My Valentine, How Deep Is Your Love?

What used to be an intimate, discrete act has been transformed by greedy corporations in a big
sale event. Love become so commercial and is exposed on all banners in a fancy or hilarious
ways that tends to lose its meaning.

My grandmother used to tell me stories from when she was young. She revealed to me with
emotion that when she was 17 years old she was taken by her parents to a ball room event
organized in her village. All young men were dressed up impeccably and they were looking for
sweethearts but this had to happened also only under close supervision of their parents. A big
ball room was fetched for dancing in the school of the village and mostly waltz music could be
heard. Young men that were not courageous enough to invite to "a dance" the lady he liked, used
to ask his parents to introduce him to girl's parents since they were the "ultimate decision
makers" if it is a "yay or nay" for him to have "the chance" to dance with the preferred girl. My
grandmother along with the other girls were giggling and impatiently waiting for young men to
invite them to dance. Everybody was poor, some were wearing shoes only at big events like this
or at church. My grandmother had 13 brothers and sisters. She was wearing in that evening a pair
of shoes borrowed from one of her sisters that were too small for her. But she was so excited to
dance with the love of her life, my grandfather, with whom they made a beautiful marriage for
65 years that the fact she had profound blisters on her feet didn't matter at all. She would suffer
next days but that evening was one of the most precious ones.

The custom was the following: if the girl and boy liked each other and both families were in
agreement that this may be a potential good union for future, the boy had to wait until the girl
would be minimum 18 years old and then they would get the blessings to marry. Until then there
was no way for them to interact in intimacy beside him sending flowers or "missing his way
home and remaining stuck in the road staring at girl window in the evening for hours.
Kissing was a big thing and if the parents would find out that this happen would be very angry.
For this reason my grandmother told me that there were plenty of run away of the girls from
home with their sweethearts. But that was a risky and totally discouraged act since they were
doomed and could not return home, unless they were married legally. The girl sometimes were at
risk to lose her tights to the family. Everybody was very careful not to cover in shame the whole
family due to a foolish act.

While my grandmother recognized some flaws in these customs she also told me with
melancholy that today she rarely could see true love among 2 people. It seems that while we
were "hit" by technological progress and we evolved enough to reach to the moon we lost our
true feelings on the way. Maybe because we don't have any more patience to "grow a
relationship", to nurture it, to fight for it, maybe because we do not teach any more our children,
boys and girls how to respect each others, what is the actual meaning of a relationship, what is
love in a marriage, what should be disconsidered as fake, what should not be taken for granted
and what is really important to respect: the basic Principles of Love.

The basic principle of love is to surrender. But who can totally surrender when everybody seems
to play games and to attempt to fool the other one? Men gain women as trophies and women
mock men looking at them as wallets.

True love is a completely honest state, when you love everything and anything, with every breath
you fall again into complete surrender without fear. But if you don't have your senses activated
you risk to be taken by fool is high.

We are used to a shallow concept of love, a form of attachment, where the following statement
stays valid:" treat me kindly and I will treat you as well". But true love known no bounds, has no
attachment, and no expectations. You just love because this is how you feel. Its similar with
babies that plays and curiously discover world around them and have multiple "Aha moments"
while enjoying every piece of their discoveries.

True love is a simple state of innocence, of humble being, where joy flows like nectar through
every pore and nerve in your body. I am hearing people that have 10, 20, 30 years of marriage
that they feel suffocated by their demands of their partners of life. What those partners would
become without them? Would they be lost? Would they recover and find their way as
autonomous, independent beings only dependent by God?

For our times, it seems that the down to earth advice we have to follow is : better to be safe then
to be sorry. This society and behavior of the people around us force us to remain suspicious, to
keep your guards up, and to be ready to fight off disappointment, disillusion and hurtful behavior
from our fellows. With all our guards up, true love will never come, but neither will
disappointment. We will live a "safe" life but an ordinary one. We will never reach the ecstatic
state and therefore the potential to achieve the enlightenment, the complete freedom in two.

"When we were born, God made us so innocent and ready to love. We are helpless in our
mother’s arms, we surrender to our father’s embrace. All we want to give is love, but we must be
loved in return, so there our baby ego falls. Our heart is so soft and fragile, and we wish for,
depend on and totally expect an immediate constant return, and thus we undoubtedly fall into the
trap of illusion, and we do get hurt, over and over again.

Then what has become of us from all our disappointments? We rather not be hurt again. And
who will be there to break the cycle? How will be there to sacrifice his heart and give love with
no expectation of anything in return? We named him messiah, a saint perhaps. But for the rest of
us, don't we as such lose the chance to truly love - without fear, without control? Helpless
falling, who wants that nowadays? We want control. "Give me a remote control over anything
and everything", says the selfish, doubtful desire. I don't want to get up close and personal, I
don't want to truly feel, I don't want to be exposed, let me safely stay at a distance, untouched,
unhurt.

But in true love, all guards have been lost, and all seems deeply beautiful and enchanting. With
every pain, every elation, every breath, you tear with gratitude, those tears which come from the
sides of the eyes."

So who really knows anything about love? I haven't met too many people in a deeply constant
state of love, but I have met a very rare few, and my heart immediately chose them as my
teachers.

Today, we are in a rush to love, to hate, to get divorced and then to remarry and so on so forth.
Others, more courageous prefer open relationships with sex and no commitment at all. Others
more cowards, stay in committed relationships but do not miss occasions that arise in their way.

When we are alone we are craving to be with somebody, and when we are we somebody we feel
like in a prison, with a chain around our ankle and we want to break the cage. We blame the
other but in fact is our fault the relationship doesn't work, became rusted, since we lost the
commitment for the other, we were no making any effort to nurture true feelings. We want easy
things, we don't want to endure, to be persistent, to fight for the wellbeing of the other one. We
became selfish and ugly inside since we give so much attention to the outside: bigger lips, bigger
breasts, bigger car, bigger house, impressive money account, etc, only our feelings decreased
proportionally with these gigantic material additions to our lives that gives us a fake look, in
some cases a hilarious one.

Love is not a feeling for sale or to be promoted with lights on a banner. Love is something that
you feel deep inside for another person that makes you feel safe, protected, wanted, valued,
cherished and appreciated, regardless you are not a perfect person. Love is a path to grow for
two.

True love is the bridge that helps 2 people to reach out faster to God.

God is the Absolute Love for all beings!

But what is love when for some God doesn't even exist?!

I wish you all a happy and blessed Valentine!

If you did not find yet the love of your life, don't be discouraged, be patient and do not lose faith!
Everything left on Earth has a "shadow". It depends on you to have an open heart and be true to
yourself in the process of loving somebody with all your soul.

By Lora Levitchi, Feb. 14th, 2019