New Game- Exposed

[steady]

Obviously it's not. That's the whole premise of if you love something set it free.

If you really love someone you wouldn't want to get in the way of them and their happiness. You wouldn't want to take them from the path they need to be on in order to become the people they will be.

Lester Levenson said it best - The love we show isn't love at all. It's an exchange of giving and getting. When the person is with us we love them. As soon as they try to leave we despise them and curse them.

In all actuality we are doing what the WAS is doing - except in the completely opposite direction. They want to be happy. They do what they do looking for it. When they leave, we are unhappy. We want them to come back so we can be happy.

If we try to manipulate and control them to come back, we are only interfering in the natural evolution of them as a person. Sometimes backwards is forwards. It's all appearances. Just go read that Zen story about the farmer again.

We don't know what's bad or good. We only interpret what is happening and compare it to how it affects us. If we perceive it is taking something away from us we call it bad. If we perceive it as adding to us we call it good.

In reality, everything is neutral. It has no meaning. Like Shakespeare said, "There is no good or bad. Just our thinking that makes it so." The same thing is said in many different ways. I think this is what is achieved by detachment. We no longer mind read, project into the future (usually negatively), focus on someone else besides ourselves - all ultimately controlling behavior. We want to know so we can somehow control something - control people, control the situation, control our reaction to the situation, etc..

There is no control. It's a complete illusion. I would even go so far to say we ultimately have no control over ourselves. But that's a story for another day.

Here's an example:

We have two men. Each one of their wives leaves them.

Man #1 hates his marriage, despises his wife, wants to be out of the marriage. When his wife leaves he is happy.

Man #2 loves his wife. Wants to grow old with her. Wants to be happy with her. When his wife leaves he is unhappy.

Same event (wife leaving) two different reactions to a 'neutral' event.

The funny thing is we don't feel another persons love. The feeling we feel is generated inside of us. That's what we feel. You can't feel someone else's emotion, only your own.

I'm starting to really lean toward Lester Levenson here again. He states the feeling we call love comes from within us when our desire is quenched and there is no more searching. When you meet that person you fall in 'love' with your desire and search for someone to love ends. The incessant thinking and obsessing and chasing for that love ceases to be. When that happens, your true self shines through. He says this is why you have that bliss and peaceful feeling. That love, bliss and peace are our natural state and it's the natural state of a baby and young children until they get corrupted. We tell them no, make them 'politically correct', rob them of their spontaneity and innocence. Of course it has to be that way in order for them to survive in this world.

When we peal off the layers, and take away our issues, show more and more of our authentic self, that original and natural state we are comes through.

That's what I'm ultimately aiming for. But to do it in life and not in some monastery on a mountain somewhere.