|
Love is the only satisfactory answer
to the
problem of human existence.
Erich Fromm
Love is the energy at the center of all life. It is the
reality beneath our fears, the breath within the breath,
the seed of all that grows. Loving ourselves, loving
others, and loving spirit/God are inseparable, for all
life is interconnected and sacred. Love is an energy force
like the air you breathe; if you withdraw your love from
anyone, you take your breath away.
We become increasingly able to love as we integrate
ourselves and become whole. Our wholeness is expressed in
a lust for life and a capacity for joy, delight, and
adventure. Our wholeness gives birth to compassion, which
Ram Dass describes in Compassion in Action as "the
tender opening of our hearts to pain and suffering."
For most people, the journey toward love requires that
we penetrate the armor around our hearts, feel our grief,
and open ourselves to all our feelings. In doing so we
become more truly alive, deepen our self-acceptance, and
become less and less dependent on others to validate our
worth.
|
|
|
This frees us to stand in the center of our power
and to give generously of ourselves from a sense of inner
safety, potency, and vitality.
The ability to give generously of ourselves without
feeling we are giving up something or being controlled is
at the heart of intimacy because it reflects our
individual strength and development.
We reach for words to describe love, but, ultimately,
love is an experience of unity, peace, or ecstasy that
goes beyond words.
Too often people mistake love for fancy presents,
sentimental greeting cards, or lavish praise. But love is
not sentimental; love takes discipline, awareness, and a
willingness to step into the fire of transformation. It is
born of the minute-to-minute choices we make throughout
our days as we bring honesty, integrity, and compassion to
all we do and say.
People often treat love like a commodity that you can turn
on for some people and off for others. But you can't truly
love your partner and hate your neighbor, or exploit the
people who work for you. Love can't be compartmentalized
because it is central to your being. You can't turn on
half a light bulb. You can dim it or make it brighter, but
when it's on, the light shines equally in all directions.
Disconnection and separateness, nearly always stemming
from fear, are the opposite of love. To be disconnected
can be a dull anxious feeling of inner detachment that
makes life seem mundane, superficial, and routine.
We feel controlled by external events and lack an inner
core that allows us to be spontaneous, fluid, and
flexible. We see people as bodies, but not as souls --
they have form and shape and even beauty, but we don't
feel their essence.
When we are disconnected from our inner core, we are
unable to absorb and be moved by beauty, wonder, and
kindness. We hear music, but it doesn't make our heart
sing. We see flowers, but they might as well be plastic.
We touch someone, but there is no connection. When we feel
separated, it's hard to trust that anyone cares, or could
possibly love us if they were to see our hidden, shameful
side.
We can bring ourselves back to love -- to the home of
our heart-by remembering that we are all children of our
Creator, sacred because we are alive. If we accept our
intrinsic worth, we can give up the futile search for
external validation and put our energy into developing our
ability to develop our talents and strengths.
We can also remember that we have free will. Because we
are pure potential, we are not locked into our past, but
have the ability to recreate ourselves moment to moment by
our thoughts, actions, and willingness to experiment with
new behavior and give up old rigid patterns that no longer
serve our growth.
We also become willing to dive deep below the surface
into our buried wounds. We have an amazing ability to heal
and transform as we tap the powerful energy source
underlying all our feelings and emotions.
Instead of labeling our feelings as good or bad we see
them as energy that can be redirected for our growth. The
inward journey becomes easier as we tap into our heart's
capacity for humor, compassion, and mercy. We become able
to take ourselves into our heart, embracing all that we
are and all that we have been. It becomes a mystical,
humorous, fascinating show as we learn to observe
ourselves, yet immerse ourselves in life.
From this point of self-acceptance and compassion we
develop the willingness to share our feelings in their
raw, vulnerable state, not after we've figured them out or
gotten them under control. This doesn't mean that we
unload our emotions on others, it means that we stop
hiding, faking a smile, or presenting ourselves as we wish
to be seen. We accept our humanness and allow it to be
seen.
One of my favorite phrases from one of the dances of
universal peace is "God is love, lover, and
Beloved." If we break "Beloved" in two, we
have "be loved": Be loved by spirit, be loved by
yourself, be loved by others. If we remove the last letter
of "Beloved," we have "be love."
Don't seek love or lover, simply be love.
Be at peace
with All That Is, and know you are the Beloved. And when
you find a lover, know that the journey is to dance
together in the circle of love, growing, playing,
struggling, and accepting with a smile the incredible
predicament of being human. When we can do this, even for
a few moments, we will feel a flow of energy like the
current of a river dissolving our separateness and
bringing us to greater unity.
|
