AT THE FEET OF THE MOTHER
Ask Alok da

Can you please explain, ‘Break up in love💗is wake up in life.’

I can’t say that I completely agree with this sentence which claims to be based on Buddhism. No great teacher, certainly not Buddha would advice this way of awakening which, besides does not last long as a new attraction replaces the old. This apart what normally passes off in the name of love is mostly attractions, attachments, affinities and infatuation. True love does not depend upon loss of the loved but burns as a steady flame in the secret chambers of the soul. It needs no reciprocation and hence is not hurt or feels resentment, disappointments or feel heart broken. 

This apart, the sentence possibly implies that when the ‘heart breaks’, one ‘wakes up’ to the sense of transience of earthly life. It is a state of tamasic vairagya leading to a recoil from human relationships. This can, sometimes become an instrument for waking up to the quest of something Permanent as we see in the life of the great poet Kalidasa, Tulsidas and to an extent Valmiki. One can feel in such moments the illusoriness of all human striving, the utter meaninglessness of the pursuit of desire. The saying quoted in the image is advising us to seize on this moment and strive rightly for the true things. 

However most lose the moment and either fall into despair or else after a short period of disappointment turn towards other forms and faces. Thus life goes on endlessly driven upon the wheel of pleasure and pain, losses and gains. But the thinking man, the intelligent person raises this question as to why is it so and starts on a deeper quest to solve the riddle of life. This is what seems to be implied.

Affectionately,

Alok Da

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