The Expression of Love

(Built from the heart of Baakhabri-e-Baazgasht — Mumbai Edition and layered with personal reflections)

We often measure love by its object — by how magnetic, beautiful, or unattainable the beloved seems. But over time, I’ve realised: the expression of love and its intensity are not reflections of how extraordinary the beloved is. They are reflections of how beautiful, awake, and loving the lover is.

Love doesn’t become sacred because the other person is perfect. It becomes sacred because something divine within you stirs in their presence — a remembrance of your own capacity to love!

As Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says: “We are all made up of a substance called love.”

It’s not about the worthiness of the one you love — it’s about the abundance of love that already lives within you.

At the Mindfulness and poetry session, Baakhabri-e-Baazgasht, which was hosted in the  Garima Greh, Goregaon in association with Tweet foundation and Kartavya foundation on 11th October 2025, I found myself saying:

“Aapke andar ki jo sundarta hai, wo aapke prem ke madhyam se baahar aati hai…”
“Aap agar kisi se prem karte ho, wo is liye nahi ki wo insaan acha hai ya kharab hai.
Aapka pehchaan hi prem hai, isiliye aap prem karte ho!”

Love, then, is not a reaction — it’s a revelation. It reveals the beauty within you, not the flawlessness of another.

Just as a painting isn’t beautiful by itself — its beauty lies in the skill of the painter, and in the eyes of the beholder. The same brush, the same colours, can either create chaos or art.
It’s the consciousness behind the stroke that makes it beautiful. Similarly, love gains its beauty from the awareness and purity of the one who loves. The beloved may be a mirror, but the reflection you see is your own essence shining through.

“The expression of love and its intensity is not a reflection of the beauty of the beloved…
It is a reflection of the lover’s capacity to love.”
— Journal entry, 24th September 2025

When you understand this, you stop measuring love by its return. You stop asking how much do they love me? and begin asking how deeply can I love, without fear or demand?

In that shift, love stops being an exchange and becomes an offering — an act of grace, a movement of the divine through you. And that, perhaps, is the purest expression of love there is:
not possession, not pursuit — but presence with awareness and deep silence.