U n f r e e d o m  o f  L o v e

Have you renounced your spiritual claims?!

When a man attempts to reflect upon spirituality, he immediately imagines some kind of an abstract freedom, then he finds the first disguise of the freedom which is the freedom from, and comes to the realization that spirituality is impossible without love. And from this moment the confusions sets in.

There is no freedom in love. To begin with, the lover cannot be free from his love.

Only by giving up oneself, one is able to love. But, by giving up oneself, one loses power. Only by giving up the concept of power, one is capable of loving. And that becomes the principal impediment to the (seemingly) greatest desire of man.

To say "I love you" is the same as to say "I do not exist..." To accept the other is to lose freedom. The first encounter is the last parting. In order to accept the other, the relations must be necessarily strained to the limit, because one must outgrow oneself, give up oneself, forget oneself and get rid of oneself. The relations are true when they are mutually free: when everything has been given up, including the freedom.

"Give up that is holy unto the dogs, give up the pearls unto the swines, just give it all up..."

The main obstacle for Love is the fear of losing power that hastily changes its guises: horridness of losing the control... fear of losing freedom... fear of desolation.

Your lover has changed... either by oneself or by changing his or her life, and "has left" you. And now there is no one to witness your ultimate value, the utmost meaning of the advancement of your Self. There is no one to tell you "I love you", and there is no recognition for you in the Eternity.

Love is a kind of an ultimate trap, a kind of an ultimate hope that the desolation can be avoided. But only the grave experience of desolation may bring about the perfect love. Only the experience of total desolation when neither the outer world nor my own Self exists gives an ability for Love. "I love you so much that I do not need anything from you..."

Touch the Knowledge and you will see your fear, and you will be able to part with it. Touch the Love and you will attain knowledge of love. As all the knowledge lies in people. But you must pass through the space of Love in order to learn to feel with Love. Only on the boundary of the space of Love, only in the state of utmost desolation the true Love will open up for you. Because the desolation, as the inherent property of the existence does not need to be reflected by someone or by something. "I love you, I give up myself to you, and I do not need anything in return". The true Love is born out of abundance. Abundance of existence.

The other is my death and my gates of love. Bowed and burned, burned and bowed. Beyond those gates the love is no longer directed toward you or toward me or toward any single object... There, the love exists and shines upon everyone. There, it becomes an act of co-existence. The Lover.

But freedom is even farther away... where freedom and un-freedom become one.

AT + Eva, Vilnius - St. Petersburg, May 20, 2001
From the "Let us Compare our Illusions" Dialogs [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
Published in the "Subject and Reality" magazine, #3, 2001.
Translation by I. Shpigelman, 2006