I love a person, with all I have, but now, I have to let him go. I know I can’t bind him after all love. Doesn’t mean that. I know it hurts. I just want to know how to not let the pain affect me and how to be stable in such situation and move on.
—manisha kumari, india
Dear Manisha,
There’s is no one who can say to you there’s a way for this NOT to hurt! Your note doesn’t supply any details of how, even though you love him, you have to “let him go” and not “bind him.”
Nonetheless, the separation of your heart from him is like receiving a wound on your body when the skin is burned or torn away. The flesh is exposed and it will be painful.
The first thing one does is to treat the wound with salves (antibiotics, e.g.) and a band-aid or wound treatment covering. Usually at this stage one covers up the wound with one’s clothing to hide it from view and further injury.
This treatment doesn’t end the pain. Rather, it re-directs your attention from the pain to things YOU CAN do to stay positive: concentration on your work; your studies; your family; your service to others; prayer, meditation and devotion.
Then as you continue in re-directing your attention to positive activities and attitudes, the pain is still there but it gradually diminishes as the underlying “skin” begins the healing process. The intense energy of the breakup is like a bomb that explodes in the air. After the explosion, the energy of the bomb (like the dust cloud) begins to settle and dissipate.
But no amount of positive activity can completely change the fact that in quiet moments and intruding into your daily thoughts whether in meditation or activity, the pain makes itself known. Let it be. Allow yourself to calmly embrace the pain (in meditation with deep breathing is helpful) without reacting to it. Hold it in your hands and heart as you would an infant or small animal who is crying in pain. Comfort the pain with your understanding and calmness.
Then when the intensity subsides, lift up this pain (this child) to the spiritual eye and offer it back to God. “I love Thee alone. All that I seek I will find in Thy love alone!”
If helpful but only as necessary, reflect calmly on the virtuous and divine qualities of your friend from whom you are separated. Say a silent prayer of gratitude to him and to Divine Mother who sent him to you, for the love and friendship you have felt. Conclude these thoughts of gratitude with the reflection that this is now past; Divine Mother has taken the gift back and you are simply feeling gratitude for the experience.
We cannot avoid pain in this world of sorrows and duality (but we also receive happiness and pleasures, too). The opposites are the warp and woof and stuff of life and we must accept what life brings to us.
Suffering has for its purpose to remind us that only in Divine Love can we find freedom from suffering and satisfaction of our heart’s yearning for love eternal.
Accept what is with a grateful heart and see Divine Mother smiling and comforting you, saying “It is my love you seek and my love you shall have!”
Joy and blessings of Mother’s love upon you,
Nayaswami Hriman
Seattle WA USA
www.Hrimananda.org
