If we fall in love only with a person’s ego, we are falling in love with a passing shadow.
If you have someone in your life who hates you, you may give yourself comfort by thinking something like, “It doesn’t matter what they think — they don’t know the real me.” That is true. It is also true for people who love you. In both cases, and for everybody in-between, people hate, love or are indifferent to your ego — to the “you” that they see, not to the divine, unchanging inner you.
When people complain about you, they are projecting insecurities about themselves onto you. Likewise, when they admire and praise you, they are projecting qualities onto you.
The ego is the part of you that makes its way in this world, creating a personality, malleable over time, that intersects with the world.
This doesn’t mean that no one can love the true you that resides underneath your ego. The ego can act as a window to your true self. As you work to bring your ego more and more in line with the nature of your true self, people can connect to and fall in love with the real you through your ego. This happens as someone feels close to you for no other reason than the love they feel for you, not for your words or deeds. Your words and deeds, in sync with your innermost values, can help them get close to the wordless and reasonless love between their true self and yours. That connection can be felt when we put aside judgement (good or bad) and thought long enough to feel connection.
The true self is elusive. Imagine how tricky it is for others to sense it if your own mind has such difficulty grasping it. The work you do through meditation to know your true self and rest within it pays off as it makes it so much easier to come into sense-contact with the true self of another.
The instructions are simple but may take a lifetime or more to achieve: rest your thinking mind, open your heart and be together.
Suggested practice:
- Sit upright comfortably and meditate on your breath: close your eyes and feel and observe your natural breath coming in and out. When thoughts arise, let them go and return to focusing only on your breath.
- After a few minutes, picture the person you love and want to connect more deeply to. Continue to focus on your breath, keeping an image of the other person in your mind.
- Continue for a few more minutes or until your mind wanders so much that the meditation has informed you that it is over.
