This is my 500th blog post!
To celebrate this landmark, collect your gift of my Make It Happen Manifesto.
To mark my 500th blog post, I could not have chosen a more appropriate topic – love.
What does the word love mean to you?
Does it evoke a vision of red roses, serenading in the park, moonlit walks and champagne?
In our world of glossy magazines and glitzy media, where we are constantly bombarded with images of the ideal, love struck and “perfect” couple, is it any wonder that the real meaning of love has been so diluted.
Love for some is about being starry eyed and going gaga over someone. The actual being in love becomes more important than ever truly loving someone.
Perhaps you are in love with the idea of being in love?
Here are some famous words with great depth from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (by Louis de Bernieres):-
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day.
That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those who truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from the branches they find that they are one tree and not two.”
The question is what will it take for you to be able to love like this?
And what will it take for the world to wake up to the true meaning of love?
This is the fourth in my series of 28 relationship articles for the month of February, during which I am taking you through a journey of improving all the relationships in your life.
I am calling it the 28 Day Relationships Adventure (28 DRA)
You can check out the first 3 articles here:-
Become Aware of Your Relationships
Love Yourself First Before Loving Anyone Else
Love Yourself Without Becoming Full of Yourself
You can read all 28 articles which are listed at the bottom of this post.
So Just What is Love?
Love is the most amazing thing in our lives.
It is what makes us human, what makes life worth living. Nothing else truly matters. The size of our homes, bank balances, the beauty of our spouse, the speed of our car – all these things pale into insignificance when we face the splendour of what it is that makes us tick.
Love does not make the world go around – it simply makes the ride worthwhile!
Love is not the highly commercialised circus we see around Valentines Day. It is much deeper and much more profound than sending someone a dozen roses at hugely inflated prices. It is much more than candle lit dinners and fancy chocolates.
We all yearn for that deep connection with others, those moments of bliss, joy, completeness.
We crave to have more of those delicious moments we may have had with a romantic partner. And yet, such moments seem so rare and forlorn.
We all remember the blissful moments when strangers have shared their love and made a difference.
We all remember the feeling of gratitude in the eyes of someone whom we have helped.
We remember how great it feels to do something for someone without expecting anything in return.
We cry when we see happy stories on our TV screens of families reuniting. Such stories touch our hearts and yet they are so rare, as we continue to get bombarded with so much doom and gloom by all the negative media around us.
We remember the sheer joy of children playing and the love in their eyes.
Our hearts skip a beat, we get goose pimples and we get teary eyed when we witness an act of sheer love, pure, unadulterated and unconditional.
Such Moments of Love Literally Take Our Breath Away
Love is much greater than what we feel romantically. It is what makes us sing, dance and makes us human.
The world today is just not working – our tried and tested methods have failed. We need to review our core values and to see just where we are headed.
If there was enough love in the world, we would simply not tolerate a single human being starving.
“There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed” – Gandhi
However, there is enough love in each of our hearts to heal the world. We have simply forgotten this as we all strive to get bigger, better and to get somewhere which we think will make us happy.
Usually though when we get there and have these things, we find forlorn emptiness. Yet there is a better way. Open your heart to what is possible.
There are so many simple things we can all do on a daily basis to bring more love into our lives. Together we can all make this an even better and more beautiful world than it already is.
“Love WILL conquer all – if you let it!” – Arvind Devalia
Once you become aware of the miracles that love can produce you will want more of the same. Your situation will change, people around you will change and you will change. You will become human again.
“The love you fail to share is the only pain you live with right now in your life” – Shore Slocum
Let us all become human again together, and manifest even more love in our already magnificent world.
A world of love, and love always.
After all, nothing else matters.
Daily Exercise for Today
Pause for 5 minutes today and reflect on how you can bring more love into the world today. Maybe you will discover your own magical wand to bring more love into the world.
It could be as simple as smiling at someone who could do with a lift, doing something for a friend, playing with your child and being fully present, giving a compliment to a stranger and so on.
Check out my 31 ways to carry out random acts of kindness and spread the love!
Of course remember to do it without any attachments to the outcome!
Please share below your experience of bringing more love into the world.
Finally, remember to celebrate with me my 500th blog post. Please do click here for your gift of my Make It Happen Manifesto.
28 Day Relationship Adventure
Postscript – Here are the complete 28 articles in this series for Feb 2011.
Please do check them all out:-)
1 – Become Aware of Your Relationships
2 – Love Yourself First Before Loving Anyone Else
3 – Love Yourself Without Becoming Full of Yourself
5 – 9 Simple Tips To Create Energising Relationships
6 – Why Decluttering your Friends is Good for You and Them
7 – Stop Bending over Backwards for Other People!
8 – Be Special to Find the Special One
9 – 10 Key Secrets for Becoming Likeable
10 – Don’t Fall in Love – Create Love
11 – Do you Believe in Soulmates?
12 – Open Your Heart and Find the Special One
13 – Create your ideal Valentine’s Day
14 – Make it a Fun Valentine’s Day Everyday!
15 – Make Your Relationship Even More Special
16 – Learn to Love Unconditionally
17 – 11 Keys to Improve ALL Your Relationships
18 – Why the Human Touch is Key
20 – Share Your Love with Your Loved Ones Everyday
21 – Stop Judging, Start Loving
22 – Simple Trick to Instantly Improve All Your Relationships
23 – Why No One Is Ever An Ugly Duckling!
24 – Why World Compassion Begins With You
25 – Why Teamwork Always Begins with YOU
26 – How to Let People Go From Your Life
27 – Thank the Divine Every Day
28 – Stop Being An Approval Seeking Machine
Please Help Spread the Word
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Every Retweet and Facebook share helps me grow my blog. I look forward to seeing you here again soon. Thank you for reading! – Arvind
Image courtesy of yoga – photowork
Hi Arvind,
Congratulations on reaching 500 posts, what a huge milestone!
I’m enjoying this series, spending 28 days to dive deep and really examine our relationships. I work from home and experience a lot of tension between the pull to get work done, and the pull to spend time with my two young boys.
It’s difficult to get the balance right, but I’ve been working at having a few set periods in my day where the computer, and other work stuff, gets put away for an hour and I spend time just playing with the boys. Being fully present to them, not half-thinking about my to-do list.
It’s starting to become a regular part of our day and the payoff is huge, the more attention they get, the more they thrive. And when I do go back to working I’m refreshed and uplifted, and seem to get more done. It helps me remember why I want to work from home in the first place.
Thanks David!
It’s great that you have the awareness and willingness to spend quality time with your children. And yes, being fully present to them and not half-thinking about your to-do list.
You have given me some more ideas for one of the 28 posts:-)
Aloha Arvind,
Congratulations on your 500th post.
Thank you for reminding the world how love is so much more than the diamond ring, long stem roses and chocolates that get sold to us each February.
Cheers,
Corinna
Thanks Corinna.
Yes, so much more to love than all the commercial trappings:)
Congrats, Arvind! Such an inspiring journey.
Thanks for reminding me of the words from one of my favorite books: “Those who truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground…”
Look forward to the rest of your series!
Thanks Elle!
It seems that I only started yesterday:-)
As for those words, the movie is one of all time favourites.
“Those who truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from the branches they find that they are one tree and not two.”
Love is the key to our inner lives. Some strive to achieve this ideal and search endlessly for true love externally, believing that if they find someone who loves them then their happiness would be complete.
Love is based on an emotion but it is in reality a decision. Emotions are fickle and change with your moods. Love should be consistent, regardless of changing emotions and circumstances. Our marriage vows are based on decisions to love until we die which often makes me wonder about divorce. Did your decision change or did you allow love to die?
Make a decision to walk in love and live by faith.
Arvind, this was wmazing to read. I need to read it over and over to try to take it all in.
How I hate all the Valentine hype. Once again, it’s all about making money from people’s sometimes guilty belief that love means giving unnecessary, cheap and garish ‘stuff’
I have looked through your manifesto and will print it off later. Again, I am blown away. I will try to put into practice some of your advice and guidance. Thankk you.
Thanks Linda – I am glad you found this useful and inspiring.
Valentine has become such a crass and commercial exercise – and has reduced love to guilt-ridden gifts and posturing.
Enjoy the manifesto and let me know what you think of it.
Congratulations! And what a lovely post to celebrate your milestone. I was reminded of A Course in Miracles, which teaches that love is all there is. Love has no opposite, because love is the only reality. We can be separated from the awareness of love, but we can’t be separated from love. Everything we do or think or say is either an expression of love or a call for love.
I was also reminded of this quotation. “Life is short, and we have but little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel this way with us. Oh, be swift to love. Make haste to be kind.”
This is a powerful and inspiring series. Thank you!
Thanks Galen!
This was indeed the perfect post to celebrate 500 articles on my blog.
One day I will take the Course in Miracles (CIM). I have attended talks with some prominent CIM teachers such as Marianne Williamson and Robert Holden and each time, they have blown me away.
Great words – everything we do or think or say is either an expression of love or a call for love.
Galen, enjoy the rest of the series:-)
Arvind, Wow, 500 posts. That’s cause for celebration.
I’m happy to say that I’m in love. My BF was away at a professional conference this past week, and we really missed each other. I was so happy to see him walk in the door yesterday.
And I do what I can to bring love into the larger world, although it feels challenging in the U.S. these days with all the negativity and the focus on our right to go about armed with guns. What do we do to bring about tolerance–if not love–for others? Is love for others too much to ask? If so, could (or should) we settle for at least respecting one another?
Thanks Madeleine!
And congratulations for being in love:-)
Yes, we do live in a toxic world where self-interest and self-rights seem to take priority over the contents of our hearts.
One day more and more people will become aware of the power of love, tolerance and respect.
Thanks:-)
Dear friend, You have written very well about ‘Love’. I pray that your words may be blessed and reach many hearts, so it will help them to realise the Truth about what Love is. – Love is not just a moment lasting physical feeling. If one lives Love or becomes Love… they can watch their Life and surrounding change to become the happiest on earth. May you continue to be inspired!
Dear Johanna,
Welcome to my blog and thanks for all your kind words.
As yoy say, if one lives in love or becomes love, they can watch their life transform and become happy.
Wishing you too all the best.
Love and blessings.
Arvind