“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”- Aldous Huxley, Island
There is no love without lightness
It’s understandable to hear “non-attachment” as “avoidance” and “lightness” as “unengaged.” But this is to misunderstand the real nature of good love, and loving with care.
Love means engagement — without clinging. It means care — with release.
There is danger in “loving too hard.”
The danger to your beloved
Sometimes children make this mistake with small animals. They “love” them so much that, in their rapture over holding or “hugging” them, they inadvertently crush or suffocate them.
It’s a dark and painful realization, but illustrates the very real dangers of mis-channeling love beyond “care.” Of loving too hard. Of holding too tightly.
We’d like to think this heartbreaking mistake is specific to children, but it’s not. Adults make this mistake — albeit emotionally — all the time.
There are dangers to ourselves, too.
When we get too attached to — whether to a small animal or a person — rather than recognizing it foremost as a real creature with its own little finite life, we set ourselves up for heartbreak.
We think love means loss, but it doesn’t. Life means loss, but love means lightness. Love means unleashed.
We can love fully without clinging. We can allow it space to breathe.
Love is understanding how life works
Our own. Others’. And in general.
We have to understand two truths in our heart:
- We will eventually lose everything we cherish
- But it is life’s…
