| |
we have been distorted. The mother says to the child, `Love me, I am your mother' -- as if just by being a mother you can force love. The father says, `Love me, I'm your father' -- as if love is a logic: `Because I am your father you have to love me.' And the child does not know what to do. How to love just by the declaration that somebody is your father? And the child starts feeling guilty if he does not love. So he pretends, he shows love. Not knowing what it is, he smiles. He says, `I love you mommy, I love you daddy,' and daddy is very happy. People are very happy with empty words. And mommy is very happy because the child is smiling, and she feels very good that somebody at least finally loves her; at least her own child loves her. Nobody has loved her....
And the child is simply becoming a politician: he is learning the ways of deception. Sooner or later he will become so efficient in it that he will go on pretending his whole life and talking about love. And he will say a hundred times in the day to his wife, `I love you, I love you,' and these are content-less words. There is nothing behind them, they are empty. But they help, because people live only with words. People don't know the reality, they have lost all contact.
Dale Carnegie says to his followers: Even if you don't love your wife, at least three, four times in the day, say `I love you,' and it helps. There is no need to mean anything, but just say it; even saying helps. People know only words, they don't know reality.
Once a child has learned how to pretend love, he will never know love -- because love is not something that you can do. It happens; it is not a doing on your part. Love is something bigger than you, vaster than you. You cannot manage and manipulate it. Remember this, and remain open. Don't pretend. When it comes, feel grateful; when it disappears, wait again. But don't pretend.
If you don't pretend, one day you will see love has arisen, the flower has opened. And whenever love opens in your heart, the fragrance goes to the feet of God. it may take any route: it may go through your child, through your wife, through your husband, through your friend, through
|
|
|