Nov 28, 2010
Love - young people today are attracted by this word, and why not - it is an experience filled with fantasy and high emotions. The movies today have completely changed the meaning of love. I once heard a priest saying that there are three types of love:
Love towards oneself which is selfish love
Love for other people which is a little selfish
Love towards God - no selfishness involved here
Now that I have mentioned the types scratch your heads and think which category you belong to. If we faithfully answer this question the third category is almost zero percent today but we all come under the first category and some under the second one. Somehow, it is not possible for us to accept the truth that we are egoistic and sadistic - we love to see the person who had caused us pain long back suffer today.
I don't have my grandparents but I have always heard stories from my parents where the moral used to be that one must forgive one's enemies and love them because only that can make them realize their mistake. It seemed foolishness to me. How can you forgive a person who has hurt you - it's impossible! But it was very easy for our elders. And now I can see why - for them the meaning of love was different from what it is for us today.
For us Love is a four-letter word. A guy proposes - if he is rich and working abroad in a reputed company he's accepted, else ek nahin toh doosra hi sahi. Today, even small kids in first standard speak about love and crushes! But of course, it's not their fault, it's the changing environment around them that is to blame.
But love is a lot more than that. Love towards our elders shows our care and respect for them. Love towards our partner is a proof of how trustworthy we are, how caring, how faithful we are. Love towards children is about how responsible we are in building their character.
Jesus also preached love and practiced the same. Love is a medicine for any pain. It gives a person new reason to live and a new way to start his life. Instead, if we boil up his burns we prove to ourselves that we do not deserve even God's love.
Every person makes mistakes and there is no one on this earth who has not committed mistakes. God forgives our mistakes even if we don't forgive those of others. God still loves us and gives us what is right for us, still we do not love Him. We love God only when we get what we want. But otherwise we don't even bother to look at the many wonders He has created around us. Imagine if one day you fight with your neighbour who is really innocent and God gets angry on you and he doesnt allow the sun to rise - what would you do? We feel guilty when we hurt our loved ones when they shower so much of love on us. We just have to say a "sorry" and express our love for them and that makes them forgive our mistakes.
Today we see marriages getting annulled within a matter of days. And love marriages break up even sooner! Why does it happen? Does it mean love fades away after marriage? No, it happens when you have to bend for each other and make your ego vanish. It's very hard to accept the fact that we have to ADJUST once we get new relations. We try to find our own happiness, which makes us selfish and here starts the division when the virus called "ME" enters into the brain, blocking the loving heart and sharpening the materialistic mind - where money becomes the first priority instead of love, where 'I' comes first and then 'we', where 'my' needs count before 'yours.'
Many a time, sour minds mistake lust to be love. Love doesn't have conditions - it is a free bird able to fly anywhere. Love is held by trust, sacrifice and care. Love and trust go hand in hand and if the bond breaks there is no Fevicol to join it as there comes the VIRUS then! Today love has become a fashion where a guy has a crush on a girl and then if the girl doesn't show interest the guy commits suicide. Why? Don't your parents love u? Don't your friends love u?
Recently an incident took place near my place. The couple was going steady and then all of a sudden there were some misunderstandings because of which the girl ignored the guy. Crushed by her indifference, the man without even wasting a moment jumped onto the road and within no time was hit by a vehicle, resulting in his instant death. The parents had to bury the dead body of their son who they looked after for years together, loved him so much and educated him. It was a very sad moment for the parents, who reside elsewhere, to come and take their dead son back home.
This accident shook me from the inside and made me realize that the young generation is taking the wrong path to fulfil its desires. It's not always that parents don't guide their chidren but many a time we become stubborn and hurt them. We feel ashamed to introduce our poor parents to our colleagues but we forget that it's because of them that we are here today, sitting inside AC rooms and earning and progressing. But parents still bless us because they never get hurt by their kids, no matter how mature their kids be!
Today we have become so selfish that we don't care about hurting our parents. We have our food daily - but how many of us say thanks to mom and give her a hug as a sign of love? Instead we curse the food saying it's not delicious or not of our choice. We are not satisfied with dad's car - we want a new car, a new bike so that we can show it off to our friends! We don't want to see dad's efforts behind it but we want to be posh in front of others!
We want to depend on our parents and show our love to them only when we need them. We say it was their duty to love and educate us but what about our duty? Today they crave for two words of love from their children. Can't we give them the love they need? Or are we busy fufilling our dreams because they have grown older today and can't help us out in our needs? How they loved us even when we made them leave functions by crying loudly or made them wake up from their sleep just because we were not sleepy!
Today love has no place in our lives because talking with loved ones has nothing to do with our progress but we always have time for people who can help us get more money! There are still some people who love their parents - the reason being the treasure they will be leaving behind! I have seen people fighting for money after their parents departed from this world. It becomes so difficult to love people without any condition. Why are we like this? The same thing will be followed by our kids when they grow up because they have seen us fighting over money but not seen us pouring love on each other.
The other day my mom was saying, luckily there is no commission or payment to be made to reserve a seat in heaven or else people would have eaten up each other for money to get the highest position in heaven! It's so true today - man is craving for true love. Even a rich person today craves for a faithful wife, a faithful family so that he can be happy. There are retreats everywhere these days to make people understand the importance of filial love and togthernes. Do we really need retreats today? Are we that weak that we need to go around the world to understand the meaning of love?
Let us be kind to our parents from today, pick up our mobiles and call them and thank them for all that they have done for us all these years. Let us promise to love them to the end of our lives and take all their troubles as ours. It will bring a smile on their faces and you are sure to get blessings in return and that's what counts in life. The more blessings you get the more successful you become.
I will end with a small story here:
A couple had an only son who they loved a lot. One day he got an offer to go abroad on work. The parents, though sad, saw his happy face and agreed. Later they came to know their son had fallen in love with a girl over there and they were invited for the wedding. They could not bear this insult but because they loved their son they decided to go for the wedding.
The parents came back home and over time the son lost contact with his parents as he was very busy fulfilling his dreams and had a wife whom he loved, and so had no time for parents.
There came a time when his wife was in delivery and she was in much pain. He was allowed to enter the labour room and be with his wife. He consoled his wife and remained with her in her difficult time. Here he remembered something and after the delivery instead of looking at his child he ran to the telephone booth and made a call.
His mom answered and was delighted to hear his voice. He said, "Mom, I am sorry, today I understand how painful it was for you to deliver me and I could not be a good son. I forgot all your pains and love for me! I feel guilty today. I am sorry. I want to come back to you, be your child and love you." Tears rolled down her eyes and in a soft voice she said, "Come back child, I have always been waiting for this day. I still love you the same."
It's better late than never. Let us make our elders realize we love them and not ill treat them. God cannot be present everywhere to help us out so he created parents to love us, care for us and be with us always.
There is no meaning in praying or donating to ashrams after hurting elders at home and making them feel lonely even in crowds. Let us not make them feel they are alone because it's our duty to love them, care for them. After all, they are worth it!
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