Meditation for the Lover

Q: "I'm a woman and an artist who's been very much in love with a man for several years now. Although he never returned my love I was deeply committed to him. I became depressed about his rejection, and this led to a very self-degrading relationship that I had next with another man. In my relationships I always seem to be the one who gives love to the other one, who sometimes rejects me and other times abuses me. In meditation, I noticed my breath, as you suggested. My inhalation is difficult; I love the exhalation. What does this mean?"

A: Your exhalation carries your energy, the chemical products of your thinking and the hormonal products of your emotions, out into the world, influencing the people around you. It is the chief means of expressing your self. Your inhalation does the opposite: it draws in all that is around you and mixes it into your blood stream, to be carried to every cell. By breathing you exchange intimately with everyone.

The exchange from within and without is rarely equal. We specialize, some on taking in and others on giving out. Your breath will match your personality. You are demonstrating the orientation of the exhalation, the Lover, as opposed to the inhalation, the Beloved. You reported some difficulty with the inhalation, which has to do with taking in, in this case, receiving the love of others.

Balance between the receptive and active takes a long time to achieve. It would be too easy to say, "Learn to receive the love of others." It's not natural yet. Better to say, "Use this orientation as the one who gives in a relationship (the Lover) by channeling the energy into your creative expression." Then you're giving to many, and you won't experience such frustration if one turns away.

The usual response when one loves someone who doesn't return that love is to feel rejected and to become bitter, cynical, and doubting of one's self-worth. You can take the opposite approach. Realize that it is the nature of the Lover to love those who can not return the love. Your love is never wasted; it has an effect. The effect of the Lover is to open the one she loves to Love itself. If the one you love doesn't return that love to you, he will return it to someone else, and there is satisfaction in that.

This satisfaction will keep you out of the abusive relationship where the other person's need for you is painfully obvious. You wouldn't put up with abuse in the second case if you saw the effect of your love in the first case. And you can see the effect of your love if you don't require that it comes back to you directly. Only a Lover could think this way. One who is looking for reciprocity isn't a Lover; they're more of a trader. The Lover loves because that's what Lovers do; her love is not dependent on the response.

He doesn't love you? He doesn't know you! You have enough love for thousands of beloveds. Use your exhalation to carry your heart into your work. Breathe out completely so there is nothing of you left to mourn him, and then without a pause breathe in a completely new life of inspiration. The way to get what you need is to give more. (This is not advice for everyone, only for Lovers.)

So love more! Increase the burning in your heart until it sets the world on fire! Create works of love, so that many can be touched by the energy in your heart. Creativity is love in action. Be prolific in your creativity. Keep it honest, but otherwise don't censor it. Let your art go deep so it will touch every heart that sees it. In meditation, emphasize the full exhalation, squeezing that last bit of air out and then immediately allowing new breath to rush back in.

Don't worry about being loved, just keep doing what you do naturally: giving love out. Eventually it will come back to you and by that time it will be amplified by many echoes. The inhalation takes no effort once the exhalation is complete.

Even in your depression from unrequited love you can realize that the best way to live is to give your life through your art. If you try to do that, to give everything you are in an exhalation that reaches the whole world, you will find that in unselfishly giving your breath, which is your life, you touch a depth in yourself that is so pure and so vital that it is the source of life itself. You give your life in beauty and new life is given to you in joy.

Giving your art to the world exercises your heart so that it becomes the ultimate Lover's gift. Then the Beloved will come.
By Puran Bair, author of "Living from the Heart" (Random House, 1998)
(c) 1999 by The Institute for Applied Meditation, Inc.
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