By Elizabeth Herman | Posted: August 16, 2019
How do you know when love is true? Can you rely on the person you’re dating? Is your relationship likely to last forever, or is it only temporary? Many different types of love exist, but signs of real, lasting love can help you understand your own true feelings as well as those of your significant other.
In this short video, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar tells beautiful stories about the signs of genuine, true love, for parents and grandparents as well as spouses and partners. In his inimitable way, he reveals ways of expressing love that make it powerful and invincible, with the kind of strength that lasts through the ages.
The 5 signs of true love
You accommodate everything. The heart can accommodate all different opinions. A person in love might say, “I am correct; you can also be correct.” This is a sign of love. Love knows no boundaries. It can accommodate all the opposite values in its lap. The intellect cannot appreciate different opinions, although they arise in the intellect. But the heart can accommodate all different opinions. One who has a big heart can acknowledge others’ standpoints. They won’t say “Only I am correct.” You say “It’s nighttime now.” Someone else says “it is daytime now.” You say “That’s also correct, but somewhere else.”
You can’t stop expressing it. It is a custom in India, even today, when any guests come or honored person comes, or at any wedding or other occasion in the home or temple, to light a lamp or camphor and take it around saying, “Let there be light all around you.” An expression of immense gratitude is puja.
You don’t stop talking about them. “Just talking about the beloved, telling stories is a sign of love. When you love somebody you don’t stop talking about them. You tell the stories, “Do you know what happened?” You can find this with the grandparents when they first become grandparents. The first grandchild is born in their family. They talk about the baby all the time. For them it’s a unique child. They have never seen anybody like that. I heard a grandparent saying, “You know, my grandson, he’s just four months old, but he can watch TV and figure out what’s happening there. When the Chicago Bulls were winning the match, he was raising his fingers like that! What does the baby know? He’s a very brilliant boy. You keep anything in front of him he’ll kick it. He seems to be a great soccer player, a 4 month old baby.” But for parents and grandparents, that’s the joy.
Everything they do is amazing. When a father is a soccer fan, he wishes his son would also be one. But parents can’t stop talking about the child. They think, “See, he looks at me. Whenever I have something he looks, and he knows.” The baby is very special; they’ve never seen a child so special. Every mother feels the child is so special. Every grandparent, their child is out of this world. This is the sign of love.
You rejoice in yourself. Rejoicing in the self without any conflict, this is a sign of love. You know when you begin to enjoy anything, suddenly some conflict arises in you. Have you noticed this? You’re happy. You think, maybe I shouldn't be this happy, or shouldn’t be doing this thing. The conflict comes and puts an end to your joy. Conflict is the handiwork of the intellect. Rejoicing is that of the heart. When there’s a conflict between the intellect and the heart, you can’t rejoice without conflict. But deep meditation, the self and the dawning of the understanding of ‘who I am’ can put an end to this conflict. A sign of love is rejoicing without conflict.
With these 5 signs, you can begin to evaluate your relationships with more clarity. In the process of learning to trust a potential partner, you can ask yourself whether you and the other person are exhibiting these qualities.
It helps to look at the love of parents and grandparents in your life. The way other people have loved you during your childhood will forever influence your intimate relationships. So you might want to take those family expressions of love into account when establishing an adult relationship as well.
All the best on finding true love in your life. For more experiences on interrelating and celebrating the expression of love, find out about a Happiness Program near you.
By Elizabeth Herman - PhD in English, with concentrations in Rhetoric and Composition, and Literature, she offers writing support to clients, teaches locally, lives in Boone, NC, and volunteers for a better world.
