Unrequited love, how can one understand it. Unreciprocated love is ever present in one’s mind and colors one’s emotions and reality. Rejected love generally involves intense feelings and some of them are very bitter.

How does one handle it? It is easier to lecture about it to a sufferer and expect him/her to respond to one’s suggestions. The one weapon a person who is suffering from fruitless love has our his/her thoughts. These thoughts are feeding on the sadness and helplessness. It is important to look at oneself. Realize that one has very powerful energy within. One has to access this powerhouse and not shut down the power. There is method and one has to apply it to oneself.

Practice pratyahara, sensory withdrawal

Pratyahara is when one’s senses cease to effect one’s thoughts. It is not easy. The first step is to be aware that one has shakti (energy) within one. No external force can grab it from one.

Close eyes. Concentrate on the breath. Count the breath backwards from 54 to 0. No mistakes, or start again. Listen to the sound of your breath. It is normal breathing. This is called internal awareness. Then shift awareness to the sounds outside. This is external awareness. Listen to the softest sounds and the loudest sounds. Do not identify, who or what is making the sounds. Shift awareness to internal awareness and then to external awareness. Go back and forth. Do the practice for twenty minutes. The sadhana is called Antar Mouna (Inner Silence).

Excerpts from letters written by Swami Satyananda Saraswati in the 1950s.

The great storehouse of knowledge and energy resides within you. Nature wants to express that knowledge in various forms. If you want to hear the voice of inner knowledge then you have to shut the doors of the external senses and turn within.
Conflicts, struggles, worries, anxieties and passions should be calmed down by the virtues of love, sincerity and faith.
Your self is noble and great.
You inherit truth and purity.
You have in you infinite capacities.
You just have to assert what you are.
Waste not a single moment in laziness, brooding, dreaming, worrying and weeping.
Become an incarnation of joy and happiness.

What Swamiji has written is what one has to follow and one becomes free.

Aim Hrim Klim