On Loving - An Action

Erich Fromm speaks about Love, marriage and relationships from the perspective of "having" and "being", beautifully as follows in his book - "To Have or To Be"

"Love has two meanings, depending upon whether it is spoken of in the mode of having or in the mode of being.
Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, there is no such a thing as "love". In reality there exists only the act of loving. To love implies caring for, knowing, responding affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing.
When love is experienced in the mode of having it implies confining, imprisoning, or controlling the object one "loves". It is strangling, deadening, suffocating, killing not life-giving. What people call love is mostly a misuse of the word, in order to hide the reality of their not loving.
The same may be said of marriages. Whether the marriage is based on love or, like traditional marriages of the past, on social convenience and custom, the couple who truly love each other seem to be the exception. What is social convenience, custom, mutual economic interests, shared interest in children, mutual dependency, or mutual hate or fear is consciously experienced as "love" - up to the moment when one or both partners recognize that they do not love each other, and that they never did. Today one can note some progress in this respect: people have become more realistic and sober, and many no longer feel that being sexually attracted means to love, or that a friendly, though distant, team relationship is a manifestation of loving. This new outlook has made for greater honesty - as well as more frequent change in partners. It has not necessarily led to a greater frequency of loving, and the new partners may love as little as did the old.
The change from "falling in love" to the illusion of "having" love can often be observed in concrete detail in the history of couples who have "fallen in love".

During courtship neither person is yet sure of the other, but each tries to win the other. Both are alive, attractive, interesting. Neither yet has the other; hence each other's energy is directed to "being", i.e. to giving to and stimulating the other. With the act of marriage the situation frequently changes fundamentally. The marriage contract gives each partner the exclusive possession of the other's body, feeling and care. Nobody has to be won over any more, because love has become something one "has", a property. The two cease to make the effort to be lovable and to produce love, hence they become boring, and hence their beauty disappears. They are disappointed and puzzled. Are they not the same persons any more? Did they make a mistake in the first place? Each usually seeks the cause of the change in the other and feels defrauded. What they do not see is that they no longer are the same people they were when they were in love with each other; that the error that one can have love has led them to cease loving. Now, instead of loving each other, they settle for owing together what they have: money, social standing, a home, children. Thus, in some cases, the marriage initiated on the basis of love becomes transformed into a friendly ownership, a corporation in which the two egotisms are pooled into one: that of the family.

When a couple cannot get over the yearning for renewal of the previous feeling of loving, one or the other of the pair may have the illusion that a new partner (or partners) will satisfy their longing. They feel that all they want to have is love. But love to them is not an expression of their being; it is a goddess to whom they want to submit. They necessarily fail with their love because "love is a child of liberty", and worshipper of the goddess of love eventually becomes so passive as to be boring and loses whatever is left of this or her former attractiveness.

This description is not intended to imply that marriage cannot be the best solution for two people who love each other. The difficulty does not lie in marriage, but in the possessive, existential structure of the both partners and, in the last analysis, of their society. The advocates of such modern-day forms of living together as group marriage, changing partners, group sex, etc, try, as far as I can see, only to avoid the problem of their difficulties in more "lovers", rather than to be able to love even one."

Beautifully expresses so succinctly, Fromm points to the root cause of attachment and pain, or disillusionment one undergoes in love, is rooted in one's propensity of "having" the object of love, in the above abstract in his book. Love in all forms loses its sheen, its life, its vitality and potency, when the love falls down to the form of a commodity to be "had". A person would be in excruciating emotional pain till he has not "had" his love. Countless poets have expressed their heartbreak, loneliness and helplessness in being in defiance from their love object. If by luck, the lover is able to "have" his love, then, as Fromm has rightly explained, the magic evaporates, as precisely occurs to one, when one buys the latest iPhone, and then loses interest in that, when a new version of iPhone is released the next year. I know here I have taken the subject to an extreme, and no one compares his lover to an iPhone. The comparison here is symbolically done to put a point.

The way out of this existential dilemma is always to relate love as an action - a productive, creative, nourishing and beautiful action. When one says, "I love you", one should relate it to saying, "I am standing in an act of caring, respecting, feeling, appreciating and affirming, who you are and who you are not". It is true that one cannot "fall in love". Rather one can only walk in love, stand in love, sing in love, write in love, create in love, see in love, paint in love, and live in love. I like to be always "inlove" :)

It is so true when Fromm says - "To love implies caring for, knowing, responding affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing." Yes, when one is not able to self-renew and self-increase, and do the same for his object of love, one has to be aware that it is not love that one is. But rather it is a personality defect - a craving, a need, a parasitic and symbiotic attachment.

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An Effort

I have been talking about the insanity of "having" the current society in some of my previous articles, such as http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/04/dont-kill-just-listen.html
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/03/karl-marx-on-being-and-sham-of-having.html

This propensity of having is so ingrained in everyday life, that it is most often hidden from our conscious selves. It is rather easier to come out of this race of having more and more on a material realm, related to possessions in material, once man sees the innate emptiness in just material possessions. But the addiction of possessing more and more in the mental and emotional realm is much more tricky. Man many a times is prey of his own rationalizations, and get stuck to the illusion of having.
Erich Fromm portrays in a beautiful and simple way the nature of "having" knowledge and learning, and its difference from the higher state of "being" in the realm of knowing, in his book "To Have or To Be". He says-
"The difference between the mode of having and the mode of being in the sphere of knowing is expressed in two formulations: "I have knowledge" and "I know". Having knowledge is taking and keeping possession of available knowledge; knowing is functional and serves only as a means in the process of productive thinking.
Our understanding of the quality of knowing in being mode of existence can be enhanced by the insights of such thinkers as the Buddha, the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, Master Eckhart, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx. In their view, knowing begins with the awareness of the deceptiveness of our common sense perceptions, in the sense that our picture of physical reality does not correspond to what is "really real" and, mainly in the sense that most people are half awake, half dreaming, and are unaware that most of what they hold to be true and self evident is illusion produced by suggestive influence of the social world in which they live. Knowing, then, begins with shattering of illusions, with disillusionment. Knowing means to penetrate through the surface, in order to arrive at the roots, and hence the causes; knowing means to "see" reality in its nakedness. Knowing does not mean to be in possession of the truth; it means to penetrate the surface and to strive critically an actively in order to approach truth ever more closely.
The Buddha calls on people to wake up and liberate themselves from the illusion that craving for things/people lead to happiness. The Hebrew prophets appeal to the people to wake up and know that their idols are nothing but the work of their own hands, are illusions. Jesus says : Truth shall make you free. Master Eckhart expressed his concept of knowing many times; for instance, when speaking of God he says: "Knowledge is no particular thought but rather it peels off all coverings and is disinterested and runs naked to God, until it touches him and grasps him". According to Marx, one needs to destroy illusions in order to create the conditions that make illusions unnecessary. Freud's concept of self-knowledge is based on the idea of destroying illusions through ones own rationalizations in order to become aware of the unconscious reality.
All these thinkers were concerned with human salvation; they were all critical of socially accepted thought patterns. To them the aim of knowing is not the certainty of "absolute truth", something one can feel secure with, but the self affirmation process of human reason. Ignorance, for the one who knows, is as good as knowledge, since both are part of the process of knowing, even though ignorance of this kind is different from ignorance of the unthinking. Optimum knowledge in the being mode is to know more deeply. In the having mode it is to have more knowledge.
Our education generally tries to train people to have knowledge as a possession, by and large commensurate with the amount of property or social prestige they are likely to have in later life. The schools are the factories in which these overall knowledge packages are produced - although schools usually claim they mean to bring the students in touch with the highest achievements of the human mind. Many undergraduate colleges are particularly adroit in nurturing these illusions. From Indian thought and art to existentialism and surrealism, a vast smorgasbord of knowledge is offered from which students pick a little here, a little there, and in the name of spontaneity and freedom are not urged to concentrate on one subject, not even ever to finish reading an entire book."

This is beautifully expressed! I would not have agreed more to the thoughts of Fromm, and could not have expressed it so to-the-point, precise and correctly. It amuses me when I get weekly newsletters from various organizations presenting abstracts of various books and articles. The so called think tanks of the current world like Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and others in the league, try to bring out tit-bits of knowledge form here and there. Most of the articles try to give a peek to the reader, some deep and long research work of some professors inside the hallowed walls of the greatest universities of the world. It is good that this helps the common man to have a peek onto what is happening in the realms of the frontiers of leadership, science, archeology, etc. But the issue is the common man is satisfied with an abstract, or an illustration, or a simplified "digestible" format of the knowledge. With the half baked knowledge the reader extrapolates it and tries to use it for himself. Neither there is a depth of thinking that is developed in the reader, nor the reader is able to create something unique and original. Most of the things he says, believes and opines are borrowed thoughts, which are not even understood properly. I understand that one has to learn from the giants. But "learning" from the giants is reduced to "copying" from the giants. The scope of the writings of the greatest masters and thinkers get reduced when man tries to relate to them from the mode of having, and not giving enough time and energy to go deep into the real essence of them. No wonder I see many writing in their interests section, in their profiles in the social networking sites - Bollywood gossips, films!
Our society is in dire need of increasing depth and quality, and reducing the quantity. An effort needs to be taken from each individual to take a breath, step back, and be mindful of his present - what he is reading, what he is watching, what he is doing, what he is thinking. And from that point, he has to go deeper into each realm, trying to break through the forced illusion that is being intricately woven by the modern plague of capitalism, consumerism, commoditization, globalization, and what not. It is high time to ask ourselves questions like - "Which book am I reading nowadays?", "What I understood for myself from the book I read last?", "What is that I care the most?", "What the great thinkers of yesteryears had to say about their lives and nature of the world?", "What are the illusions I subscribe to without even questioning?", "Was I helpful to others in any way today?", "Was I in a state of love or hatred in the moment just passed?", "What is the legacy I am leaving behind", "What I would like to leave inscribed on my epitaph, when I die" etc.

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Don't Kill. Just Listen

At a time when most of the humanity is very busy in the race to have more and better, to be more productive, to do more in less time, to devour more and more, to produce more, to get the best deal - not only in the commodity market, but also in the realm of relationships, - the words like patience, perseverance, beingness, reasoning, love, compassion, relating to, etc are scoffed by many. Today man is eager to kill, not having any time to listen. When I say, "eager to kill", I not only point to the increasing terrorism determined to kill peace, love and solidarity, but I also intend to point to people in this society who are always eager kill others with the ammunition of hatred, superstition, prejudices, narrowness, close-mindedness, impatience, and an deep seated unwillingness to listen to the other, and understand the other. Man is slowly losing out his innate humane faculty to understand, empathize, express his solidarity and to connect to others being in love. Loving the other looks like a huge task. People do not sometimes even are able to relate to the other, forget about loving. Most of us are busy building up our guards to protect ourselves, our ego, our self-importance, in the name of individuality. We are busy doing the same with ourselves, and the other is busy too doing the same with himself. Most of the time is spent creating the separateness, creating those dis-integrated silos to save oneself, and then life fizzles out in ones own dungeon, either alone, or grouped with similar thinking diseased souls. Man misses out the opportunity to be able to really see the Truth, woven in the plurality and appreciate the inherent unity. It is not religion, culture, God which divides man from man. But a deep seated psychoanalytical disorder in man, which hinders his inherent capacity to love others, is the root cause of the dis-integration prevalent among men. 

Already having tough guards built around our ears, eyes, and minds, most among us tend to super-impose our own autobiography onto the other. The only way of life for most among us, is to quickly apply a borrowed or a quickly arrived at theory or framework and rationalize humans, relationships, work, circumstances, institutions to fit into a bias as per the framework. The idea is to find a quick fix, to be "productive", to be "smart", to be able to "do a split second decision", to be able to "lead". The same busyness and eagerness to produce results have been fuelled by the big capitalistic corporate environments, where the basis of all ethics, values, meaning, and existence of one is just - results, and value for the share holders. This predilections of modern man to find quickies, have shown its colors in the way people relate to men and women in their lives too - both in personal and professional realms. People so easily fall in love, and also fall out of love for that matter. A one night stand is considered to be the most in-thing and fashionable. Strangely, a weird existence is being propagated among most which is grounded on lack of patience, depth, creativity, authenticity, loyalty, courage and love. And most unfortunate thing is that each of these are definitive factors which make us humans. Inventing new machines, and making the existing machines and computers faster and better, as days pass to months, and then to years and decades, man being surrounded by machines, computers, networks, commodities, have slowly started identifying other fellow humans, including himself as a commodity. Having reduced to just a commodity, it is obvious that the human qualities of love, compassion, beingness, will be inevitably missing in the society. 

We can choose to continue to be in the state of trance, gradually relinquishing our core human values, or rather step back and think for sometime, what we are doing, and where we are going. Certainly before killing again - an idea, a person, a hope, a potential, a love, an understanding, a compassion, a concern, an affection, we need to stop and listen. We need to listen to our entire being, listen to the stars, listen to wind, listen to the stream, listen to the Earth, the sky and the moon. We will have to start reclaiming that lost awareness of the forgotten language - the language of being, where in its pristine form, man was able to relate not only his fellow men being in deep love, but also to nature, to flora and fauna. 

The Greatest Masters of yesteryears - Jesus, Buddha, Vedic scholars, Kabir, Rumi, to name a few, had always stressed on love and being-ness as the way to realization of man, his real essence and the real essence of this universe.

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The Right Action - On Beingness

There is one profound dimension to the right action that I would like to bring to the attention of the reader. This is the aspect of "Being" over "Having". Action as related in the contemporary society is mostly from the realm of "having". It is when wants to have something, he takes an action. That having might be material or more sublime. It might be related to experience, emotional needs, or more exterior oriented to achieve a worldly goal. In the realm of "Being" action is more of an internal activity which one undertakes just to observe, understand, accept, know and be silent, in the meditation of inaction, but keeps growing internally to increase one's level of appreciation of life as a whole. I can give an example on the way Mother Earth manifests herself. Mother Earth or as she is known by the ancient Greeks as Gaia, is always in a state of tranquil inaction, in an outward realm. But she is always quietly serving thousands of seeds to nourish them in her womb, holding in her immense embrace the sparkle of the diamonds, the sheen of gold, the passion of throbbing geysers and hot springs, and innumerable life forms. Mother Earth does not enter into these activities to "have" something. She even does not proclaim her actions to the universe. She also does not go and stop the mindless human when he exploits her and hurts her. 

Please note that I am not pointing out to sacrifice, forgiveness of un-conditionality. I am going beyond that. I am pointing to a place where there is a silent but throbbing state of is-ness. Mother Earth always is in a state of "is-ness". This state of "is-ness" from outside looks like a life-less inertia. But in reality, from within, Mother Earth is in endless activity grounded deep into love, concern and compassion. She does not have anything. She is just "IS". This awareness and appreciation of "Being-ness" brings into one's consciousness new depth of being alive, which would have otherwise fizzled out when man is vexed in the race of having and having. It allows a man to be really free. He is for the first time would be able to live his life without the added heavy baggage of expectation, judgment, fear, or heartbreak. For the first time he would be able to love freely. This idea of being is not a trick to save oneself from the unavoidable misfortunes and helplessness of life. If the reader is going into this direction, I would be pained that the idea is not understood at all. I am coming from a point of being in a state where a person will be for the first time be able to see the hidden beauty of life, which is camouflaged by the apparent commotion, dis-integration, contradictions and ugliness all prevalent on surface. This is the only way to see God. The private space of silence that one creates in the gaps of one's thoughts, ushers one into the way to the understanding of life in a much more deeper and true way. That way man is more closer to the truth. 

I try to implement this state of being every moment of my life. That helps me better to integrate myself with the diverse realities of life. There are mishaps that happen. Most of the times the harsh realities of life look so overwhelmingly against man's wish and desire. Many a times life brings man face to face with situations that one is embarrassed to core to confront. There are people one loves to the core, but they hate them more than anyone. Men are most hurt by people they love the most. But in the state of "Being", one starts to recognize that, in spite of abominable ugliness of the world around, there is an undercurrent of beauty and melody and a serene composure joyously gurgling. The more he recognizes the harmony in which the life is woven, more he goes deeper - between the ridges of the tapestry and dives into the beauty gushing out from each deep pore of the fabric of life. He realizes that the true bliss is not having something or somebody. That pleasure of having is just momentarily. Eventually what one has, rusts, decays and dies. Only what stays is what "is". 

There might be many other deeper levels of understanding the idea of "Right Action" in the Gita. But to the level I have come up with years of my own internal activity, and help and guidance from my friends, teachers and people around me, I have come to relate to just this level of understanding of the "Right Action" from the Bhagavad Gita. There is a long way to go for me before I can try to even fathom so many uncharted avenues this profound work of art can take us.

PS - Please note that reference to "man" in my essays are meant to stand for "mankind". I don't intend to be patriarchal in my expressions. This is done more from the point of view of simplification of the expression.

I have been delving into the aspect of "Right Action" in last few articles of mine. In these, I have tried to synthesize from my various readings, contemplations, innumerable synthesis, experiences and understanding of myself and life, the essence of right action. An initial treatment of the topic has been done the my previous articles on Bhagavat Gita as follows -

http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/03/idea-of-right-action.html

http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/03/symbolism-of-bhagavad-gita.html

In this current essay, I have tried to touch upon the idea of Being inherent in the attitude of the "right action". I have added this essay as the last part of the earlier article - "The idea of right action", for completion sake. So that the reader can separately contemplate on this idea, without any distraction of other aspects, I thought it would be better to bring this out as a separate essay. Hope you enjoyed it.

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