Love Has No Opposite

We live in a world of opposites. Every belief we have has, and is compared against, another idea that is an opposite. We only have ‘up’ because there is ‘down’. We only know ‘left’ because we designate a direction as ‘right’. And we only view something as bad because we are comparing it against something that we deem good.

Our minds, where our beliefs reside, are made up of infinite pairs of opposites. Many of us are identified with our minds so much that it can hinder us from having a fulfilling and empowered life.

The nature of conflict is such that any fixed attitude in the mind will cause one to deem anything that contradicts that attitude as the enemy. This is why we see so much strife and disagreements over political, religious, racial and gender divides. The last word sums this all up – such opposites divide us.

All opposites come from our minds and our egos. It is what keeps us separate from others and creates the illusion of otherness between our fellow human beings and us. When we transcend those opposites, we naturally become closer to others, thus creating the much desired intimacy and connectedness we all crave for.

The only thing that has no opposite is love. Some would say that the opposite of love is hate. However, a better opposite for hate is acceptance. If we can accept what others are and what they have done (in other words, forgive them), then hate disappears and we can finally let go of it.

Allow me to attempt to define love the way I see it. Love is the container in which all the opposites exist. It is beyond our minds and our ego-driven attitudes about good and bad. Using another analogy that my good friend and brother Stephen Garrett likes; he speaks about, love as the movie screen onto which we project all our opposites so we can work with them.

It is love that allows us to forgive someone who has hurt us. Love is doing something for someone you care about even if they are acting unlovable. Using our example of the hate-acceptance opposite above, it is only through love that we can accept another with an opposite or polarising view to ours.

So what is love? It is openness; it is the giving of who you are, from who you are; it is the true essence of who we are as individuals that is deeply connected to one another, even if we do not see or accept that connection.

Love is not just a feeling or action. It is a choice and a spiritual truth that exists independently, always available to those who seek it. It requires us to set aside our pre-conceived ideas and attachments to what we hold as true and seek deeper connections with others.

The verse from Rumi’s poem “A Great Wagon” comes to mind: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”

The field Rumi spoke of is about love and that fullness of feeling he described is the feeling of love. In a world full of opposites, love has no opposite. When we get beyond all our biases, our fixed ideas and our strongly guarded beliefs, we will discover that love is all there is.