The Eleventh Discourse

On Love and the Soul

Tsia Tung: Sifu, tell me more about love.

Fu Hsiang: A man who has had so many girlfriends should not need instruction on the subject of love. This is an art for which you are famous. Why, not last week, I met you with your latest conquest.

Tsia Tung: Nonetheless, I would like to learn more about it, for you ended our last discourse by saying that love was the highest virtue.

Fu Hsiang: Well, you understand love; did you not say that you love chicken fried in coconut?

Tsia Tung: Sifu, you are making light of my serious intent.

Fu Hsiang: If I do, it is only to make a point. For people use the word lightly to mean whatever they particularly desire.

Tsia Tung: But how do you see it?

Fu Hsiang: Love is surrender. It is surrender of the self, of the ego, of the I. When one loves, one dies. There is an aphorism of an Indian master. Whoever seeks me finds me. Whoever finds me knows me. Whoever knows me loves me. Whoever I love I kill. There is a killing in love. The killing is of the self. Therefore love is a return to the undifferentiated consciousness from which we came and to which we return. It is a brilliant fragment of a larger light.

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