“Lovers are alive to the extent they can die.”-Rumi

There comes a time in one’s life when they question love. The form, meaning, and what counts as ‘true love’ becomes arbitrary and old views of the subject begin to dissolve. During the new chapter of my life, I question almost every side of my life: from religion, to love, to ethics, to friendship. My view of love between two lovers has changed from a self-centered love to a self-sacrificial love; but, transitioning to acting through this love has become a huge challenge in my life.

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard says, “For to love God is to love oneself in truth; to help another human being to love God is to love another man; to be helped by another human being to love God is to be loved.” As a questioning millennial, my first thought while reading this is “define God” or “Do I have to believe in God to love others?”. I believe if one is not ready to or does not claim absolute faith to a higher being, they can still love others fully. To me, “For to love oneself in truth” means to ground yourself with a foundation that loves others without attachments or expectations. Through practice of gratitude, mindfulness, and compassion one can focus on the love they give rather than the love they receive. This turns the lover to understand the love they give endures because they have the control to give it. No one else can stop them in giving love, but other people can hinder them receiving love. “To help another human being to love God is to love another man”, for the sake of differing beliefs and stages in our spiritual/religious journeys, I will define God as Truth, Love, and Ultimate Goodness. If one loves to love and attunes their deeds to a truly, inherently good standard, they in a sense love God. Therefore, if one man helps others believe in ultimate goodness, whether in a higher being or in human beings, hope will rush into their soul; and they will want to produce this good in society. Helping others love is in turn loving the other person. Let us say someone helped you discover how awesome it is to live in this world. We can say the person who helped the other person loves them, because a true lover wants the beloved to be happy. Happiness comes in the ability to love life and through this love for life, motivation emerges to help others have the same revelation. If one wants to incorporate a higher being into this equation, they can; but if one does not want to, they can still show true love by loving truth, goodness, and love itself.

The three parts of Kierkegaard’s statement all have one thing in common: the removal of a false self. Loving oneself in truth is loving your true self rather than your ego/false self. True love directs itself towards goodness and truth rather than towards inflating the ego. I interpret Rumi’s quote above as that two lovers need to let their materialistic, self-centered view on love die so that they can let a true, liberating, and compassionate love take its place. Truly loving another does not entail expectations of receiving love but rather expectations of giving love. This task is very difficult. You must catch yourself in your self-centered desires and recognize that these desires can move you away from true love if not cultivated with kindness and compassion for others. I am not at the stage of 100% self-sacrificial love but I am on my way. Ridding of a false identification of love is the first step to living with true love directed towards every person you meet.