"True love is not expressed in hollow words, full of resonant sounds made to impress and captivate, but rather in the eloquence of silence that is music of angels, a chant of virgins."
(Legend, fable or narrative written by Carlos Bernardo Gonzalez Pecotche*)
"A long time ago, in a house located at a distance from a great city, there lived a young man, whose withdrawn and investigative spirit deserved the highest credentials. He had sober manners and tempered expressions. His unusual character, which was uncommon amongst the young people of his time, attracted the attention of the inhabitants living in this place, who often went to him for consultation and advice which he generously offered.
His face depicted the conviction of his thoughts and one could see in his eyes the enchantment of his inner beauty that was confirmed every time by the gentle and serene sound of his voice. One day, a good friend asked him confidentially :
- Tell me; what is your concept of life? Have you ever thought of loving a woman who would become your wife and the mother of your children? You have often spoken to me about the love that transcends our feelings, the excellencies of a virtuous love, but you always forgot to include in your thoughts the human love that is so familiar to our feelings and thoughts, and certainly more akin to our possibilities and efforts which are human as well. Is not this love perhaps the one that sanctifies the woman at the moment of becoming a mother? Is this not what fecundates and gives life? Is it not this love that allows the soul to evolve through generations in search of the supreme happiness? Is it not the genetic germ that gives birth to the child, who is the most perfect image of love since it represents the sublime blood bond that two hearts establish in a third in whose sacred cavities both affections identify each other, thus producing in it the unmistakable characteristics of its parents, expressed in the word inheritance?
Are you not yourself, a son? You can see how the one divides into two and forms the number three which transforms itself into one. The love to one’s wife is, at the same time, the two and four that expresses again the third aspect of the unity in the incarnation of the son, at the moment of birth. Answer me then, if this truth I am referring to, has not at some point troubled your heart.
A long silence followed, in which the friend seemed to scrutinize the melancholic face of the young thinker. Finally, after a long meditation, he began to respond to the questions :
- Indeed ! What you say is true. But the cause that constitutes this truth embodies a whole mystery; what you perceive is only the reflection or the image of superior truths. But the real love, the one I have spoken to you superficially on occasions, is not, as you think, the only one that resides in my heart; since my human nature demands of me that I harbor in it my love for humankind, it obliges me, to avoid descending to the plane of man’s inferior level, to seek the incentive of the spirit, and love what is true, so as not to be subjected to matter, and thus avoid the hardening of my heart with the egotism of human passions. To love a woman as my heart demands - he continued - is to my spirit the culmination of its utmost yearned ideals. A woman who understands the silent language of my heart; who is to be as I am; who accompanies me on the long journey of evolution and is able to bond with my soul, so that both of us can reach one day the sublime levels of perfection. A woman in whose eyes I could read, during my moments of intimate meditation, a whole poem of love that had begun in past epochs; a woman who unifies in her all the enchantments of Nature; in sum, a woman who becomes the oasis of all my inquietudes.
- I understand your words, good friend - replied the other. - And I understand them because I also thought of a similar ideal one day; but the realities of life which one cannot ignore, made me realize over time the impossibility of achieving such a chimerical dream. I had a love to which I devoted my most delicate feelings; a love in which I believed, feebly, that it reflected this other dream. But the physical needs, with its inseparable companions of adversity, led me to be careless about the path I had set for my thoughts; shortly afterwards, the reality of the ambiance had gradually erased the molded image which was replaced by the face that laughs at our setbacks. Nevertheless, I could not complain because I now understand that it required a pledge that quite possibly was not in me to make. On the other hand, my imperfections tell me of the impossibility of reconciling fantasy with reality.
- I am delighted by the common sense expressed in your words - observed the young thinker - and it gives great joy to see that our feelings coincide in such a cordial and eloquent manner. Can you now see the reasons of my withdrawal, which is to me a constant pain for not having found the woman who expresses the image I described? I remember that I had a dream once in which someone seemed to tell me : “One of these days, maybe sooner than later, you will meet accidentally, in a certain place, the woman that constitutes your ideal; but I warn you that she will be quite different from what you had visualized her to be. It will depend solely upon yourself, and will rest in your hands, to shape her image according to what your thoughts have outlined in your heart.” Listening to those words I came to understand that, in the same way as we are capable of outlining in our mind the design of such perfect sculptures, we should also be capable of achieving them in the human heart of a woman.
Yes, my good friend, this is how man is....... he always expects to acquire things already made, in this, as in all other matters; ready made according to the demands of his foolish pretensions. But he does not realize that his own hands are the ones that must use the hammer and the chisel to shape this human sculpture since they alone can execute it with perfection, because his heart and his mind are the unique organs capable of conceiving the secret of this intimate and profound image that contains the sublime beauties of the original.
- Your words make sense - replied the friend - but for man to take up the hammer of tenacity, that symbolizes the labor of tireless workers, and the chisel of constancy that signifies uninterrupted work, he must prepare himself, and to do so, he must acquire certain conditions, but the majority of people totally lack such profound cognitions.
- What you say is true, and the lack of such cognitions is precisely the reason why humankind is submerged in unhappiness, which is the incomprehension of things that are true and eternal. This is why the majority of homes are human prisons where love, being distant from the heart of the couple due to the disappearance of the ideal that each one intimately shaped, feel the cold reality that gradually erases the flames of its illusion. And why does this all happen?... Because the man as much as the woman never think, when getting married, that this act is of the most sacred transcendency to the life of one’s spirit since it contains in itself one of the mysteries of Creation. By observing the majority of homes, you will see that same painful reality; they seem to be real tombs of human love, covered by withered flower stems without petals. And these innocent creatures - the children - who witness dumbfounded the sad and emotional tragedy of their own parents, does this not suggest to you the idea of meditating on everything I referred to ?
- Yes ! I do understand, undoubtedly, that nothing should be done in an untimely manner, and more so, without meditating on the consequences. I also understand now, as a result of your clear words, the difference that exists between common love and true love. The first is passionate, impulsive and full of violence. As soon it awakens, the instincts take over; the desire to possess swells, thus tormenting the heart and subjecting it to constant bitterness. Jealousies, egotism and solicitude constantly disturb one’s mental action leading gradually to a reversal of one’s will; the polar equilibrium brakes, and a new foe emerges on the inner stage - anxiety - which deprives one of sleep. With the advent of marriage, the equilibrium is restored as a result of the lavishness exercised in dealing with the inferior elements, but the tenderness of the feelings disappear. By contrast, the other love, the real one - oh! Yes !.....- Now I understand better. It is the one that does not blind the mind. It is the one that, without ever disappointing us, offers the possibility of reaching happiness.
- Relax, good friend - interrupted the young scholar - I see now that you know enough about this delicate issue, and I am very happy for that. Although we came from nearly opposite angles, our thinking and feeling have coincided.
-And so it is - replied the friend-. And after a pause in which such lofty thoughts seemed to have embraced both young men, he continued:
- True love is not expressed in hollow words, full of resonant sounds made to impress and captivate, but rather in the eloquence of silence that is music of angels, a chant of virgins. This love is never expressed with words, with pretentious expressions of tenderness, but lives in the heart without being contaminated by the external surroundings.
- The true love - explained in turn the young scholar using his same words - is the one that always lives in its world, working in silence for the good, done for goodness itself. It is a tireless artist who creates and shapes images that later enrapture and captivate man’s feelings. Without it, it would be impossible to conceive the beauties and enchantments of such refined manifestations of human feelings. This allows us to appreciate unequivocally that the true love is more human than the other one, commonly called by that name, and that the wrongly named human love, is nothing else than the expression of external feelings to the heart; a love that can, in an instant, transform into hate, as soon as the egoistical presumption of this same external feeling is disenchanted.
Up to now - he continued after a brief pause - I have spoken to you about the two types of love that a man’s heart can contain. Let us now see what happens in the heart of the woman. She also shapes in her heart the image of the man she wants for herself: endowed with beautiful qualities, vigorous, educated, sincere... She dreams of this image and nurses illusions, while hoping that one day she will find him and be happy. This moment finally arrives, and her heart begins to feel affection for a man she believes reflects her ideal. Enthusiasm grows during the following hours, rekindling the flames of that love that was born spontaneously; and later on, the moment arrives. This supreme moment, the marriage, in which the man and the woman present themselves to each other, as they really are.
Here, the young man paused for a while, maybe to review in his mind the reflections he had just made, and then added :
- We know that when God created man and consecrated him king of Creation, he noted that something was missing to complete his work; this something was, precisely, the woman, the enchantment of the woman who, with her sensitivity, symbolizes the divine aspect of man’s existence. She was presented to him as a companion and collaborator in the work that he had to build on earth - the human family and the world. Moreover, she was presented to him so that he could see reflected in her all the charms of Nature, and come to understand that she should be to him the reflection of his own soul, feminine as well; this means that he should always realize that this image, facing him, was not meant to merely satisfy the pressing needs of the instinct, but rather to acquire that which is inherent in her, and which exists equally within his own being. The woman is, therefore, the manifested expression of man’s spirit, as man is the manifested expression of the woman’s spirit. There is no greater enchantment - he continued - than the purity of a woman manifested in her heart as a wife and mother; a purity in itself that speaks of the irreplaceable mission of her existence. If God bestowed upon man the strength to handle the hammer and the chisel, he also bestowed upon the woman the grace to be molded. Both, therefore, man as well as woman, were given the supreme right to reach perfection. If the first brings the power of his intelligence to use the chisel with utmost skill, she must bring the power of her spirituality in order to facilitate the work and convert it into reality.
Thus ended the young man’s profound exposition, departing later as two good friends who were satisfied with the conclusions they had arrived at, as a result of such an interesting and useful dialogue.
*Excerpt from the book "Logosophical Interlude"originally published in Spanish. Official Translation.
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