Askintherapy's Blog

“What men live by?” The famous work of Tolstoy. At the end of the book what is remembered is “love”. Everybody wants to be loved from birth till death. The entire struggle is for this. So, what do people do to be loved? They do what they’ve learnt since their birth. From who? Firstly, from their parents. . They do the same things in order to be loved  until they learn new ways or the right way. What do they do? They have many strategies including pursuing success, being respected, silent,  naughty, noisy, hardworking, famous or punctual, living for others, self-sacrificing, fighting etc. All is to be loved and to be precious. When the schemas that worked well in childhood begin to lose power the fight also begins. People don’t understand how their childhood strategies fail. They become puzzled and aggressive. They blame others for not loving them. In fact, there are very simple things to do to be loved. That is to be a person that can be loved and to learn the true love. How can a person learn true love? It starts with listening to others in order to understand them. You cannot love somebody without understanding and getting to know him/her.  The one that we don’t understand and recognize is always a stranger.  And this can be done via patience, discipline and attention. When you pay attention to the other person you start to love yourself too. One of the prerequisites for love is trust. Then, comes compassion. The one who trusts and who mercies has a mature ego. The primitive are cruel. They don’t love and they are not loved. Love is parallel to your ability to see others as separate beings from you. If you cannot see them that way, and make them an extension of you or stick them to yourself,  you do not listen to them.  When they don’t think or act like you do, you get angry. You do not respect them. Respect starts when you see others as “others”. The most harm is done to the children in this sense. They are forced to live as the extensions of their parents.

Love is also a work of mind. The mindless cannot love. Patience and discipline are found and understood via mind. Knowledge is a must. After a while knowledge turns into behaviour and then it is internalized and becomes a part of soul. Love is not sacrifice.  Love is not romance. It’s not just a feeling. It’s labor. It is about expressing yourself in the best way  you can and permitting others to express themselves as well and letting them be independent of you.  And it’s about your capacity of endurance as letting the others be themselves can cause discontent. The one you love doesn’t have to love you. Love is to be happy when your beloved is happy without you. Love is to take the risk of being alone. The real love begins when the requirements are over. It continues with your overcoming the drawbacks that prevents you from listening and understanding others. When you understand that you and the others are not Gods, your love gets mature. Because only God gives with no strings attached.   And all kinds of love are actually there to love the Lord. That’s why it’s difficult. Hard.  It requires getting rid of primitivity and reaching maturity.  The Lord can be reached via loving all his creatures. People are always curious to know the difference between love and romance. Which one comes first?

As far as I am concerned the real love begins when you learn how to love.

When the matter is love it is a must to listen to Mawlana:

Walk, open the eye of your soul,

Look at those lovers:

How they have locked one another in a close embrace and become something like a heart,

How they have become handless and feetless like the soul.

They are more cheerful than the garden,

More cheerful than the rose.

Truer than the knowledge,

More clever than the mind,

Freer than the cypress,

Cleaner and purer than the water of immortality,

They are vagabonds like the particles.

The sun is their caftan.

They have set foot in mud,

They have put their head on the heart’s knee.

They have passed upon the blood,

Through the waves of the seas of blood.

Yet, their skirts are still clean.

They are among the thorns but they are like roses,

They are in a dungeon but they are like wine.

They are in mud but they are like the heart.

They are in dark but they are like daylight.

Drink their wine and see:

How fresh and luminous will your heart be,

How, suddenly, everything is forgotten,

How, suddenly, your eyes smile.

Dr Faik Özdengül

When the pen is between the fingers, it knows the meaninglessness of resistance.

How about the pen of heart?

Whose fingers is it between ?

They say man’s heart is like a feather in the desert. The blowing wind takes it sometimes this and sometimes that way.

Is there any other choice but to beg the wind?

The pen of heart is between the fingers of grace and grief.

Sometimes grieving and sometimes being happy…

You have been a pen for ages. Have you ever been able to cope with the fingers?

And the wind?

Have you ever guessed where and when it will blow?

There was a man living in a desert. He was curious to know if the desert had an end. Sometimes he asked his question to the sand and sometimes he had a heart to heart talk with the night. He was always hopeful to find out the end of the desert. The sand never cared as it thought it was a vain deed. Besides they weren’t the same kind. The night never cared about showing the way. It was there to cover the beginning and the end of the road. The sun was a guide but he couldn’t look at it. It was too bright. What is more, it was difficult to proceed in the desert during the day. The stars were the most suitable guides. But which one?

One day he met others who travelled during the day and night. He came closer and asked his question. But he didn’t understand their language. Yet, he didn’t give up. He tried to find another way to communicate. In the end he decided not to care about being understood. He followed them.  They were never talking and they were proceeding fast. Only a few of them were able to look directly at the sun. The ones who were able to read the signs of the stars were greater in number. Time to time they gathered and consulted each other. While proceeding that far, suddenly the wind blew and destroyed everywhere. The sand flew hither and thither and they found themselves even behind the place where they had started their journey.  They couldn’t cope with the wind. As that event repeated itself several times, they turned to the man. They just looked at him silently again. They thought that the man knew how to cope with the wind.

“”You should stop when the wind blows,” said the man.

They stopped.

They stopped whenever the wind blew.

Then they moved forward again.

They understood that it was vain to resist the wind.

When they gave up resisting the wind started to blow in a different way.

The pen became complaisant between the fingers.

It poured its tears down its nib.

The tears turned into letters.

The letters turned into words.

The words came together first. They formed small lakes.

Then they turned into rivers. The rivers flowed sometimes calmly and sometimes wildly.

There was no choice but to reach the sea.

They set for the sea…

In a huge saloon, there is someone cornered, with her hands tied in front of her legs and her head down between her knees. She is closed.
She doesn’t want to look and see.

She is afraid of the things she might see.

She’s turned back. She has been regressed.

She will stay there for a long time.

She will mourn.

She needs to feel safe.

She will check if everything is alright and in its place time to time. She needs trust.

The need of silence.

Of course, she will tell her story when she finds the ear to listen to her.

To the ones who wait patiently, who smile and who have hearts full of love.

She has tied herself with invisible ties. Later on, she will untie them and be free.

She will cry a lot.

It won’t be easy to stand up. First, she will look at the hand she is holding without looking at his face.

Then to the owner of the hand… Then to the owner of the hand’s owner…

Then she will surrender.

She will hear the sound of water, of wind and of the fall of leaves. She will understand how long even a single fall lasts.

Time will extend. Breath will extend. It will fill her thoroughly. It will take a long time to breathe out.

Then she will hear the ones who hear.

She will not hurry anymore.

She will learn how to overcome her impatience with patience.

Then she will understand with a smile on her face that patience is the key…

A huge bright street…

A bright smiling face…

Hands in her pockets…

Her lips in motion…

Feet are in harmony with the ground. They are in harmony with other feet. Shoes with feet, feet with legs, legs with body and body with head….
Her head is high, flirting with the sky.

And music.

Can you hear the music?

She has already untied her self and now walking…

Do people need to hug themselves? Do they touch themselves? Do they embrace themselves? People need to be touched. Either physically or another way. They need to know that they exist. Do I exist or not?

For example, people suffering from hypochondria continuously check parts of their bodies, their breath, their pulse, they listen to their heart, pinch themselves. They frequently visit the Doctor’s.Do they exist or not? Are they alive or not? Are they fragmentary or complete?

Existence is the nature of human.Existing, protecting their presence, being seen, being wanted, being desired, being liked, not being crushed, not being overridden. All for the struggle of existence. However, all ancient teachings suggest the opposite. Annihilate yourself. This is a dilemma that cannot be understood easily. I was with old friends for the last few days. I became a child with them. In a way, I got lost among them. I laughed a lot. I got out of the reality. I mean my own reality. I got out of my struggle of existence. Yet, that was another reality.

I watched apocalypto again last night.( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472043/).The film on existence and overcoming fear. The anxiety of existence was together with fear. If you have anxiety of existence, then there is fear. That means you have to live with it. What if the things that exist are gone… Then it is time to discover again that existence is a gift. The things we own, first of all our bodies, then health, beauty, possessions, children… all are gifts. They have already been given. If something is given, then it means they can be taken back. That is, it is a trust. The aim shouldn’t be the anxiety of existence or continuity but should be looking after the trust as long as it is with you, shouldn’t it?

The One who gave us this trust must have had an aim. So, it will be the right time when he takes it back. Till that time, he will not deprive us of help for the protection of the given trust. As the Lord attributed this trust to us, why don’t we realize the fact immediately and entrust this trust to the Lord? Instead of our anxiety of existence why don’t we give or devote our existence to him as a sign of our gratitude?

I guess this what nihility is. Nihility is just a name. When you get in it, it seems as if it is the real existence. Instead of acting like the owner, it seems better to live as a trustee.

 I don’t know whether you agree or not. Shall we say “Love is to surrender”?