LOVE AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT

 

AMA QUOD VIS

(Love and do whatever you want)

St. Augustine

 

I just woke up. The whole house is silent. I look at the clock. It's 5:30 in the morning. I had a rather strange dream. I was alone in the middle of an arid desert, something like the Sahara. It was very hot and I was thirsty, almost dying of thirst and exhaustion.

Then, as if by miracle, I saw an oasis and approached it. It was a paradise. A serene lake, numerous trees, fruit everywhere, a source of crystal-clear water. I felt filled with gratitude and contentment.

I savoured every moment. I drank, ate the best dates in the desert and fell asleep under the refreshing shade of a leafy tree.

Suddenly, I felt hot again, and when I opened my eyes, everything had disappeared. I was back in the middle of the arid desert.

My disappointment was tremendous. I felt anguish, anxiety, and apprehension. I was back in the middle of nowhere. It all seemed like a nightmare within a dream.

I woke up and realized, relieved, that it was all just a dream.

Then, when I turned on the TV to watch the morning news, there it was: the news of the day. Wars, deaths, trade wars around the world, children dying in the Gaza Strip, bombings in Ukraine and, not to be missed, the antics of an American president with his madness and threats everywhere.

As I listened to the news, I felt once again the sensation I had during my desert nightmare: a terrible disappointment in humanity.

During breakfast, I began to think about the reason for so much misfortune in the world. Selfishness? Arrogance? An excessive thirst for power?

But all those probable reasons converged on a single source: lack of love.

 

True love

 

Ultimately, why do we always come back to the subject of love? What is love? What is true love? These are questions that are easy to grasp and understand, but difficult to answer. And that is perhaps why it is so important to experience it.

Many people confuse love with feelings, or at least, only feelings. I have had to read a lot to realize that true love is not just a feeling.

Love is WILL. An indomitable force of will to want to live and transform what needs to be transformed. To build, to construct, to transform, to be reborn. Love is a force that dwells within us and, when we desire it fervently, transforms us into complete and true human beings.

True love is GOD, and as His children, created by Him, it is intrinsically within us. It is that flame that is always within the human soul and that, when nourished, illuminates and transforms everything around it.

Of course, it is also a feeling, but let us not be deceived when that feeling diminishes. On the contrary, the will and the depth of the heart feed love even when the feeling of sadness or fear threatens it.

True love has wings that can fly to infinity. There are no barriers, no time, no space to limit it.

 

Love without limits

 

Have you ever thought about how far an eagle can fly? They say up to 360 kilometres a day. That's incredible. Now, if we think that love can fly without limits, that it can extend beyond time and space, then if we experience it, it is the greatest thing a human being can experience.

The fact that it has no limits makes love the greatest thing a human being can experience. And I am using the verb EXPERIENCE instead of FEEL because you have to experience it to know its exact meaning and greatness.

Just as love is limitless, it is also a source of inspiration and devotion. It is so strong and so fragile at the same time. It can lead us to a state of ecstasy, as well as deep feeling. There is no middle ground in love. That makes it sublime.

 

Love and freedom

 

When Saint Augustine said, ‘Love and do what you will,’ he was referring to another of the sacrosanct elements of love: freedom.

Love and freedom go hand in hand, and I would say they are two sides of the same coin. Loving someone gives you the freedom to support the vast edifice of life with your own pillar, knowing that your loved one is the other pillar supporting the same edifice.

If you truly love someone, you feel the ‘detachment’ of letting them fly freely to the heights of their own limits. It is in freedom that your loved one feels totally prepared to give themselves freely.

Surrendering freely with all the awareness that this implies. Surrendering to the heart and life of another with total freedom is, indeed, the secret to lasting love.

When, at last, the soul finds its fulfilment in love, it is when it approaches the very source of love: God-Love. There it finds its true meaning.

And with total freedom to love, without limits to giving oneself fully, the one who loves can do whatever they want, because everything they do, they will do well and fully.

 

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