LOVE IS A FLAME WITHOUT SMOKE.
QUESTION: I cannot conceive of a love which
is neither felt nor thought of. You are probably using the
word love to indicate something else. Is it not so?
“When we say love, what do we mean
by it? Actually, not theoretically, what do we mean? It is a process of
sensation and thought, is it not? That is what we mean by love: a process
of thought, a process of sensation.
Is thought, love? When I think of you, is that love? When I say
that love must be impersonal or universal, is that love? Surely, thought is the
result of a feeling, of sensation, and as long as love is held within the field
of sensation and thought, obviously there must be conflict in that process. And
must we not find out if there is something beyond the field of thought?
We don’t know how to love, we only know
how to think about love.
We know what love is in the ordinary sense: a process of thought
and sensation. If we do not think of a person, we think we do not love them; if
we do not feel, we think there is no love. But is that all? Or is love
something beyond? And to find out, must not thought as sensation come to an
end? After all, when we love somebody, we think about them, we have a picture
of them. That is, what we call love is a thinking process, a sensation, which
is memory: the memory of what we did or did not do with him or her. So memory,
which is the result of sensation, which becomes verbalized thought, is what we
call love. And even when we say that love is impersonal, cosmic, or what you
will, it is still a process of thought.
Now, is love a process of thought? Can we think about love? We can
think about the person, or think of memories with regard to that person, but is
that love? Surely, love is a flame without smoke. The smoke is that with which
we are familiar – the smoke of jealousy, of anger, of dependence, of calling it
personal or impersonal, the smoke of attachment. We have not the flame, but we
are fully acquainted with the smoke; and it is possible to have that flame only
when the smoke is not. Therefore our concern is not with love, whether it is
something beyond the mind or beyond sensation, but to be free of the smoke: the
smoke of jealousy, of envy, the smoke of separation, of sorrow and pain. Only
when the smoke is not shall we know that which is the flame. And the flame is
neither personal nor impersonal, neither universal nor particular – it is just
a flame; and there is the reality of that flame only when the mind, the whole
process of thought, has been understood. So, there can be love only when the
smoke of conflict of competition, struggle, envy, comes to an end, because that
process breeds opposition, in which there is fear. As long as there is fear,
there is no communion, for one cannot commune through the screen of smoke.
So, it is clear that love is possible only without the smoke; and
as we are acquainted with the smoke, let us go into it completely, understand
it fully, so as to be free of it. Then only shall we know that flame
which is neither personal nor impersonal and which has no name. That which is
new cannot be given a name. Our question is not what love is, but what are the
things that are preventing the fullness of that flame? We don’t know how
to love, we only know how to think about love. In the very process of thinking
we create the smoke of the “me” and the “mine”, and in that we are
caught. Only when we are capable of freeing ourselves from the process of
thinking about love and all the complications that arise out of it, is there a
possibility of having that flame.”
OKELLO ELIOT OTWAO
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