I Seem to Have Loved You in Numberless Forms
How Love Reveals the Eternal Beneath Changing Forms
The FASO Way newsletter — exploring how to thrive as an artist in the age of AI
We have another post today by Eugene Terekhin, the man and the mind behind the publication Philosophy of Language.
Eugene is a regular contributing writer to The FASO Way.
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Feature Article:
I Seem to Have Loved You in Numberless Forms
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“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.” — Rabindranath Tagore
When you are in love, you rise above time. Time becomes irrelevant and is revealed for what it is – an illusion. In love, we can access all times in an instant.
In the thing we love, past, present, and future converge – and we recognize the thing we love in numberless forms, numberless times, age after age.
As I listen to the pattering of rain outside my window, I am aware that I have heard this music before – not only as rain but also as many other things. It comes in various ways and forms.
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Its soothing lullaby is not bound to “this particular rain.” It washes over me in the cries of gulls overhead, in a long, meditative conversation with a friend, in the playful gusts of wind shaking my backyard.
When we are in love, we recognize our love under any guise. When we fall out of love, we fall under the curse of time. We are bound by time and dwell in time. We forget how to be timeless.
We perceive ourselves as prisoners of time. We begin to count minutes, days, lifetimes. We mistake the illusion for reality. Yet, time appears only when it is noticed. It’s a curse of falling out of love.
St. Augustine was once asked what time is, and he replied:
“When you don’t ask, I know; when you do, I don’t.”
When we fall out of love, we begin noticing time – and no longer know what it is. When we are in love, we don’t notice time and know exactly what it is.
What is it?
Everyone in love knows that time is a portal into Timelessness. It’s a doorway into eternity. According to William Blake, when you lovingly hold a grain of sand, you can “hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”
Time is an opportunity to rise above time. The function of true art is to give us the opportunity to hold infinity in the palm of our hand.
For example, when we read The Lord of the Rings, we do not think: This is about another time, another world, another age. We recognize our own time, our own world, our own age within it.
True art is a portal into timelessness, which is our true nature. We are timeless beings learning to live within the boundaries of time-space.
When we are in love, we become aware of our timelessness. We transcend time in all things – we return home.
That’s why Rumi said:
“Whatever you do, be in love.”
And Jesus:
“I have this against you, that you have forsaken your first love.” – Revelation 2:4
We can do all sorts of good things in the world and have no love. Lovelessness is a sterile state – regardless of how much “external fruit” it produces.
Whatever we do apart from love will create more time… and eventually more suffering.
No one can create lasting value in time. True art is created only in timelessness. Eternal art is born when the soul recognizes the thing it loves beneath numberless forms, numberless times, and numberless ages.
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I could relate to this on many levels, and yes, forms of love appear differently over time in our lives. Some are blessed to have equal amounts of each "love" in our lives while others not so much. Blessed are those of have at least had some of each. Cynthia
Nicely articulated Eugene - thanks! Brings to mind "The Magic Mountain" of Thomas Mann and its senses of time. Keep well