation to
relative love and acceptance.
Let us analyse a relative situation before dealing
with the Absolute. There are many relative roles in life. Long before
a person discovers the Absolute love and Fulfilment, we are saddled
by many relative, limited roles. A person considers himself rich or
poor in relation to the extent of the possession of the material
wealth. He also considers himself young or old in relation to his
body. The person not only needs material security but also physical
comfort. As a result, one concludes that those who give us material
security or physical comfort love us and those who create discomfort
and insecurity in both or either of the fronts, hate us.
In case somebody provides physical comfort and
causes material insecurity, we shall love him for one reason and
tolerate him for the other, depending upon our sensitivity. If
material security is more important to a person than the physical
comfort, then he will tolerate all the physical discomfort.
Though the comfort or riches are physical, the
sense or security is at the level of mind - the emotions within. When
the person grows into the levels of emotions, he may spurn the
material security for the sake of physical comfort. That is where
people come to value different sensations as more or less important.
One can be so obsessed with a sound (music), touch (physical
intimacy), sight (forms and colours), taste (food or drink), smell
(drugs or perfume) that one can give up all other sensations for the
sake of any one of the sensations. These obsessions can vary in any
given person from one stage to another stage in life. Since none in
the universe can provide all the sensations, we love a few, depending
upon what we need and shun all others depending upon what we do not
need.
Thus, not only we constantly divide the creation
into 'loved' and 'tolerated' territories, but also we go on dividing
our emotions by constantly shifting love into toleration or
toleration to love. Our dominant need at any given moment decides
what we love and what we tolerate. Therefore the so-called love and
toleration have the touch of total selfishness where the necessary
emotion is a product of a very selfish consideration of survival.
Such people do not and cannot love anybody though
it appears as love to the person with similar needs. As much they
tolerate others for satisfying what they need, that much they are
tolerated by others if others need something or other from them. More
- rather, most - people tolerate and are tolerated than they love or
are loved. Love is there where there is no need of any kind.
Toleration comes out of a sheer selfish need and that is why the
toleration can change into intolerance, hatred, once either the need
is not taken care or one grows out of the need in time. Love is
something, which is changeless, and one can never grow out of it, as
the love itself is Absolute and the real nature of all.
But people with such love of Absolute kind, can
tolerate, and accept all without giving others a sense of
inferiority. The selfish can often be painted by him as selfless just
for the growth of the individual. Others can go on attributing
motives but such a person would be touched least by that aspersion.
Such people would share anything and everything if that helps others
to grow into themselves. But they cannot expect the same thing from
others as others are yet to know themselves and therefore hold on to
their material possessions, the body and the mind (emotions) as the
weapons to be used to gain love and power.
Ask, therefore, a question to yourself, “Do I use
all my possessions - my wealth, body, emotions, knowledge - as
weapons to gain love and acceptance or do I love myself for 'who I
am' beyond all possessions of physical, emotional, and intellectual
kinds, to share those freely with people who have need?”
If you are 'using' them all as weapons people will
only tolerate you, as they need all that you have. Only a wise person
will both love and tolerate you as he recognises both your strength
and weakness. But two wise people will only love as all their
possessions are shared without in anyway being 'used' or
'manipulated' for or against each other. It may be rare, but glimpses
of such behaviour can be seen in many lives from time to time.
See that Timeless Love in yourself and then enjoy
all other dimensions - sometimes relatively ecstatic and sometimes
painful! That makes life exotic.
Swami Suddhananda
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