We bandy around the word love in everyday life. People say it to each other, we sign-off in letters and greeting cards with it, songs are written about it and it’s a favourite topic in romantic movies.
We use the word ‘love’ in everyday life, but I have questioned whether we have lost the true meaning of the word, or at the very least I have questioned my own understanding of this word.
This word ‘love’ is crucial to each of our lives and to the whole of humanity, but what if the meaning has changed? What happens if the quality that we know to be love is reinterpreted and replaced with something that is not love? And why is love so important in our world – for we all appear to be chasing it.
Growing up, as a teenager I thought love only came from having a boyfriend. I created an image of love based on what I had learned on the movie screen and usually it went something like this: meet a boy, feel a sensation in the body that is labelled love, have sex after the first meeting and there the movie ends with the impression of happily-ever-after for this new couple.
It seems foolish of me to have fallen for the movie scene particularly now as I write it, but I truly believed this was love and this was what I set out to have for myself. I was on a mission to find this feeling called love, and I had seen hundreds of times in movies how it was to be found.
Despite following the script perfectly, overriding any feelings of apprehension or uncertainty, I never did find a relationship that had this happily-ever-after feeling. If one relationship did not work, I tried again using the same formula in an effort to find the ‘right’ man.
In my early 30s I thought I had found Mr. Right. We married shortly after meeting and within weeks I was pregnant. Midway through my pregnancy, I wondered whether Mr. Right was really Mr. Right, but I kept working towards this picture because happily-ever-after was now before me… or was it?
Happily-ever-after was not even in sight, let alone before me.
I had confused love with lust and attention. I had made love to be something that was to be found on the outside of me, something that I would receive from another. In fact, what I was feeling was not love at all, but more the filling of an emptiness and an excitement about the possibility that this emptiness would now dissipate forever because somebody else was here to take it away.
As I look back I can see that there was no foundation of love in myself, let alone in my relationships, so each relationship became a struggle. When I felt something wasn’t right within my own relationship, I turned to other women for support only to find that their own lives were the same as my own. I resorted to thinking that “this is just the way it is,” and would settle down in my uncomfortable dysfunction and continue until the next time the tension of lovelessness was felt once again.
At age 34, I started attending Serge Benhayon’s presentations on the esoteric teachings as well as seeing Universal Medicine esoteric practitioners for healing sessions. What I felt here was something very different: for the first time, I felt the true essence of love.
This love that I was feeling:
- was not imposing and asked nothing from me
- came with no rules as it was just there
- was tenderness, gentleness, understanding and appreciation and yet wasn’t without responsibility or, at times, a firmness
- could be felt on a physical level even with just the touch of a fingertip
- didn’t need words for it to be expressed for it was ever present
- allowed a spaciousness for me to be myself.
Perhaps though, the one thing that I felt the most was that this love I was feeling and observing in another was not about me. It was emanating from inside those who had rediscovered love for themselves. I was simply feeling the loveliness of another and it became very clear that although I had not chosen love for myself, that it was there for me too… and that it had always been there for me too.
This was enough to inspire me to start to change my life in ways I never thought possible.
I always knew that love held the key to something very powerful and my lifelong search for this expression continued. This time however, my search was not a search for anything outside of me – not boyfriends, not money, not a career – it was simply to reignite that which was always there inside of myself, just waiting for me to first realise that the former path I had chosen would never lead me to the essence of love.
Whilst there may have been little true love in my life growing up and into my adulthood, I can’t dispute that I did know what love is.
For the act of knowing what love was not, meant that I was governed by an inner knowing of what love truly is.
I knew that I would know love when I felt it and this proved to be true, despite living a life that had sold me a reinterpreted version of the word.
We all know what is love, but many of us simply resort to something that is less – we resort to ‘attention’ or ‘lust’ or ‘companionship’ or ‘security’ – so that we don’t have to feel alone.
With the amazing support of Universal Medicine and the esoteric practitioners, I faced the task of rediscovering love for myself, starting first with becoming gentle and nurturing to the body in everything that I did. For example, when I dressed, I would consider the weather when I chose my clothes, the colour of the clothes I felt to wear that day, taking a jacket or wrap just in case, applying makeup and styling my hair to confirm my inner beauty, choosing suitable footwear for the day’s activities, taking food to nibble on in the event I felt hungry… and the list goes on.
Of course this level of nurturing always showed up the choices I had made which were not loving, but feeling the sadness of this was simply part of the process that redeveloped my understanding of love.
Nowadays, if I am ever unsure about whether I am caught up in an old belief about what I think love might be, I simply ask the question – “Is it love?” – and feel for the answer in my body.
By asking the question – “Is it love?” – I give myself the opportunity to look at the way I am living and feel whether it has the true quality of love. And what I am feeling more and more, is that when we don’t purposely choose love, we end up choosing by default another way of being which holds an emptiness, a misery, a sadness, and a lovelessness.
I realised that I do know what is love and what is not love and there is no need for a rulebook to make this clear. I was never going to find love from another; it was always my responsibility to bring it to myself through the loving choices I make for myself each and every day. And when any two people come together in friendship or courtship where each has developed love for themselves, there is nothing but pure beauty in the understanding, delicateness and harmony that love brings. And in this, I am finally able to use and understand the true meaning of the word love.
by Maree, New South Wales
Further Reading:
Being Loved to Be Love
The Word Love
Love – What happened to the Word?
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
How many people use love in the false belief that it is something we get from outside ourselves, that possibly fills up an emptiness, ‘I had made love to be something that was to be found on the outside of me, something that I would receive from another. In fact, what I was feeling was not love at all, but more the filling of an emptiness and an excitement about the possibility that this emptiness would now dissipate forever because somebody else was here to take it away.’
Absolutely Elizabeth, we can not find love outside of ourselves, ‘I had made love to be something that was to be found on the outside of me, something that I would receive from another. In fact, what I was feeling was not love at all, but more the filling of an emptiness’. Looking for love outside ourselves comes from a neediness, nothing to do with true love.
What if love simply is, “Love is the beingness of knowing that you are everything already.”
Serge Benhayon
Esoteric Teachings and Revelations Volume I, ed 1, p 685
Thank you Maree, your experiences have summed up well the way that false love is projected in media, movies, books, magazines, and consequently becomes our beliefs and ideals. There is an enormous amount of energy used to falsely represent love, the world is literally engulfed in it. And if this is true, and also that we all innately know true love (as per your dot points), then “why is love presented this way?” is an interesting question to ask.
Why is the false version of love more commonly presented in the world… ‘ we have lost the true meaning of the word, or at the very least I have questioned my own understanding of this word.’
It is like the blind leading the blind, if we are all in the same soup and none of us bring in a different perspective apart from “ah men! all they do is terrorise women”, then how can we ever possibly consider that something else may be a possibility?
How honest is this, how many of us in the world would admit that our Mr. Right was only right for the fulfilment of our needs?
It’s silly isn’t it, we think that we will get different results but if we don’t change how we do things, how is that possible?
Yes, we fall for the expectations and trying to fit in to those rather than knowing a truth deep within and living that from the inside out.
I am inspired by the level of self-care tips which take us to nurturing and to understanding what Love feels like in the body as a lived experience.
Where have our pictures come from? Happily ever after and love can be layered with so many pictures that we look for and settle for something that is not love at all.
With the Gentle Breath Meditation presented by Universal Medicine I gradually felt the stillness within me and the deepening knowing that I had reconnected to the love that I am.
It just goes to show how we all have different perceptions of what love is and then we work towards making that happen. The reality is that love can never come from someone to fill us up, we have to have it for ourselves.
We think romantic love or love of our families is the definition of love – but true love is a beholding grace that can be expressed to all equally.
Serge Benhayon shares about love, “Love is love and the livingness of that must be known before any word can be used to describe it, for the true emanation of love is word-less.” from
Esoteric & Exoteric Philosophy, p 388
This article is a fabulous expose of false love and rediscovery of true love. This is rare as most of us, especially women are so brainwashed by the fairy tale idea of love that we cannot even consider what true love could be like. I most appreciated the realisation that love is not from an individual or personal, but a quality that we collectively share.
And isn’t this the key…”… it was always my responsibility to bring it to myself through the loving choices I make for myself each and every day.” We are the only ones who can love ourselves the way we want to be loved.
This is beautiful and inspiring to read Maree… “… applying makeup and styling my hair to confirm my inner beauty…” How many of us do this to confirm what we already see and know within? For most, including myself, we do our makeup and hair so the outside confirms we’re ok… rather than feeling our innate beauty within first and celebrating this by nurturing, cherishing and confirming ourselves in the way we dress each day. Thank you for your inspiration and timely reminder Maree.
We can self talk our way into and out of situations, beliefs and ideals. It sounds back to front but it is so true that knowing what love is not, means that we very clearly know what true love is… and this goes for anything. We may say we dont know what life without abuse would be like, but we know abuse, so we also know what is not abusive… and this means we always have a choice.
I know for myself how I lived expecting attention from the outside and how sometimes my wondering mind is still waiting for “Mr Right”. But the more I come back to feel my body, the more clarity I get about the quality that I want in my relationships, starting with myself, by being gentle and very loving with no conditions, rules or impositions, but yes with full regard to the beauty of the woman I am. For some time now I’m coming to feel daily that love can be lived by myself, in every breath, touch, movement…it feels amazing indeed.
Our all knowing nature reveals to us what true love is about and what is not. Everything is within our body but how much do we live it, how much do we enjoy, listen and feel it? There are so many distractions, pictures and rules from the outside that keep us separated from our true nature as human beings, so having access to the tools to reconnect back to our body is a blessing for all. Universal Medicine shows us how love really works and where it comes from, it starts within us and never ends.
‘although I had not chosen love for myself, that it was there for me too… and that it had always been there for me too.’ This is so precious to read Maree. It shows us how the unconditional quality of love is greater than anything else.
“I was never going to find love from another; it was always my responsibility to bring it to myself through the loving choices I make for myself each and every day.” This is so contrary to the generally accepted perspective, which is that love is to be gained by investing in something external to oneself. When we do this we dis-empower ourselves, becoming dependent on the world to provide for us rather than us contributing to the world.
What I know love to be now is very different to what I saw love as in the past. I really did buy into the whole idea of romance and prince charming. So knowing now what love truly is has helped me to understand that there is no need to fantisize or invest in it – if love is what I always hold in my body and it is about letting love in for myself and then to others.
What you say about not choosing love while it is always there for us to choose is very profound. I can feel how that is a choice to be separate and activate our right to create a life/world of non-love but nonetheless a one that we can each individually call ‘my’ life, and how, in asking ‘Is it love’, simplicity and innocence return.
Many people spend most of their life looking for love, or hoping that another will bring them love, the problem is we are all looking for love outside of ourselves, when true love can be found from within, and once you connect to that love you realise what true love is, it is far deeper and grander than I ever expected.
What a deception it is to believe that “….. love to be something that was to be found on the outside of me, something that I would receive from another” yet that is how it is presented in society as present. Discovering that to love another one has to first love oneself has been for me a journey, which although has been painful and humbling at times, has been a hugely rewarding one and healing. Healing because it has required me to resolve my unresolved hurts, rewarding in that I have regained and established a love and appreciation of myself that I did not realise I did not have and a depth of true love in my relationships that was previously not there.
We can hold so many untrue images and pictures around what love is… I know I did until I meet Serge Benhayon who reflected the truth to me about love, Serge lives and moves with true love everyday and holds everyone equally in this love.
Serge Benhayon lives a life that inspires everyone to live and reflect true love.
One of the problems of love is what we associate it with. By and large, we look at the wrong places and look for the wrong signs. Love feels tremendously settling when we connect to it.
What a great observation Eduardo, “One of the problems of love is what we associate it with.” This sets up so many expectations which are our own and are not another’s.
We don’t have real conversations about love. Almost every movie and song seems to have love as a central theme but the ‘love’ they show, describe and express is not Love at all. It’s little wonder that so many are confused about what love is.
Yes, that is deeply ironic!
I wonder if the meaning of the word ‘love’ will become clearer when we understand the distinction between an emotion and a feeling as the word ‘love’ is currently used in both contexts.