This is how love becomes slavery

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Questioner is asking — “Acharya Ji, ‘love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn, a slavery. How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken?’

~Khalil Gibran.

Kindly elaborate on the above two lines. What do renewal of love, unsealing of heart, and broken heart imply here? How could there be slavery in love?”

The truth is neither new nor old. It is beyond time. So, what is this newness, Gibran is talking of? All that is new and all that would be old is within the stream of time. So obviously, when something new is being referred to, something of the world is being referred to. The lover of Truth is on a continuous journey. The journey is through herself. The destination is not changing, but the traveler is constantly changing as she is moving towards the Truth. As one journeys towards the Truth, one changes with every step. This journey is the journey of Love.

In essential terms, Love is nothing but the love of this traveler towards the Truth. That is the only right Love. To be helplessly attracted towards something unknowable. Now, the journey is in the world, because the traveler is worldly. The traveler is worldly, so the journey is in the world. Because the journey is in the world, the traveler seeks and gets support for her journey from the world itself. The worldly traveler cannot approach the Truth directly, because the Truth is beyond the world. So, how is the journey made possible, then? The journey is made possible with the help of someone within the world.

The worldly traveler needs the help of someone within the world in order to move towards the One beyond the world. The traveler is in the world. Therefore, if the traveler needs guidance, she will have to go to someone in the world. But this person or force that the traveler goes to must be someone who can guide her to her point beyond the world. But he began by saying that the traveler keeps changing with every step in her journey. If the traveler keeps changing, then the one she keeps getting attracted to for the sake of help must also keep changing.