It is a wonder. Why would someone tell a lie to their close ones, to their beloved? Lovers often ask this question. Love cannot stand untruth, and relationships tend to break when untruth enters. Understanding this paradox of love and truth reveals the answer.

People often lie just to preserve their love. The fear that truth might damage the relationship gives rise to lies between husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, parents and children, and among other close relations.

In love, one often feels weak, but truth brings strength. Then why do people choose love over truth, weakness over strength?

Love is what we are reluctant to sacrifice, so people are willing to let go of truth to hold on to love, even though love can take the lustre out of truth. At times, truth may make love bitter, while in love, even lies can appear sweet. Like when Krishna lies to his mother Yashoda.

Truth carries judgment, but true love is beyond judgment. True love can make you feel weak, and yet, it is the greatest strength.

Ultimately, truth that does not nourish love makes no sense. And love that cannot withstand truth is not true love. If one is assured that their love is so strong that the truth can neither break it nor cause bitterness, then truth prevails and love continues to shine.

Love is so enormous. For ages, people have tried to express it and finally, they have felt they cannot. Even the great sage Narada said, “Anirvachaniyam prema swarupam” meaning, the nature of true love is beyond expression.

Love with wisdom is bliss. Love without knowledge is pain.

Often in our lives, our desires ruin us. But not all desires are bad. In the Bhagwad Geeta, Lord Krishna says, ‘I am those desires that uphold dharma.’

Do not suppress your desires; they will simply come up more strongly in you. Rather, awaken viveka (power to discriminate between what is true and untrue) in you. To let go of desires, you have to follow a certain code of conduct. This is the manure by which the rose of divine love blossoms in life.

The first is to be non-violent in your actions, heart, speech, and thoughts. Secondly, follow the truth and live in the moment. You should express truth with your whole life- speak truth, speak pleasant truth, and speak beneficial truth.

Next is, maintain saucha or purity. Observing the scenery is saucha. It is when your own mind becomes a witness of its own actions and finds a gap between its own senses, and does not identify with the sense objects.

For love to blossom, compassion is important. When people engage in some activity or behave in a certain manner that you don’t like, it triggers anger in you. Just for a moment, have compassion for the way they are. Then you’ll find a shift within Your Self expands and laughs at the smallness of these events and situations. You become untouched by these events and transcend Maya (illusion).

Faith also plays an important role in getting established in divine love. You find a reason for everything that you do and for all your experiences. When reasoning or logic breaks down, you tremble. Faith, reality, and truth are beyond logic. If you can reason out all your life and all its experiences, then you have not lived or known life fully.

Every bud takes its own time to bloom; don’t force a bud to become a flower. Wait for the right time to come, for the total blossoming in you to come. Have infinite patience.

(Writer is a is a globally renowned spiritual leader, humanitarian, and peacebuilder. He is also the founder of The Art of Living foundation, according to the Art of Living)