To Like is to Suffer: Raga
In my contemplation on attachment I began to reflect upon my conversations with others, it occurred to me that many of my responses are about what I like, and the way that I do and perceive the things that I like. So when you share whatever your liking is, I then share my liking, and here we are debating why my liking may or may not be better than your liking. Then, in some subtle way telling you that you should try liking what I like in the way that I like it, all of this done unconsciously. While it certainly isn’t bad to like, it absolutely paints the way in which I experience all experiences and relationships or more importantly, the way in which I don’t experience, experiences and relationships.
So now, liking, feels more like confinement. It feels like being trapped in a cement basement with only a small window to peep the vast, outside world. What if instead of running in the opposite direction of like, straight into the arms of, dislike, which is basically just more of the same: “here’s what I don’t like and why I don’t like it and why you shouldn’t like it either.” What if instead of liking or disliking, we chose to Love? Because to Love, to really Love, feels like a boundless meadow, so graciously doused with wildflowers and golden rays of sunlight, wide-open, untouched and undefined.
In my liking, I hold on, I wrap my fingers around dense bars I believe to be real. I obsess and run perpetually down the narrow, narrative of of my mind, a mundane, uninspired, well worn path that I know, oh too well. I assign myself the impossible mission of freezing indefinable feelings inside ever changing moments to bottle them up, so I can drink them at my leisure, and by leisure, I mean attachment and even addiction.
In my Love, I let go, I feel the weightlessness of freedom, the relief of heavy expectations evaporating, and the vanishing of opinions. I feel the exhale that attachment to outcome suffocates. I am a co-creator and not a co-dependent. I see without demanding to be seen. I give to give and not to get, because Love is not concerned with its’ return on investment. I Love out loud, boldly, unapologetic in my offerings and unattached to the way in which they are received or not received.
Maybe raga is about, liking less and Loving more. This means that the, liking, we have blindly called Love, is dismantled and abandoned, so that true Love can be illuminated in the only place it actually exists, right now.
*This blog was inspired by the Kleshas. In yogic philosophy these are known as our afflictions or the reasons why we suffer. There are five Kleshas and up to this point, I have written blogs on the first three. The first Klesha is Avidya or ignorance which you can read about here: Avidya. The second is Asmita or egoism which you can read about here: Asmita. And next week we will move onto the fourth Klesha, which is Dvesa or attachment to our pain.
As always, I am truly honored and grateful that you chose to spend your precious time and energy with me and my thoughts. It blasts my heart open every single week to realize this. May you feel the depths of the love that you are.
Blessings,
Andrea Dawn
