There is no other activity, endeavour or venture that fails so regularly, as love. It always starts with great hopes and expectation and yet fails to fulfil its promises.

If we are driven by the feelings of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ there remains a separation, we can’t experience pure, causeless love. Love happens only when we are one with the other, when we don’t have a private goal or destination.

With love, generally arises fear. If you are afraid of letting go of yourself then love can’t penetrate. Fear arises due to the dissolving ego, we become afraid of losing our identity.

Love merges, ego separates. Ego is a closed state of consciousness; it closes us due to fear and causes us to shrink. If we remain stuck in ego, we can neither love nor trust. Relationship flowers only when we know how to love and trust.

When we drop the ego and fear of losing, love becomes simple, easy and spontaneous.

Love can easily turn into hate if our love is conditional. It remains as love only as long as conditions and expectations are met. As soon as conditions change or expectations are not met the mood changes to unlove.

If we want the other person to be just how we want him/her to be then we actually reduce the person to the level of an object, we suffocate them. When we suffocate others, we create only suffering for others and ourselves.

We go through several stages of relationships in our lifetime. Sometimes we seek attention, admiration or approval in the name of love. Our need is primarily ‘being loved’ rather than ‘loving’. We call this transaction ‘love’, but in reality, we are looking to ‘get love’ by giving something that looks or feels like ‘love’ simply in order to get it back.

At other times, the attention-need along with our dependency on others for survival is what we experience or call as love. This dependency might be psychological, physical or material. This sort of love seeks fulfilment from the other in some way.

Our understanding of love evolves as we mature and begin to love and understand ourselves deeply. When we make a quantum jump from attention seeking, need-based or possessive love to causeless love we truly blossom as a loving being.

When love happens as causeless overflowing, one is liberated and liberates the other person from attachment and possessiveness, because possessiveness not only binds the other person but us as well.

Causeless overflowing love is always total in its expression, it’s not contaminated with greed or fear. One loves without reservation, irrespective of the way the other is. It is not dependent on the other person, that is the beauty of real love. It just becomes one’s natural expression, it is breathing and living.