Love is…
04/08/2009
…not the fulfillment of all one’s desires,
but the desire to fulfill another’s.
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40 days and 40 nights in the Manchester Museum
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The Manchester Hermit 
How are you feeling about your time in the tower coming to an end?
Surely if you read my writing and see me on the webcam and you can get an insight as to how I might be feeling. My feelings are perhaps more accessible to you than are the feelings of most other people in the world.
But if you want even more detail, I can say that I feel a sense of urgency. There is very little time. Every moment should be utilised with full awareness. Who knows when I will have another opportunity like this with the space and facilities and support of so many people?
I feel a little regretful that over the last forty days I have wasted time in lolling about or being lazy or distracted, or not using my energies more precisely. The only value of that regret however is to spur me on to be more focused now.
Meditation is such a difficult thing to do. I am constantly amazed by its subtlety. Just the right amount of tension and relaxation is required. Sometimes I feel like I understand for the first time and other times I feel so weak.
Overall I feel more clear and healthy than I did six weeks ago. I feel happy that I can feel the benefits of the work I have done, and I am happy if I have contributed to helpful energies in other people, but that just makes me realize how much more there is still to do.
40 days is nothing when compared to a lifetime. But even a lifetime may be over before I am ready. This life is so precious, I want to use it well. There is not a single moment to waste.
That is my main feeling, Bodger.
How are you feeling?
Thank you for sharing your feelings.
I’m feeling relaxed. Well, apart from the pile of work that needs doing. But life’s too short to get that stressed…
… or not having to say you’re sorry for that karma-chanic joke….
Dear Ansuman Biswas,
I think I have accidentally put my comment in the ‘wrong’ place. I am so sorry!
Have a beautiful morning as you deserve it.
Much love from a stranger who was touched.
Marie
Here is the message I put in the wrong place:
Dear Mr. Biswas,
What a beautiful project and really you are the perfect person they could have chosen.
Now I have something strange to mention. I wonder if you are aware that you have a double?! Or maybe it is you who have a double identity?
Do you know this gentleman: http://www.aladin.me
I have been interested in your project since the BBC website mentioned it. All this time I have been thinking that there is something familiar about you but this morning when I saw you singing I was then reminded of someone who was a Professor at Christies a few years back, the eponymous ‘Aladin’ from the website in front.
Are you related to him? He is extremely similar to you! It would be wonderful to think he is your twin.
Love
Marie
There’s no wrong place Marie. You are free to comment anywhere.
Yes I know Aladin very well but we are not in fact the same person.
Hello,
You made me think of this scene from the Moulin Rouge (one of my favourite films). I think it just about sums love up for me. I’d give anything to sing it from the rooftops!
(I’m not sure how to embed it into the site, so hope the link works)
Amongst many other more serious thoughts about love, it makes me smile. A lovely start to the day! Thanks very much, Ros 🙂
Thanks Ros,
Great film, great song(s)!
I’ve embedded it for you. (you just copy and paste the embed code in the top right hand corner of the youtube page)
Thank you.
I’m going to miss you when this is all finished. You’ve been that extra glint of sunshine for the last 40 days!
“…not the fulfillment of all one’s desires,
but the desire to fulfill another’s.”
Really?
Sometimes that desire, to fulfill another’s desires, becomes another one way ticket to MSE.*
* Monstrous Spiritual Ego
But then it’s not really a desire for another’s happiness is it? It’s simply a very convoluted way of feeding oneself.
Indeed.
Which is why articulating notions about love is so very very dicey…
If I myself say anything at all about love, I will be found crashing on the waves of my own lack of self-mastery. My own lack of embodied, unconditional, love.
I mean that for me, Ansuman, not for you. It’s not a backhanded “indirecta,” as my dear Puerto Rican mother calls those.
But if by chance this or another message has annoyed you, I apologize.
Only gravity and these bodies has us thinking we are separate from one another floating endlessly in space.
I will set you free: give you back to yourself – hoping you might return to me, your wife and children who love you deeply.
Dearest Barley Rose,
I would feel overjoyed if you would accept me.
I promise to do my best to give myself fully and to accept whatever I receive as a gift.
I will try to overcome my selfishness and narrow mindedness and instead remember your welfare.
Through my service to you and our children I hope to be constantly reminded to cherish all the precious and beautiful treasures of the world, of which the objects in this museum are but dry reminders.
According to the rules of this silly game, however, at least two people have to come forward to support your claim.
If they do, others can then vote to release me as a museum exhibit into your safe keeping.
Your loving husband,
Ansuman
dear curious communicative and charming hermit
based on the horrific possibilty that fellow bloggers will sacrifice you to the sadists, i hereby support your beautiful, strong and generous wife Barley Rose and your wonderful children in their request for your return to freedom. And assuming that eventuality, I hope that forty days of absence has indeed allowed the heart to grow fonder, and the new space created will be as open and full of precious and challenging moments as the time you have spent in your tower.
Ditto – Hermit definitely to go home to a loving family, with our thanks for such beautiful provocations these last few weeks. Finally, if I could restate my plea for the box of labels which I will attach to red balloons and send out into the world to find an object, and so acheive their purpose and potential.
Alex
You’re welcome to restate your plea, alex. Unfortunately no one seems to be supporting you in it. It’s up to everyone to consider all the options with the box of labels and come up with the best solution. You might have to do some lobbying.
Anyway you have until September 3rd.
Bless. You’ve got my support, Barley Rose – if needed. (p.s. what a drama queen he is… )
PPS – Today is my mother’s birthday. Happy Birthday Hilda Mary Stephenson.
It’s my hope that you return to Barley and the kids, Dor I have witnessed the Love there is and it is … Love XXXXX
Showers of flowers to you all,
~*~
m
I hope Dear Ansuman that you are given to your wife and children.
Love always Marie
Ditto here…
There must be a place of love in the making
It must spin itself in each atom of each cell of this flesh
On this tiny patch of voiceless earth
If each can be no such place
Explain to me this hope
This wild ancient dream of alchemical hearts
Tell me this is just a tarnished lie
Unworthy of the endless streams of tears
And exultation
Then tell the children the same
I dare you