Illusory love binds you,
The Love of God frees you.*
Kalindi La Gourasana
“Illusory Love” is the first post of my third blog series. Illusory love has been one of the greatest illusions (i.e., the most prevalent and apparent) I have had to deal with on my path. I had no idea how prevalent this illusion was in my life until Kalindi spelled it out for me in 1999, long before I got involved with my husband-to-be.
My sexual identity defined me more than I knew. At one point in 1999, Kalindi told me that my attention was at least ninety percent directed toward getting a man. It was only after entering celibacy [in 2008, right after my marriage ended] that I woke up to how deeply I desired every man to adore me as if no other female exists (A Mad Desire for God, p.69).
Celibacy
For me at the time, I associated ‘love’ with loving a person – my husband, my child – but most importantly I craved love from men to feel lovable. It was the crux of my personality – to be desired by men, to turn them on. Because of this illusion (i.e., false or temporary desire), I could not fully give my whole heart to God. The guidance Kalindi gave me to help me let go of this illusion so that I could break free was to be celibate for the next ten years. When she said it, the shock ran through me like no other guidance had. Despite the shock, I said “yes” because I could feel how this guidance was the ticket to my spiritual freedom.
Through the vow of renunciation, Kalindi was seeking to strike at the core of my illusory being. Her guidance turned out to be a great blessing as well as a shattering blow to who I thought I was as a woman (p. 68).
In the end, this guidance lasted only a year and a half, just as I was getting used to finding a new way to connect with people from my heart rather than my neediness.
Finding the Love of God
I found that at the heart of illusory love is neediness – the need to be loved by another person in order to feel whole and worthy. It didn’t take very long after my vow of celibacy to recognize how much I had depended on this type of love which was at best a temporary fix. By letting go of illusory love, I found my way to real love, the Love of God, which is eternal. It is only through the Love of God that I ever felt whole in myself and free to love others without the neediness I had felt all my life.
*Kalindis’ teaching about illusory love can be found in her workbook entitled Illusory Love Binds You, Love of God Frees You, Miracle of Love, 1998. This quote appears in my book A Mad Desire for God (p. 63).
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