At which stage does Love become devotion?
Love is not a act; it is not something you do. If you do it, it is not love. No doing it involved in Love; it is a state of being, not an act. No one can do anything continuously for 24 hours. If you are doing love, than of course you cannot do it for 24 hours. With any act you will get tired; with any act you get bored. And then, after any act you have to relax. So if you are doing Love you will have to relax into hate, because you can relax only into the opposite.
That is why our love is always mixed with hatred. You love this moment, and the next moment you hate the same person. The same person becomes the object of both love and hate; that is the conflict of lovers. Because your love is an act, that is why there is this misery.
So the first thing to be understood is that Love is not an act; You cannot do it. You can be in love, but you cannot do Love. Doing is absurd. But other things are also implied. It is not an effort because if it were an effort you would get tired. It is a state of mind.
And do not think in terms of relationship, think in terms of states of mind. If you are in love, this is a state of mind. This state of mind may be focussed on one person of it may be focussed on the whole. When it is focussed on one person, it is known as Love. When it becomes unfocussed, it becomes pray. Than you are just in Love - not with someone, but just in Love, as you are breathing.
If breathing were an effort you would get tired of it and you would have to relax than you would die. IF it were an effort, than at sometime you might forget to do it, and then you would die. Love is just like breathing, It is a higher plane of breathing. If you do not breathe, your body will die. IF you are not in Love your spirit cannot be born.
So take Love as breathing of the Soul. When you are in Love your soul becomes vital and alive just like it is breathing. But think in this way, if I say to you only breathe when you are near me and do not breathe anywhere else, than you will die. And the next time you will be near me you will be just dead and you will not even be able to breathe near me.
That has happened with love. We possess - the love object is possessed and the lover says, don't love anybody else. Only Love me. Than the love is atrophied and than the lover cannot love it becomes impossible. It does not mean that you have to love everyone, but you have to be in a loving state of mind. It is just like breathing: even if your enemy is there you will breathe. That is the meaning of Jesus saying, love your enemy. It has been a problem for Christianity, how to understand this saying, "Love your Enemy". It seems contradictory but if loving is not an act, if it is just a state of mind, than there is no question of enemy or friend.
You are in LOVE.
