Romantic novels and soap operas have convinced us that love is a relationship made up of a combination of adolescent whims and cheap sentimentalism; a particular type of dramatic relationship in which each one of the protagonists tries to satisfy specific egoistic needs. This is not love, but merely attachment.
Attachment and love are at the same time similar, and yet very different.
Attachment is a kind of emotional disease; it is an obsessive emotional state, a type of addiction in which our peace and happiness depends on closeness or distance from the object or person to whom we are attached.In contrast, love is the freedom of giving without hoping for anything in exchange, because love is its only reward.
Love is generosity, while attachment is egoism. The ego lacks love, while love utterly lacks any ego. One who is attached is convinced that without the object of his attachment, he cannot be happy. He imposes upon himself the ridiculous belief that his happiness depends completely on the object of his attachment, while the truth is that happiness is possible only when we transcend all attachment.
Attachment attributes an exaggerated and illusory value to objects, situations, or people; it totally disconnects us from reality. Any attachment is not part of reality, but an illusion whose existence is merely psychological.
Attachment is the desire to receive, while love is giving and sharing. In attachment, our desire to be loved stems from the feeling of lack; we seek to receive the love of the other because we do not find love in ourselves. In contrast, love is a waterfall that pours from the heart of one who knows himself as love.
Today we feel attracted to someone, tomorrow we would do anything for him, later he disgusts us, and finally we may find him intolerable. Our friend of today can be our enemy of tomorrow and vice versa. Today we are attached and tomorrow we hate, now someone seems unbearable while in the future, feelings of sympathy and attraction can arise. If we observe carefully, we will discover that attachment contains within it the essence of hate, and vice versa. Attachment is nothing more than another aspect of hate; both are merely the two sides of one and the same coin.
Most people completely confuse attachment with love. Especially in the west, attachment is called love and to be “attached” is to be “in love”.
Attachment makes us insensitive to others. How we relate with another is based on whether we consider him an obstacle or an aid in reaching the object of our attachment.
To live in the clutches of illusion or maya is to live under the danger and threat of attachment, which is a characteristic symptom of the egoic phenomenon. The ego is an endless accumulation of attachments.
In a world of forms that is a dynamic flow in which everything is changing constantly, in such an impermanent reality, our anxieties to possess take us irremediably towards suffering.
Attachment is a type of exploitation of the other for our own enjoyment. The interest of someone from the animal welfare agency is very different from the interest of one who likes to consume meat. Both are interested in cows, chickens and pigs, but their intentions are radically different.
Far from loving, one who suffers from attachment for another actually wants to exploit that person; that is to say, he pursues the pleasure that is produced in him by the other.
Attachment turns us into tyrants who wish to control everything, for whom even people are objects to be possessed. Like dictators thirsty for control and domination, we are impelled to elevate ourselves over others. However, all that we desired to possess ends up possessing us and we fall under the control of what we intended to control.
Attachment fragments the peace of its victims, leading to complete emotional disorder and chaos. Love seeks to eliminate all the differences and limits between people. Love is a profound longing to eradicate borders, to fuse and unite with the Whole. Attachment is expressed as a relationship with the other, with our neighbor. It belongs to the relative world, to duality, it is a part of the phenomenon of subject-object, while love corresponds to the Self, it is the realm of the Absolute.
Attachment is a psychological phenomenon, just another experience, while love is existential. Those who confuse love with attachment often say that “love is blind” however, the blindness exists only in the attachment because love is full consciousness.
The more we love and the more conscious we are, the deeper our love becomes, and the greater the depth of our vision. One who has not loved does not have the slightest idea what life is.
Attachment is love of the mundane and earthly, love is attachment in full consciousness. When the ego loves, it is called attachment, when the soul is attached we call it love. Love is attachment of the enlightened being. Attachment is love of the earthly, while love is attachment to God.
