For most of us, the search for the ideal partner has become an obsession: the principle goal in our quest for love. Yet our relationships often peter out after the brief fireworks of romance. Then the false hopes of the mind are exposed for what they truly are -- an illusion of yearning, aspirations and dreams we use to hide the disappointment of reality -- plain old hormones at work. Once the sexual attraction has lived its natural course, the ashes soon scatter in the breeze of disinterest.
There are times when we feel like a tiny boat on a thrashing sea of hormones, but what of the voice of the heart, yearning for a love that is true, a love that is unconditional? Usually we don't pay much attention to its call, even if we do speak of broken hearts. The only thing that actually breaks is the celluloid fantasy of what we were expecting the relationship to give us. We want to direct the relationship and dictate the script, yet it turns out our partners often have very different ideas about the role they wish to play.
We spend our lives seeking love through sex, yet we will never find true love until we discover it within ourselves. Another person will never be enough to make you feel truly satisfied: that kind of completion can only be found through love of self.
Of course, the union between two people who love unconditionally is the highest form of sexual expression. Yet this kind of relationship incorporates many different aspects, and cannot be solely based in sexual attraction.
Is sex for sex's sake -- hooking up over the internet for example, or having sex with many different people at discos, a path to love? I would say no. It's just another addiction. Another way we try to lose ourselves in external satisfaction.
Is there something wrong with this? No, of course not. Yet if we are seeking to be honest with ourselves, we will ultimately see beyond this behavior and realize that it too leaves us unfulfilled. Then the calling of the heart will become stronger still: the calling to come home, to ourselves.
Is it hard for you to be with someone a hundred percent? Do you begin relationships enthusiastically and then lose interest? Be aware that this is a place where you are not giving all of yourself to life, where you are not finding fulfillment in each moment. To confront that feeling of inner incompletion is the greatest adventure. Embrace that feeling of dissatisfaction and fill the emptiness from within, instead of trying to fill it with something external: with relationships, projects, substances or any other distraction that tickles our fancy.
When I began to experience love-consciousness in my life, everything else became secondary. I realized that nothing external could fulfill me. I had already done everything I had wanted to, giving my all to follow my dreams and working in areas I was passionate about. I had pursued them until I had tired of them, and when I found consciousness, I realized it was all I had ever really wanted.
We all ultimately wish to know ourselves, to fall in love, completely and unconditionally, with the one person who will always be with us: ourselves. When you find yourself, you will be able to have the most amazing relationships with others, no longer out of need, but out of pure unconditional love, the joy of loving that bubbles up from within.
Isha Judd is an internationally renowned spiritual teacher. Her book and movie, Why Walk When You Can Fly? (WhyWalkWhenYouCanFly.com) explain her system for self-love and the expansion of consciousness.