A Conversation - When the "I" Fades Away from I love You

We were driving on a silent highway, trees standing on both sides like guardians. The sun was trying to touch the car roof, slipping through the leaves in soft, golden patches. My attention kept drifting from the road to the scenery, the colorful flowers, the songs and dance of birds—and above all, to the silent, luminous presence of my beloved sitting next to me. At times our shoulders touched, our fingers found each other, and our words flowed freely, as if the whole car was wrapped in a gentle embrace.

All of this together did something magical to me. It felt as if I was gently transported to another plane, and my whole body filled with a subtle, powerful feeling. I didn’t know what to call it, so I simply named it: the energy of love.

The energy of love always wants to express itself somehow. Different people express it in different ways, according to their nature and abilities. The outer forms of those expressions may look different, but behind every natural, effortless action there is this same essence of love. If love is absent, the action feels unnatural, as if it is forced by the mind, society, or some outside pressure.

I was sharing all these feelings with my beloved as we moved along the highway.

She slowly rested her head on my shoulder, and for a few seconds, neither of us spoke; our silence felt like a long, gentle embrace.

Suddenly, a question arose in me. I gently pinched her cheek to pull her out of her sweet half-sleep and asked:

“When, or what, triggers this energy of love to arise in our body? Why is it missing at times and so strong at other times?”

She smiled and said, “Observe your day. Just watch when it appears and when it doesn’t.”

I did. I remembered a short film I watched recently. In the climax, the heroine does something deeply creative and sincere. Her action shocks the hero, but that shock clears the nonsense from his mind and plants a deep respect in him for her. At the same time, the heroine feels deeply touched by the way he responds in that moment of shock. They walk away on their paths to home, each carrying a quiet, powerful feeling for the other. That ending was a beautiful shock for me too, and I could clearly feel the energy of love rising in my body.

Another moment came to mind: I was talking with a colleague in the office—freely, openly, without filters, from the heart. Again, I could sense that same energy of love moving within me.

Then my beloved asked, “Now tell me about the moments when you didn’t feel this energy.”

I thought for a while and said, “When I want to do something, but I have to do something else. For example, when I feel like doing my own work, but I’m pulled into some office task, or errands, or chores. I get stuck between these two pulls and end up wasting a lot of time in the in-between state. In those times, I don’t feel that energy.”

I continued, “Another time is when I’m just watching random YouTube videos—mostly news, or endless details about cars, mobiles, laptops, and so many other gadgets. In those moments, I don’t really feel alive. The energy of love is missing.”

She was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then she said gently, “I see a pattern. When this energy of love is strong in you, your mind is almost absent. Thoughts slow down, and something deeper flows through you.”

Her words stayed with me as the car moved forward. The trees, the sun, the birds, and her presence beside me—all of it felt deeply, quietly alive. In that simple awareness, the energy of love arose again, effortlessly.

I was silent for a while, just feeling her words. Then I said, “Sometimes I feel God created this beautiful nature and the dance of opposite genders just to clear our minds from the noise of daily chores. When the mind becomes empty like that, a special energy from Him quietly flows in and fills that space—an energy that feels so good we don’t even know what to name it, so we simply call it love.”

I was silent again for a while. Then another question rose up on its own.

“But if love is just this divine energy flowing through us,” I said slowly, “then what do I really mean when I say, ‘I love you’?”

She turned her face slightly towards me, listening.

“When this divine energy is flowing through me,” I continued, “it feels as if God is working through this body. In those moments, the ‘I’—the ego, the busy mind—fades into the background, and what is left is only a clear awareness of divine flow. So when the ‘I’ disappears like that… what meaning does ‘I love you’ really have?”

If you are sitting next to me in that state, that same divine energy expresses itself playfully and romantically, making fun with you, laughing with you, holding you. If someone else is beside me—a parent, a child, a sister, a friend, even a bird or an animal—it expresses itself in a different, appropriate way. If there is a problem in front of me, it moves as an unexpected, harmonious solution. “All these different forms are just one thing: love expressing itself.

So when the ‘I’ disappears like that… what meaning does ‘I love you’ really have?”

This time I did not need to pinch her cheek to wake her up. The question itself woke something in both of us, and for a while there was only a deep, living silence in the car.

Love is not mine and not yours alone, It is one silent river, flowing through every open heart.

When the mind is still and the heart opens up, There is no one left to say, 'I love you.' Only the awareness of love remains.