On Falling in Love

My college professor in psychology once told us in class that the expression, "I love you with all my heart" is inaccurate. She told us that the seat of love is the "hypothalamus," the part of the human brain that "organizes and controls many complex emotions, feelings and moods, as well as all motivational states such as hunger, appetite and food intake, and everything to do with the concept of pleasure including satisfaction, comfort and creative activities."

 She said that the appropriate expression should be "I love you with all my hypothalamus." It may be accurate but it sounds very unromantic, if not plain incomprehensible.

It is easy to understand why we think love emanates from the heart and not the brain. When we first experience the stirrings of love, we feel our heart quiver. The mere thought of the beloved is enough to transform how we feel and the anticipation of being with the beloved makes our heart jump.
The sight of our beloved pumps so much blood into our heart that we drown in ecstasy and sometimes renders us tongue-tied. This is how we "fall in love," we feel it in our heart, eclipsing our reason. However, when the novelty of "feeling in love" subsides, that's when we feel it in our head. We call it "headache." Beware when you feel romantic and your lover complains of a headache. She or he may be falling "out" of love.

Notwithstanding the physiological confusion as to where love arises, it is indeed a magical experience. It is perhaps one of the few instances in our waking consciousness when we summon our complete attention and be absorbed with a person, as if nothing else matters in that moment. That sense of presence in the moment is a true communion with someone.

In the state of "being in love" the experience is complete, an experience so rare that we chase and hunger for it. It's like a drug that soaks our brain, not our heart. The brain chemicals that falling in love elicits eventually lose their potency, the "high" is gone and all that is left is its wonderful memories.

This presence and complete absorption is an intimation of how this state of being may be possible for someone who has mastered the ability to love all beings unconditionally, without judgment or discrimination. We attribute this capacity only to saints and sages who, by their spiritual practice or way of life, have achieved purity of heart and mind to contain and express the highest form of love.

We wish that if only we could summon that experience at will, command our brain to "fall in love," we would always be in a state of bliss. Do you ever wonder why we "fall in love" and not "walk in love?" The very word "fall" leaves me imagining that when we let go of whatever it is that's holding us back, it's like falling in an abyss -- limitless. But the fear of losing control, of our being falling into the Unknown, evokes so much fear. It's a state of surrender to a power that's taking over our being, "we fall in love." This capacity is in all of us, and we experience it, though briefly, when we truly fall in love with someone.

A book on love and a coming of age in a land devasted by its long history under colonial rule. The book provides a tapestry of cultural life in the Philippines seen in the eyes of a youth trying to find himself and breakaway from the yoke of crunching poverty.

Land of the Mourning
a memoir
by Fernando B. Perfas
Available at http://www.amazon.com

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