There was once a man who didn’t believe in love. This was an ordinary man just like you and me, but what made this man special was his way of thinking: He thought that love didn’t exist. Of course, he had a lot of experience trying to find love. He observed the others around him. Much of his life had been spent in search for love only to conclude that love does not exist.
Wherever this man went, he would tell others about his thoughts and opinions about love. The man was highly intelligent and he argued a strong case. What he said was that love is just like a drug; it makes you very high but it creates a strong need. You can become highly addicted to love, yet what happens when you don’t receive your daily doses of love? He determined that just like an addictive drug, a daily dose is greatly desired.
The drug addict, the one with the need for love, lives in constant fear that perhaps he will not be able to get his next love dose, or the drug. The drug addict thinks, “What am I going to do if she leaves me?” That fear makes the drug addict very possessive. “That’s mine!” The addict becomes jealous and demanding out of the fear of not having the next dose. The provider can control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by the dose increase, fewer doses, or no doses at all. The one with the greater need completely surrenders and will do whatever he can to avoid abandonment.
The man went on explain why love doesn’t exist and what humans call ‘love’ is nothing but a fear-based and controlled relationship. Many promises are made to the other: to live together forever, to love and respect each other, through the good times and the bad times but after marriage, you can see that none of these promises are truly kept.
What you find is a war of control to see who will manipulate whom. Who will be the provider? Who will have the addiction? You find that a few months later, the respect that they swear to have for each other has gone. You can see the resentment, the emotional poison, how they hurt each other, little by little, and how it grows and grows, until their love has stopped. They stay together because they are afraid to be alone, afraid of the opinions and judgments of others and of their own judgments and opinions. But what happened to their love?
The one day this man was walking in a park, and saw a beautiful lady crying. When he saw her crying, felt curiosity. Sitting beside her, he asked if he could help her. He asked why she was crying. You can imagine his surprise when she told him she was crying because love doesn’t exist. “This is amazing—a woman who believes that love doesn’t exist!” Of course he wanted to know more about her.
He asked her why she felt that love doesn’t exist and she told him about her marriage and how she and her husband had both lost respect for each other. She told him about how they hurt each other and at a certain point she had to admit that she didn’t love him and that he didn’t love her either. ‘But the children need a father, and that was my excuse to stay and to do whatever I could to support him. Now the children have grown and left to pursue their own lives. I no longer have an excuse to stay with him. There is no sense to look around for something that doesn’t exist. That is why I am crying.’
Understanding her story all too well, he embraced her and said, you are right; love doesn’t exist. We look for love, we open our heart and we become vulnerable, only to find selfishness. That hurts us even if we don’t think we will be hurt. It doesn’t matter how many relationships we have; the same thing happens again and again. Why search for love any longer?”
They were so much alike, and they became the best friends ever. It was a wonderful relationship. They respected each other and never put each other down. With every step they took together, they were happy. There was no envy or jealousy, there was no control, and there was no possessiveness. Their relationship grew. They loved to be together, because when they were together, they had a lot of fun. When they were not together, they missed the other.
One day when the man was out of town, he had the weirdest idea. He thought, ‘Hmm, maybe what I feel for her is love. But this is so different from what I have ever felt before. It’s not what the poets say it is; it’s not what religion says it is, because I am not responsible for her. I don’t take anything from her. I don’t have the need for her to take care of me. I don’t need to blame her for my difficulties nor do I have a need take my dramas out on her. We have the best time together; we enjoy one another. I respect the way she thinks and the way she feels. She doesn’t embarrass me. Matter of fact, she doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t feel jealous when she’s with other people. I don’t feel envy when she is successful. Perhaps love does exist, but it’s not at all what everyone else thinks love is.’
He could hardly wait to go back home and talk to her to let her know about his new idea. As soon as he started talking, she knew exactly what he was talking about. She felt the same way. They decided to become lovers and to live together and it was amazing that things didn’t change. They still respected each other, they were still supportive of each other, and the love they had grew more and more.
The man’s heart was so full with love that one night and a great thing happened. He was looking at the stars and he found the most beautiful one, and his love was so big that the star started coming down from the sky and soon that star was in his hands. Then a second miracle happened, and his soul merged with that star. He was intensely happy, and he could hardly wait to go to the woman and put that star in her hands to prove his love for her. As soon as he put the star in her hands, she felt a moment of doubt. This love was overwhelming, and in that moment, the star fell from her hands and broke in a million of little pieces.
Now there is an old man walking around the world swearing that love doesn’t exist. And there is a beautiful old woman at home waiting for a man, shedding a tear for a paradise that once she had in her hands, but for one moment of doubt, she had let it go. This is the story about the man who didn’t believe in love.
Who made the mistake? Do you want to guess what went wrong? The mistake was on the man’s part in thinking he could give the woman his happiness. The star was his happiness, and his mistake was to put his happiness in her hands. Our personal happiness never comes from outside of us. He was happy because of the love coming out of him; she was happy because of the love coming out of her. But as soon as he made her responsible for his happiness, she broke the star because reasonably she would never be responsible for his personal happiness.
No matter how much the woman loved him, she could never make him happy because she could never know what he had in his mind’s thoughts. She could never know what his expectations were, because she could never know his dreams.
If you take your happiness, and put it in someone’s hands, sooner or later, she is going to break it. If you give your happiness to someone else, she can always take it away. If happiness can only come from inside of you and is the result of your love, you are responsible for your own happiness. We can never hold anyone responsible for our own happiness yet when we get married, the first thing we do is exchange rings. We put our star in each other’s hands, expecting that she is going to make you happy, and you are going to make her happy. It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, you are never going to be what that person wants you to be.
That is the mistake we make right from the beginning. We base our happiness on our partner although it doesn’t work that way. We make promises that we cannot keep. We set ourselves up for failure.
The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship (Toltec Wisdom Book), 1999, Amber-Allen Publishing, ISBN 1878424424
Check it out the rest of the book sometime when you have the time to absorb the containingmessages. It’s an excellent read.
You might recall having read, The Four Agreements (1997) Mr Ruiz is the Toltec author of both.
* Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
* Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
* Don’t Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
* Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
The code here at Mville became mucked up a few days ago as you well know especially, if you had visited since October 22nd. I just noticed the problem today, I’m afraid. When I first saw it, I thought, WTF happened, who did it and how do I fix it? I’m talking about hours of pondering almost to a state of emotional upset. Yet, I was unable to recall what I had been doing until 
People are in Washington D.C, marching
