Is It Possible to Find True Love, and What Are Its Signs?
Undoubtedly, love has been and continues to be one of the most fascinating and challenging topics in human life. That is why love is the basis of many songs, poems, novels, and movies, in which artists try to describe or display true love. But what exactly is true love? Have you ever experienced it? Some believe that true love does not exist and it can only be seen in stories and movies. Do you agree with them?
In common usage, love means intense feeling of deep affection. In other words, love is the highest degree of affection. Love has amazing effects on human life, it creates strength, and even changes the personality of the lover. It could turn a cat into a lion and a mouse into an elephant. It could make the stingy generous, the grumpy cheerful, the arrogant humble, the impatient patient, the lazy hard-working, and even the slow-minded intelligent.
Each of us has many beloveds in life; for example, we love our father, mother, spouse, children, siblings, relatives, home, garden, clothes, or jewelry. Sometimes, this affection is very intense, like someone who loves money so much that he is willing to sacrifice everything for it, or someone who loves learning and is always buried in books, studies, research, and experiments. Such a person even sacrifices his relationships with his spouse and children, and neglects his health in pursuit of knowledge. There are also some people who deeply love sports like football; there have even been cases where fans suffered heart attacks and even died after their favorite team lost.
Why do some people develop such extreme forms of love? What kinds of love are there, and how should we prioritize our beloveds? What is true love, and how does it affect our lives? In this article, we are going to answer these questions.
The Human Being and Kinds of Beloveds
Before we can understand what true love is, we must first recognize the kinds and the essence of our beloveds, so we can identify our true beloved, the one that can bring us permanent happiness and peace. Human existence is composed of five dimensions and existential levels, each having its own qualities and beloveds. These dimensions include inanimate, vegetative, animal, intellective, and supra-rational ones. In the inanimate dimension, humans love and seek non-living objects. Some people hold possessions such as homes, cars, luxurious properties, the latest smartphones, and jewelry in such high regard that they view them as essential for their sense of dignity, bliss, and self-worth. In their view, the wealthier one is, the more successful he will be. Their decisions, choices, relationships, thoughts, and whatever they love or hate are based on inanimate beloveds. For example, they choose their spouse based on money, housing, and cars.
In the vegetative dimension, humans are attracted to vegetative beloveds like nutrition, physical strength, beauty, and reproduction. Some individuals associate their dignity with providing a variety of luxurious foods, beverages, and desserts. For others physical fitness, strength, muscle growth, or winning medals in sports tournaments are more important than anything else.
In the animalistic dimension, human beings are inclined towards animalistic perfections and beloveds such as the opposite gender, marriage, starting a family, protective care and devotion,[1] loyalty, trustworthiness, family obligations, social and political responsibilities, professional status, earthly love, and serving fellow and non-fellow beings. We have seen many individuals going to great lengths for the love of the opposite gender, and if for any reason, they fail to attain their beloved, they become depressed and desperate, or they may even commit suicide. Others desire social position and seek any means to work their way up the professional ranks.
In the intellective dimension, human beings are interested in knowledge, invention, and discovery. The love of learning, researching, studying, and discovering the laws of creation is so great in some individuals that it affects their entire lives.
The only distinguishing feature between us and other creatures is our human or supra-rational dimension; because of having this dimension, we are called human beings. In other words, the supra-rational dimension is our true self. The true self is the spirit that God has breathed into human beings,[2] so it is eternal and does not experience death.
Our true self loves infinite perfection. Previously, in the section on the desire for infinity, based on the laws of desire and the characteristics of infinity, we proved that there is only one infinite being, and that is God. Two infinite beings cannot exist because they would limit each other and would not be infinite anymore. Therefore, the true beloved of human beings is only God.
Since all human beings are in love with the Absolute and Infinite Perfection, which is Allah, no limited perfection will satisfy them. Unfortunately, most human beings, due to a lack of knowledge of their true self, seek to satisfy their desire for infinity in the four lower dimensions, that is, through limited inanimate, vegetative, animal, and intellective perfections. This is essentially impossible because limited perfections can never satisfy the human desire for infinity, and every sound mind will accept this. Many might be wealthy, beautiful, educated, with good spouses and children, and desirable social status, but they lack inner peace, satisfaction, and happiness. That is because their human dimension, i.e., the true self, has not connected with its true love.
The True Love of Human Beings
As we mentioned, human beings have multiple beloveds in different dimensions of their existence. However, their true love is the human or supra-rational dimension, and their true beloved is the Absolute and Infinite Perfection, that is, Allah. Therefore, the statement “There is no deity (beloved) but Allah” refers to the human dimension of our existence, and it is a human statement that is not exclusive to Muslims. We must keep in mind that we were once with God, living in His presence. The story of the human being is the story of a lover, who has been separated from his beloved and imprisoned on earth for a while.
Although the potential for love for Allah exists in every human being, it is not actualized in everyone, and not all individuals seek their True Love. The human dimension of our existence is healthy, active, and mature only when it has a connection and intimacy with its beloved and becomes similar to Him. When a person reaches a point of maturity in his human dimension, he comes to believe deeply and sincerely in the truth of “There is no deity (beloved) but Allah,” accepting it with all his heart. For this reason, all his relationships, decisions, behaviors, and thought patterns will be based on moving toward his True Beloved and becoming similar to Him. In this way, he moves in the right path, which is the path of connecting with and becoming similar to God.
A common mistake is that we know God only as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, while God is our beloved, and without Him, we cannot be satisfied and find inner peace. When a person reaches maturity in his human dimension and gains a proper understanding of the love statement “There is no deity (beloved) but Allah,” his view on himself and various issues of life such as personal, family, social, political, and economic matters will change. He will be in love with the path that leads him to his True Love, which is the Infinite Perfection.
The Quranic verse “We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return”[3] offers a sense of comfort and hope. Because of this, it is recommended that we recite this powerful phrase not just when we grieve the loss of a loved one, but whenever we face challenges. It reminds us who our true love is and that we will soon leave this transient world with all its difficulties and return to our Beloved. If we understand this verse correctly and always repeat it, enduring the difficulties of this world will become much easier.
Once we understand that Allah is our beloved, all our deeds and acts of worship will be done out of love and affection. However, if we do not know our true self, do not reach human maturity, and do not connect with our True Love, then our acts of worship will be just out of the desire for Heaven or the fear of Hell. Until we do not know our true self and our true love, we will waste our life and will not reach our ultimate human goal, which is intimacy with and similarity to Allah.
Prioritizing the Beloveds
The important point is that love for Allah does not conflict with loving the perfections of the lower dimension of our existence. We should obviously pay attention to the beloveds of other parts of our existence; however, none of them should become our main beloved and take the place of our love for Allah. Human beings are basically created to love and become similar to God, and to be infinite. The most important role for human beings in this world is to act based on love and affection for God.
When we chase worldly success to achieve things such as wealth, power, fame, or professional achievements, like becoming a doctor, leader, or engineer, we get distracted from our True Love and the ultimate goal of our existence, which is to become more like Allah, the Eternal Beloved.
We will have a human inward self when we prioritize our beloveds, and use the beloveds of the inanimate, vegetative, animal, and intellective dimensions as tools under the guidance of the Beloved of our supra-rational dimension to reach our True Love or Allah. Otherwise, we become Fasiq (strayed from the right path), and we will lose our status as a human being and move towards animality, or even lower than that. That is because the value of a person is determined by the beloveds that dominate his mind and heart. It does not matter whether he is a billionaire, a world champion, a skilled engineer, a proficient doctor, or even a devout worshipper; his human dimension has no control over his existence, and Allah is not his true love.
When someone prioritizes his beloveds and has a human inward self, all his plans, relationships, decisions, behaviors, and thoughts are guided by his True Love, Allah, and he moves on the path toward Him. That is, all his acts of love stem from his devotion to his True Love. Anything that reminds him of his Beloved and leads him closer to Him will be cherished, and anything that distances him from his true Beloved will be hateful and intolerable.
Since the true self or the human spirit has the desire for infinity and his motto is “There is no deity (beloved) but Allah,” when we do not move towards infinity and do not have spiritual nourishment, we are like someone who has decided not to eat! The result of such a decision is nothing but destruction.
In this article, we first identified different kinds of beloveds: inanimate, vegetative, animal, intellective, and supra-rational; then we discussed that the beloved of the supra-rational or human dimension of our being is the Infinite Perfection. We stated that we will achieve human balance and inward self only if we prioritize our beloveds; in such a way that Allah, the Household of Prophet Muhammad, and Jihad (striving in the way of Allah) are at the top, and our relationships, decisions, behaviors, and thoughts are all prioritized according to this hierarchy. Only then we can reach our ultimate human destination, which is becoming similar to God Almighty, as well as having eternal happiness and inner peace both in this world and in the hereafter. When we prioritize our beloveds in the right way, life becomes beautiful and filled with love. This is because our actions are guided by our True Love, the One we are meant to be like and return to, leading to eternal bliss.
If you have any insights or thoughts about true love, please share them with us in the comments! We are always eager to learn from each other’s perspectives.
[1]. towards their wife, sister, daughter, homeland, and religion. In Arabic, it is called ghayrah.
[2]. Quran 15: 29
[3]. Quran 2:156