When We Want to Love More than We Are Able

Question

Dear Asha,

Recently I find myself unable to find peace in meditation. I’m up against an overwhelming “ego attachment” that is making me sad: my longing to connect with people on an emotional, soulful level.

I don’t have the strength to let go of my desire to be loved in a romantic way. I’ve found peace in being single, but I long to feel that I matter, and that people care about me.

I can’t envision letting go of this longing. Still, it is coming up for a reason. Is there an affirmation you can suggest that would help?

How does one live with people, help them, and not have any attachment to them? I understand that we should not have expectations of people, that we should be strong and independent. But I am confused by my attachments. The only two things I really believe in are my Love for God, and my desire to help others. Perhaps there is an affirmation that could include this goal.

(Photo: Love grows naturally in the human heart, through the life-experiences given to us by God. Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

Answer

That you long to be loved is something completely natural. Everyone does. God planted that desire in our hearts. Love is the force behind everything noble and good that mankind achieves. In time, you will see that all love is God’s love. In the meantime, the answer is to live sincerely on the level that is natural for you.

As for attachment, don’t worry about it! It will take care of itself. We do not become detached by pounding against our attachments. We become detached by expanding our hearts until everything is seen in its proper perspective.

Human love, Paramhansa Yogananda said, perfectly expressed, is “almost the same as divine love.” The doorway to perfection in divine love is through loving others.

It is too much to expect of yourself – and more than God expects of you – to love wholeheartedly without some level of egoic feeling. Few of us are yet that pure. But loving wholeheartedly, even with shades of personal attachment, will gradually expand your heart until your love does become the perfect love of God.

The path to God is not a sprint; it is a long-distance race. There is a big difference between understanding something intellectually, and being able to embrace with our heart, mind, and soul. Success on the spiritual path depends on a calm acceptance of that discrepancy during the years, even lifetimes, it takes to shift our consciousness.

And yes, at times meditation is a painful awakening to the many levels of thought and feeling hidden within us. The purpose of meditation is to increase our awareness! As you climb to the top of a mountain, you can look down into valleys that you may not have known were there. Better to see yourself as you are, than to live in a dream world of false images. But yes, of course it takes courage, and faith.

God loves you just as you are. He knows what you are experie3ncing, and what you will have to go through to come to a state of God-realization. He will hold your hand and guide you every step of the way.

A mother doesn’t expect her five-year-old child to be able to sit in a graduate seminar. The child has much learning to do before it will be possible. But that day will come. In the same way, our Divine Mother doesn’t expect us to be more advanced than we are. That is something we mistakenly impose on ourselves.

Learn the lessons that are right in front of you, and don’t worry about a perfection that isn’t possible for you now. Just know that it will be yours someday, as long as you don’t give up.

As for an affirmations, I think you should not bother about your faults, but affirm in a positive way what you are naturally inclined toward: loving and serving others. Swami Kriyananda’s book, Affirmations for Self-Healing, offers several affirmations that would be helpful. These are suggestions merely. You may find others that feel more right to you.

Love: “I will love others as extensions of my own Self, and of the love I feel from God.”

Service: “I will serve God through others, and by my service to Him release the hold the ego has on me. I am free in God! In God I am free!” (Please note that this one does speak of ego attachment, so only use this affirmation if the mention of ego does not make you feel inadequate. If saying that phrase makes you sad, do not use this affirmation.)

Joy: “I am even-minded and cheerful at all times. I know that joy is not outside me, but within.”

I hope this is helpful to you.

Blessings,

Asha

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