Unconditional Love
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Introduction
Review Of Literature
Unconditional Love
Disconnecting From Unconditional Love
Making The Choice: Reconnecting To Unconditional Love
Healing The Heart
Self Love
Love & Relationships
A Circle Of Love
A Complete Opening
A World Full of Love
Exercises
The Fearlessness Commitment: Choosing Love Each Moment
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction To Unconditional Love
Written by Laurel Sherer, Carolyn Hoppe, Devon Love, Tristan Anderson, and Joe Shermis
Unconditional love is our natural state of being. It is the vibration of our true self, the self that is eternal, perfect, and one with all that is. In this state of being, all is love, without any separation or conditions. Satyam Nadeen expresses unconditional love in the following words, "...my only definition of love is embracing whatever-is, just as it is, and only because it is."
When we are born into human form, we learn what it is like to know another type of love. This love is not boundless, but instead tied to certain ways of being. During our experiences of this conditional love, there is a great longing that is present at the core of our being to be able to realize our true state of unconditional love once again. Love is a nutrient which we all seek, and absorbing more of this healing nutrient into our bodies, minds and hearts brings us closer to our true nature.
Our human experiences of love are essentially glimpses into the greater spiritual reality of who we are. When we "feel love," we are experiencing the vibrational frequency of our natural state of bliss. The experience of "loving" another opens an awareness of this spiritual reality, in which the boundaries we experience as humans are not nearly so defined, as we are part of a continuous flow of energy together. The more we expand into the vibration of love, the more we have a profound experience of "loving."
As we merge into the experience of love, we are opening our heart chakra, which is the sacred energy center of love. The heart chakra rests in the middle of the lower and upper three chakras and holds the potential for balancing all of our chakras. This allows the consciousness of our bodies, minds, emotions, and spiritual, oneness self to come together in harmonious unity. Christopher Stewart, in his article entitled Heart Chakra: Opening Your Heart's Emotional Power To Transform, tells us, "...the fourth chakra is the balance between your body and spirit. This chakra is the place where unconditional love is centered. Unconditional Love is a creative and powerful energy that may guide and help us through the most difficult times. This energy is available in any moment, if we turn our attention to it and use it to free us from our limits and fears.
This course is an exploration of a cycle of love that many people on the planet experience in their lives. This is the cycle of being in oneness and unconditional love, moving into a conditional state of love as we grow into an adult human being, consciously making the choice to surrender to the path home, and finally, merging into the natural state of unconditional love once again. We begin this cycle in our spiritual consciousness, completely "in love," and experiencing absolute divine love and bliss. In this state, we are in the flow of life, and we blend with other energies in an unlimited way. Next, we enter into the conditional reality structure that is so pervasive on this planet at this time. Through the many conditional relationships we experience with parents, teachers, lovers, and friends, we learn about limitation and begin to have a conditional experience of our own divine nature. Throughout this conditioning process, we continue to catch glimpses of our true nature, and of a more unlimited way of being. When we are able to validate these glimpses, we are naturally led back toward an experience of ourselves as the source of unconditional love on the planet. In this way, we ground our true spiritual nature in our physical experience and become truly free in our ability to live as beings of love and light.
Review Of Literature
The Art Of Everyday Ecstasy (1998) delves into the spiritual path of Tantra. Margot Anand covers how to awaken ecstatic energy. This includes journeying through the chakra system and awakening each energy system. This book covers many rituals, meditations, and exercises for the reader to engage in the practice of bringing the bliss of life into everyday life.
In Real Love: The Truth About Finding Unconditional Love and Fulfilling Relationships (2002) Greg Baer, MD, discusses the difference between "Real Love" and "Imitation Love," real love being the unconditional kind, and imitation love being based on the meeting of certain expectations. He talks about the psychology of conditional love, covering such areas as "getting and protecting behaviors," "the difference between asking and expecting," and "telling the truth about ourselves." He gives good practical advice for those in intimate partnerships who want to shift from an experience of conditional love to one of unconditional love.
"What is your love language?" This is the question author Gary Chapman asks in his book The Five Love Languages: How To Express Heartfelt Commitment To Your Mate (1995). Gary develops the idea that there are different ways to love and feel love, and that we each have a dominant "love language" that feels the best and most satisfying to us. The five languages are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Gary tells us that though we may think we are acting in a very loving way, our partner may not recognize the love language we are speaking, and they may yearn for us to speak in the language of love that feels most loving to them. The challenge is to discover our own love language, as well as that of our partners, and to learn to "speak each other's language of love" in order to enjoy a more fulfilling and joyful relationship.
Deepak Chopra offers us insights into the spiritual path of relationships in his book The Path To Love (1998). Chopra describes the stages that a relationship goes through and how we can move our approach to relationships to a spiritual focus. Even though Deepak Chopra talks about the beloved as another, he says that we can be the beloved for ourselves as well. In the author's own words, "To realize ‘I am love' is not reserved only for those who marry. It is a universal realization, cherished in every spiritual tradition. Or to put it most simply, all relationships are ultimately a relationship with God."
In You Can Heal Your Life (1984), Louise L. Hay gives many tools for learning to love ourselves, which she has found is at the root of all imbalances. Louise Hay speaks from a place of having moved through great healings in her own life and helping many others to do the same. This is a great book for people who feel called to healing and love.
Ellen Grace O'Brian offers spiritual wisdom in A Single Blade Of Grass (2002). This wisdom comes in the form of daily inspirations and short essays on topics such as meditation, spiritual awakening, contemplation, falling in love with your life, and selfless service. Reverend Ellen Grace O'Brian is the Spiritual Director and founding teacher of an interfaith ministry called the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment (CSE) in San Jose, CA.
In Eastern Body Western Mind (1996), Anodea Judith merges psychology and the chakra system. This is a wonderful book for learning how to move through the various levels of expanding consciousness. It addresses imbalances in the chakras and places importance on developing balance in each one of the chakras, rather than some approaches to spirituality that focus only on transcendence of the physical. This book combines various types of psychology and offers many exercises in order to connect with each of the chakras.
Coming Home (1993) is a beautiful book about returning to the true self-written by Martia Nelson. Martia Nelson is a life coach, teacher, and writer. Through her experiences working with people, she has come to a clear understanding of many of the issues that can come to surface as we make the journey home, to our true self. Nelson explains the journey that we choose to take in coming into living on the earth and how this choice is made out of love. Love, Nelson says, is at the core of our being. In this book, the topics of abundance, emotions, sexuality, awakened personality, and planetary survival are all explored. Additionally, Nelson looks at how we may feel a split between what we perceive to be our spiritual and daily selves. Nelson looks at how we can bridge these seemingly distinct parts of our self into the awareness of our true self, which is never changing.
Catherine Ponder reminds us that love is the only true wealth in The Prospering Power Of Love (1983). In the tradition of Norman Vincent Peale, this Unity church minister, author and inspirational speaker teaches us about the limitless power of love to heal us, raise our consciousness, and bring more prosperity, well-being, and joy into our experience. She writes with a dynamic and refreshing voice, and offers us a timeless message.
Sanaya Roman channels the clear wisdom of her spirit teacher Orin in Soul Love: Awakening Your Heart Centers (1997). This book is about connecting deeply with your soul in order to awaken your heart centers. Through this practice you can bring your soul through into your relationships and experiences, to enjoy a deeper, more meaningful, joyful, authentic life.Orin gives us many practices we can do in order to anchor this experience of our soul's guidance into our lives.
Unconditional Love
Unconditional love begins in our lives with unconditional acceptance. The first place that this is experienced in a person's life is in the context of the relationship with one's parents. From the first gaze and smiles that is focused on the mother and father, the infant experiences the truth of what unconditional love is. It is a process that happens without the benefits or impediments of language, experienced wholly through the open heart space with which we come into this world. The process manifests continually through those first days, and on throughout childhood, even as the child learns the conditions that humans experience around love. In order to remember these first uncomplicated feelings, the process of sharing unconditional love becomes one of unlearning. As Rumi notes, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
Unconditional love is the divine expression of our true nature. It is the unhindered flow of our eternal, boundless self. The vibration of unconditional love carries us to our true self, where we are always perfectly divine and connected with all. While the deepest part of ourselves is always in this state of eternal love, we also experience what it is like to have this flow of energy hindered by the blocks of pain that we hold. We are being called to remember our true nature, our eternal, boundless self. We are being called to allow love to flow in and out of ourselves without any limitations.
Unconditional love moves beyond the ego to the spiritual self, which unites us with all of life. In this way, to be drawn toward unconditional love is the same as being drawn toward the true self. It is the path home, the path to the self that is untouched by anything that we do. When we understand love as our natural state, we see the phrase "unconditional love" expresses a reversal of the limited experience of conditional love, back to the experience of our natural state of oneness. While we often forget this state of oneness while in physical form, there is always the potential to flow back to remembering our source. This flow then moves from being in the natural state of the true self, to forgetting, and growing into remembering once again. In this way, we are all part of an eternal love story in which we move through these various stages of love. In The Path To Love (1998), Deepak Chopra tell us that this love story begins when we come into the world as innocent love. As we grow, we come into loving our family, friends, and intimate partners. We later find ourselves experiencing the love of giving, along with feelings of compassion and forgiveness. The final stage is marked by directly experiencing the pure love of the Divine. We can then leave our lives in the same state in which we came in, knowing that we are love itself.
Disconnecting From Unconditional Love
"In order to develop love—universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it—one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad."
—Chogyam Trungpa
It is a necessary but often painful truth that we learn the most about a thing by experiencing what it is not. There is no human emotion, no other aspect of the human condition, where this is more the circumstance than the unconditional love we give and receive. It is so often the most emotionally challenging of lessons, so difficult to garner as to bring the word "heartbreak" into discovering the heart's true path. Conditional love is to feel love for ourselves, others, and the world when certain conditions are met. The first place that children often learn of conditional love is through their parents, who have personal issues that block unconditional love from being realized in their lives. Parents often have wounded hearts themselves that have only experienced conditional love, or a great lack of any type of love. They then often place conditions onto their children, giving their children the experiences of feeling what love can be like when it is withheld or confined.
The conditions that a parent puts on the child manifest as expectations, often undermining their ability to love unconditionally. The emotional baggage carried from having the parents' needs placed upon the child can be taken into the significant relationships that the child will later engage in. The conditional love children receive from parents also manifests in feelings of unworthiness and lack of self-love. Children grow up and often use the template of their parents' love to understand future relationships. The experiences that take place in a child's relationship with the parent can in this way reverberate throughout the rest of the lifetime if they are not cleared.
Such experiences in childhood can lead us as adults to become distracted by our own fear and emptiness, which come from the void within us that cries for love. We then often react to others through this lens of fear and pain. We may do whatever it takes to fill this emptiness, including creating relationships for the sake of easing our pain. Relationships based on filling our emptiness through being with another can lead to behaviors such as clinging, attacking, acting like a victim, lying and running.
In the desperation to fill our voids of love, we also often search for a temporary relief that feels good in the moment. Imitations of love include praise, pleasure and power through such things as sex, money, alcohol and drugs. Greg Baer writes in his book Real Love (2003) "An ocean of imitation love lacks the power to create the happiness found in a teaspoon of the real thing, but if we don't know about real love, we'll gladly fall for the deception of the imitation. That is the ultimate tragedy of life."
Conditional love can be passed on throughout many generations. We may learn what conditional love looks and feels like and then lead our lives from this same state, conditionally loving ourselves and others. We do so because we do not know any other type of love well enough to create it in our lives. So, we love ourselves, others, and the world in limited ways. We may love ourselves when we feel happy or appear to be beautiful. We may love others when they make us feel good. We may love the world when it seems like a good place to be. We may also not feel love in our lives for ourselves, others, or the world, if it doesn't seem like a good place to be. In this case, we may believe that we can only feel love when some future conditions are met. These may be having a romantic partner, having children, living in a certain place, or having a certain profession. It may also be once our bodies, minds, or emotions fall into a certain idealized state.
If we use the metaphor of love being a tree, the roots of conditional love live in the various conditions that we set up, and they are not very deep. It is then only when all of these conditions are met that our trees of love are able to grow and perhaps stay rooted long enough to blossom. However, life is always changing, and in this way, so are the conditions that we long for as being essential to experiencing unconditional love. Our trees may fall down when the roots are taken away, yet we may then feel that new conditions are what we really need in order to revive our trees again.
When we create conditions around the experience of love, we inevitably do not have our conditions met at all times, and our open hearts become hurt from not feeling enough love. The raw pain involved in feeling unloved reaches to the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Margot Anand states in The Art Of Everyday Ecstasy (1998), "When we love, we give those we love the power to touch us at our core. We become delicate, transparent, as vulnerable as in childhood." (208) When we experience sharp, raw pain, it can be too much to feel our emotions fully. In this way, the experience of emotional pain is often coupled with the resistance of it. Our resistance makes it so we do not fully experience and move through our pain, but instead block it off in order to not fully feel it.
These pains remain unprocessed within us as energetic blocks, which affect our emotional, mental, and physical patterns. While we were once open to life, we begin to contract toward it because of our pain. We may then become paralyzed by our past hurtful experiences and keep our hearts shut off to the world. While this is oftentimes not a conscious decision, in shutting ourselves off from pain, we also shut ourselves off from love.
The blockages that come from experiencing pain set up boundaries for how much we are able to experience the energy of love. It may seem impossible to the ego to love without boundaries. How could I love the person who raped me? How could I love those who have murdered others? This is an extremely difficult area for many of us. It is in exploring how far we can allow our hearts to expand in love that we can connect with our boundaries of love and then heal them. Where are your boundaries of love? How do you dissolve them so that you can move into unconditional love?
Reconnecting To Unconditional Love
"Love is not automatic. It takes conscious practice and awareness, just like playing the piano or golf. However, you have ample opportunities to practice. Everyone you meet can be your practice session."
—Doc Childre and Sara Paddison
All beings desire wholeness; everyone desires to be connected with source, fully expressing their creative power and true essence. As we move through our experiences, so many of us feel a longing to be more authentic, to acknowledge and express our deeper spiritual nature. Yet the paradoxes and dualities we experience around us all the time can be very confusing. We want to love and be loved, but we have to do so many things, meet so many conditions, before we can rest in love. With everyone trying to meet all their conditions for happiness, we have times when others irritate or anger us, and we feel thwarted by the many energies that we see as beyond our control. Often we do not feel capable of unconditional love, yet we recognize, in some mysterious way, that we are eternally loving beings and that love has the power to create harmony. Making the jump to grounding this understanding in our lives can seem almost impossible, like an idealistic virtue that is unattainable.
There seems to be, for many, a certain point on the spiritual path when we realize that all we can do is surrender. We know we are struggling, experiencing challenges as suffering. We may have happiness much of the time, and then when we experience some particular challenge, we plummet, and descend into our own pain. We feel as if we have been struggling uphill, working so hard to be better, more loving, and more balanced people. We experience limitation, ours and others, and we feel powerless, yet we know we are capable of living a different way. Now we are ready. When we admit that the mind cannot solve this riddle, we can surrender to the heart, where our true wisdom lies. This is a very important turning point in spiritual and personal growth for many. This is similar to the 12 step practice of surrendering to a higher power, and in this case, we recognize the higher power as the power of love.
Surrendering to love can begin simply by saying "I surrender all to love." This is a powerful statement. When we decide to place our heart above our intellect in our daily life, there is an experience of "rightness," and we know we are on to something. When we make this choice, our heart chakras automatically begin to open up, and a shift in awareness can be instantaneous.
It can be a powerful practice to perform a special outdoor ritual in which you commit your life to love. You can make this a ritual in which all your favorite symbols of love are combined and you affirm your love for yourself, the earth, all beings, and the spiritual realm. As you experience this, you will feel the wave of unconditional love embrace you, and you will rest in love. Let your mind be still, and your heart be open, as your senses detect the eternal beauty of life in all its complexity. You may experience being a divine lover, as you blend with all energies in creation. Listen closely for the rhythm of love as it pulses through you from the heart of God. Make the choice to be a love warrior, loving all beings as they are, even if you do not understand them with your mind. Make the commitment to accepting yourself just as you are, "warts and all." Find your own unique way to make this choice. This is the path. This is the practice. Choose love.
Healing The Heart
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves."
—Rainer Maria Rilke
The heart chakra is our sacred center of love. It is the bridge between our lower and higher chakras, and in this position, the heart chakra has the potential to hold all of the chakras in perfect balance. As we have explored, the heart chakra shields itself when we have painful experiences which we do not move through back into the restored state of acceptance, forgiveness, and love. To heal the heart means to accept our pasts, allowing for all of these painful experiences to clear from our hearts.
We can become out of touch with our heart chakras, however, when we are taught to focus almost entirely on the growth of our minds. If this has been the case for you or others that you know, connecting the mind with the heart can allow for an integration of these two powerful centers. Exploring the heart center can be challenging at first because of all of the armor that we have surrounded it with. However, as we move beyond this armor, perhaps by coming to understand why we put it up in the first place and why those who we felt hurt us acted in the ways that they did, we can move to a place that is beyond all of the pain and armor. This is the true center of love that was always there, only energetically cut off by our blockages.
The path of journeying into the heart allows us to see just how much our hearts can expand in compassion and love. Margot Anand shares with us her interpretation of the voice of the heart chakra in The Art Of Everyday Ecstasy (1998), "I am golden, I am love. I have seen many forms, many storms, heartaches, heartbreaks, laughter and joy. And I still don't know how deep I can be." (205) Balance is an essential part of the heart chakra. It includes a balance between our minds and bodies and between us and the rest of the world. Part of the journey in balancing the heart chakra involves coming into relationship with ourselves. Spending time reflecting on our patterns in life and beholding ourselves helps this relationship to become strong. We can come into balance between our feminine and masculine sides of our personalities as well. Similarly, healing the heart chakra includes coming into balance in our relationships with others. There is always a pull toward and away from others. When in balance, these pulls allow us to have enough time to ourselves and in relationships. Judith states, "A healthy relationship needs to honor both the upward and downward movements of energy and create a balance between spirit and soul, expansion and constriction, freedom and commitment." (246)
If we feel overwhelmed by the pain in our hearts during our processes of healing, we can focus on beings that embody unconditional compassion and love. Even though we may not be able to meet ourselves with unconditional love at certain points on our journeys, we may be able to imagine a being that could hold us in love regardless of anything we may feel or do. In the Buddhist tradition, bodhisattvas offer their awakened hearts and commitment to the awakening of all beings to each one of us. The bodhisattva of compassion is known as Tara in Tibet and Kwan Yin in China. From the Christian tradition, we have Jesus as the embodiment of forgiveness for each of us. Focusing on these beings can allow us to feel what it can be like to be unconditionally loved and held by the Divine. We can then learn to feel this for ourselves, and open our hearts to all of the divine qualities that we long for so dearly, such as joy, growth, and acceptance. An open heart can give and receive love with greater ease. This will affect each relationship that we have: with ourselves, partners, families, co-workers, and anyone that we meet. Each of these relationships then becomes a sacred gateway to allow ourselves to move even deeper into love.
Self-Love
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."
—The Buddha
The search for unconditional love, like any search for truth, begins within. To give to ourselves the love that our souls long for is to recognize our divine nature. It is to embrace ourselves as the beloved that we have searched for in so many other ways. Since the heart chakra can hold the other six chakras in a harmonious balance, self-love can become an act of embracing both the transcendent nature of the upper chakras and the grounding nature of the lower chakras into the body and personality. Anodea Judith says in Eastern Body Western Mind "Like the green, growing plants which push toward the heavens from their roots in the earth, we, too, reach outward in two directions—anchoring the manifesting current deep in our bodies and expanding the liberation current as we reach beyond ourselves. In the heart chakra, these currents come to perfect balance in the center of our being. From that sacred center—the heart of the system—we enter the mystery of love." (234) If we want to live in balance between these two movements of divine energy, we can practice self-love by coming into a loving relationship with our personality, body, and soul.
A Grounded Love
Beginning the process of loving our minds, emotions, and bodies can start with a deep affirmation that we are worthy of love. This in itself may be challenging to do because we have been filled with many experiences of what we think we should be, which almost always differs from the way we feel in each moment. If it is difficult to feel that you are worthy of love, it can be helpful to remember pictures of yourself as a baby, taking in your innocence and goodness. You can also imagine a loving being, such as an angel, Jesus, Buddha, or Mother Mary, showering you with the love that they feel toward you regardless of what you say or do. The affirmation of your worthiness for love opens your third chakra, allowing the current of energy from your heart to move down into a grounded reality of love.
As with other healing that focuses on our wholeness, coming more into the present moment is very beneficial in that we allow ourselves to open to our experiences. We can then recognize the moments that our love for ourselves flows and those during which this love is blocked. Each time our heart chakra opens in love, the memory of love becomes imprinted into our bodies, as our cells absorb this divine creative energy. It becomes easier to recognize the feelings of the heart chakra being opened. At the same time, the moments when we stop loving ourselves provide valuable lessons for healing as well. By continuing to be present to each moment, we can ask ourselves what we are feeling and why? We can then work through the block when it happens, instead of continuing on with our days while feeling resentment, fear, lack of self-worth, or any other feeling that arises from the situation.
We all have the ability to understand the energies that make up our continual experiences of life. As we have briefly explored, we can step into this ability through coming into the present moment and beginning to recognize the way energies feel for us. In feeling the energy in our bodies by asking ourselves how we feel throughout the day, we come into opening our second chakras and more fully experiencing our aliveness. We can feel an over-flowing love for ourselves that makes us excited about life. The experience of feeling love toward ourselves can move us to let go of the previous ways we may have seen ourselves to be at fault. We may have thought our bodies were ugly at one point, but as we cultivate love, we can look at ourselves in new ways and see the beauty that is true for each one of us.
Each step that we take along the path of grounding our love for ourselves can bring up any areas in our lives that are calling out to be loved. This includes feelings about ourselves in certain situations, both past, present, and future. A key part of this process is forgiveness. In A Single Blade Of Grass (2002), Ellen Grace O'Brian tells us, "Love is the mighty ocean of God's presence. Forgiveness is the river leading to that ocean." (58) Forgiveness involves looking at the reasons why a hurtful situation occurs. Forgiveness and acceptance go hand in hand. As we forgive ourselves and others for any painful situations in the past, we come into a deeper acceptance of our lives and ourselves. We can then become more deeply rooted in the present because we are no longer subtly running from the pain of the past. For further exploration of forgiveness, refer to the UMS course Forgiveness.
We can also set intentions to come into loving ourselves more fully. In You Can Heal Your Life (1984), Louis Hay encourages us to intend to let go of the need to not love ourselves. We may be used to telling a story to ourselves of being unworthy or of being a victim. We all have coping mechanisms that began at a very young age and worked well for us then. Even though these mechanisms no longer serve us, we often identify with them. When we set the intention to let go of the need to hold onto these old ways of being and feel this intention whole heartedly, the universe can help us to bring this about. We do not need to know exactly how it will occur; as long as we are willing and focus ourselves on our intentions, healing will occur in ways that may be beyond our minds' ability to know at the time.
A Transcended Love
In exploring self-love, we have thus far looked at the ways that we can bring the energy of the heart chakra into the grounded reality of the lower chakras, which have to do with building a foundation of love for our experiences as human beings. In addition to grounding love, we can also come into expanding our love into the upper chakras. Our self-love can begin to take on this expansive nature through expressing the love that we have cultivated toward ourselves. Expressing love toward others and the world springs naturally from the pool of self-love. It becomes easier to see the goodness in others and in the world. We see past the masks that people put on in order to protect the vulnerable parts of their personalities from the experience of oneness between all of humanity. Love is a common bond that holds all of humanity together. We all want to be loved and to give love. Ellen Grace O'Brian states in A Single Blade Of Grass (2002), "Love is all-embracing, all-accepting, all-knowing, all-forgiving, wholeness itself. When we love, we are in God and can embrace life completely." (61)
When we see that there is something beyond the physical reality, we can connect with the transcending nature of our being, which is within and beyond our human form and experience. Our self-love then takes on a whole new meaning as we recognize the self to be timeless, boundless, and eternally perfect. To love ourselves in this way is to acknowledge the divine self that we truly are and to let go of the numerous ways we limit our vastness and perfection. In Coming Home (1993), Martia Nelson states, "Self-love is the experience of the love that you are. This love is a brilliant light. Like the sun or a star, it shines continuously in the core of your being, even when it is not seen or felt..." (25) We are the love that we often seek for in the outside world.
It is when we begin to see from this larger sense of self that we can gain through spiritual practice that we can step into unconditional love. We can realize that there is nothing that we really need to defend and hold onto, for all is the same, divine self. Deepak Chopra tells us in The Path To Love (1998), "The reason you do not feel completely loved and completely lovable is that you do not identify with your spiritual nature." The mind certainly likes to cling onto ideas of love, and in doing so, the mind makes opposites out of the same energy of the Divine. With the expansive nature of the upper chakras, we can come into a vaster understanding of the oneness of all energy and be still amongst its flows.
We can see that love is truly at the core of our being and fully feel at rest, safely in its expansive and grounding nature. To allow the heart to open both through grounding and transcending in the personality and body is to embrace each part of our experiences as spiritual beings in human bodies.
Love & Relationships
"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."
—David Viscott
Loving relationships give us the opportunity to grow in many ways. We expand our sense of love, compassion, and self as we step into an intimate relationship with another. When we speak of "falling in love," we speak of the experience of coalescing our energies with another, allowing an opening of the heart chakra, and experiencing this spiritual state of bliss. When this happens, it creates a major shift in consciousness and often turns our lives upside down. We may lose our appetites, have little need for sleep, smile all the time, and have the experience of "living on love." These experiences are the same as those reported by many yogis and mystics, who are naturally drawn into constant commune with God. The attraction we feel to others has roots in the attraction to returning to this natural state of bliss.
While we can come to a loving relationship with our own ego desires, we can also be in a state of surrender and service to the Divine. In this second way of being in relationship with others, we surrender our ego's desires and focus on spiritual growth. We focus on each person being a manifestation of God, and with this, our service to others is service to the Divine One. This kind of love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. When we are giving unconditional love, we are not disappointed, angry or hurt if we receive nothing in return because our concern is for them. In The Path To Love (1998), Deepak Chopra states, "The final fruit of surrender is ecstasy: when you can let go of all selfish attachments, when you trust that love really is at the core of your nature, you feel complete peace."
To join with another being in a relationship is an opportunity to expand the depths of love to include infinity. When partners recognize each other as one with infinity, the love they share becomes a spiritual gateway into enlightened awareness. Relationships expressed in this way automatically become unconditional in their love. If we view each other as divine it is impossible for any action to be seen as un-divine. In this way we can learn to love each other as perfect immortal units of Spirit.
The application of this awareness in relationships can be a daily practice. Relationships provide us with mirrors of our inner worlds. Anything that we feel toward our partners reflects an energy that is present within our own consciousness. By going within through meditation or time alone, we can tune into what is at the core of our feelings that arise in relationships. In doing so, we become clearer on what areas of ourselves are calling for attention and how we can grow spiritually. Clarity allows love to flow with greater ease to ourselves and our partners. It often comes through times of stillness and higher awareness. If we apply awareness to our interactions with our partners, we can be present with the feelings that emerge within ourselves and aware of moments when we need to breathe, take some time alone, or genuinely express what we are feeling.
We can help each other to open our heart chakras through sending each other love. It is important to become aware of what makes you and your partner feel loved because we each have our own individual definitions of what feels loving. When we understand and speak from our partners' dialects of love, we can send them love in the way that they are best able to receive it. This helps relationships to be emotionally fulfilling for each person. It holds true for our relationships with ourselves as well. When we know how to support and love ourselves, we can more fully take in the love of others as an additional love in our lives, rather than as a need.
In The Five Love Languages (1992), Gary Chapman says that there are five ways to communicate love to another. These are: "Words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch." Words of affirmations are kind, encouraging words of appreciation. Quality time includes communicating in a way that the other really feels genuinely listened to and also spending time together with a focused attention. The activity becomes the vehicle to enjoy each other's company. Receiving gifts is about the concept of giving. The gift is the symbol that you were thought of and remembered. It is a visual symbol of love. Acts of service are doing things that another likes you to do. The last language is physical touch, which is a bonding way to communicate love.
A wonderful approach to brining unconditional love into relationships is to set intentions or perform rituals with our partners. In these times, we can affirm our aspirations in the relationship. We may say, for example, "I desire for each of us to feel complete within ourselves and be balanced in our own masculine and feminine energies. I desire for each of us to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in our relationship together." This can be repeated whenever we have challenges that arise in our relationships and can be used for any type of relationship that we have. Stating our highest intentions for having healthy, authentic relationships sets a tone for ourselves and others to act from the heart.
Circle Of Love
"Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of love."
—Rumi
One of the primary places we experience the cycle of unconditional love is within the family. A mother or father's love for their child is the ideal garden within which to nurture the natural human capacity for the higher vibrational, unconditional experience of love. The transformational power of taking part in co-creating with God to bring a spirit into physical form, having that shining, fresh being be completely dependent upon the nurturance from the parent, and the absolute unconditional love which the child naturally offers all seems to be part of the overall design of the evolution of the human heart.
The love between parent and child is unconditional in its pure form, though the limitations of the parent to consciously and actively participate in the expression of unconditional love, the limitations of their own fear and pain, can be an ever-present barrier to this natural experience. Our children, then, can be our greatest and most important teachers of this forgotten, but very natural and effortless, state of being.
In the holographic view of reality, everything that we experience is a result of what we focus on with our consciousness. Relationships within families are especially profound holographic experiences, because these are often our most intimate, open, and natural interactions. If we have barriers to experiencing unconditional love, this is where we will have the most potent experiences of them. This is also the place in which the greatest transformational power lies. Moments of crisis, near losses, or just those moments when a child speaks powerful truth or gives a certain look or gesture, these are times we can experience "windows of opportunity" for being in the vibrational wave of unconditional love. During these moments we feel as if all petty concerns drop away, and the basic truths of oneness, love, and grace are completely obvious. Our hearts open, and we expand in gratitude, appreciation, and the warmth of pure love. In these moments we see our children as they are, incredible light beings, teachers of truth, wise ones in their own right. We can also learn to forgive ourselves in these moments, as we see ourselves through our child's eyes, as young eyes so often shine with the truth of oneness and light. Our children give us the opportunity to be truly touched by the grace of God, to return to the innocence and clear vibration of our natural state, as beings of unconditional love.
It is true that unconditional love represents our natural state of grace and oneness. This is the truth at the heart of understanding unconditional love, but the proof is in the pudding. Our words and deeds are how we live this practice, and our dedication to living in love, our decision to surrender all to love, this is the path home for us, the path of the heart. Within families, and especially as parents raising children, we have the opportunity to practice love, to decide to love, to choose love in every action. Part of that choosing is to forgive mistakes, ours and theirs. This is the practice. Unconditional love, by its nature, does not depend on perfection, on being perfect all the time, always making the right choices, but on accepting human frailty, on seeing through eternal eyes, through fresh eyes, with the understanding that our actions are not our worth. Our worth is: we are love, light, consciousness, perfect, now and always. We can expand our experience of life, and of our relationships with our mates, children, and others, within this larger perspective. We are eternal in love; this is the truth that sets us free to love unconditionally. It is a softening, a wisening, an expansiveness that says yes to all life experiences, that welcomes the challenge of learning to open more and more and more to the rhythm of life which is love.
The truth of unconditional love is that it can only be seen and experienced in a world in which "other" than unconditional love exists. Those who dedicate, through a leap of faith, their own lives to the realization of unconditional love become the channelers of this vibration into the experience of others. By holding this vibration within our hearts we allow others to experience the sharing of unconditional love. Through the practice of moment to moment choosing creation is validated, truth is invoked. Within families, the practical application of unconditional love is the work of bringing life to a higher level, to an understanding of our spiritual nature, and of the inherent grace, beauty, and light within each of us.
What does a family who practices unconditional love look like? The first step to practicing unconditional love, as we have discussed, is in acceptance. No matter how bad things might appear to be, we can choose, right now, in this moment to unconditionally accept our experience, and to accept the challenge we are being given to be the source of love and harmony we desire. We can do this instead of looking outside us for relief, and this is the first step. Even in situations that seem to be hopeless, when strife and battles of will seem to be all the interaction that is possible, when viewed from the perspective of absolute acceptance, the energy can shift instantly. When we stop trying to "hold our position," and begin to surrender to being in the flow of love and forgiveness, the results are often very dramatic. We can show our children this way, this path of grace and joy, right now.
A family who practices unconditional love listens to the deeper rhythms of each family member, and becomes witness to the deeper weaving of the family. Differences are welcomed, and the unique way-shower in each family member is encouraged to come out and play. This nourishes the soul of the family.
In the family who embraces this practice, mistakes are opportunities for all to grow and deepen with the experience, for it is recognized that all members of the family are wise beings who are involved in providing experiences for the family to grow and evolve. When we look at a family from the holographic perspective, the complexity and beauty can be astounding! This complexity reveals itself in the way in which each family member reflects certain things for one and other things for another. The beauty is in the way that all members of the family are pieces of a greater whole, an entity which contains the individuals as well as the greater oneness. The family is a holograph of the one being, the one consciousness, the one love that lies behind all the dualistic, materialistic, illusory manifestations of this earth experience.
The weaving becomes bright, shining and beautiful for the family who practices unconditional love, and it only takes one member to embrace this way for it to become possible for the whole family. The magic of unconditional love is that it creates a ripple that goes on forever, for it is a vibration truly in tune with spirit, and so it is eternal. When a family member begins to practice unconditional love within the family, this allows all members to feel this vibration, and to experience the power in this choice. Through the tools of self-forgiveness and self-acceptance, we can clear the way to bring this state of grace into our families, which in turn will affect others who are drawn to this natural, effortless way of being. This is the magic the family holds to spread love far and wide. The same is true for other kinds of intentional circles and groups too, and these can, in the greater scheme of things, be recognized as families as well. All of the above can be applied to any group who is intentionally forming a circle for whatever purpose. The power of these types of circles to create beauty in the world lies within the ability to practice unconditional love. With this focus, we raise up and celebrate the individual, as well as realize what can be accomplished when individuals join as one, seeing the circle as a whole, as an entity capable of creating, teaching, and uplifting humanity.
A Complete Opening
"In the universal sense, love is the divine power of attraction in creation that harmonizes, unites, binds together...Those who live in tune with the attractive force of love achieve harmony with nature and their fellow beings, and are attracted to blissful reunion with God."
—Paramahansa Yoananda
We come from unconditional love, acceptance, and unity into the conditions of love that are prevalent for much of humanity. Through the pain of conditional love, we receive the grace of moments of connection with source, and these experiences show us that there is something more than the conditional love that we know. Every part of us begins to long for a deeper and more continuous awareness of our connection with source. We come to the point that we know that the awareness we are longing for is what we truly desire and need. We then surrender fully to the opening of the layers we have built up and let them fall away, revealing our true nature. We find that we are the love, peace, and serenity for which we have been searching.
We are each like a droplet of water, thinking that who we are is confined to the edges of the formed droplet. However, when the droplet bursts, we then graciously merge into the ocean of our being. We were the ocean all the time, yet our minds held us into an individualized form. Imagine the exquisite beauty and unshakeable joy in the divine remembering itself over and over again! Susan Kramer eloquently says, "We are as individually sculpted snowflakes falling from the brilliant cloud of our Creator... We are manifestations within One Great Soul an eternal heritage brought to awareness by expansive acts of love."
A shift in each part of our being takes place when we come full circle to the complete opening of unconditional love in our lives. We experience greater relaxation and looseness in our bodies, feelings of trust, surrender, and fullness in our emotions, and mentally, we have a larger view of life. We are able to realize our oneness with all that is. In the words of Amma, "The Divine is present in everyone, in all beings, in everything. Like space it is everywhere, all pervading, all powerful, all knowing. The Divine is the principle of Life, the inner light of consciousness, and pure bliss—It is our very own Self."
Emma Curtis Hopkins, as quoted by Ponder in The Prospering Power of Love (1996) says, "Everything is really full of love for you. The good that is for you loves you as much as you love it. The good that is for you seeks you and will come flying to you if you see that what you love is love itself. All the people will change when you know that they are love. We shall change toward all people when we know that we ourselves are formed out of love. All is love. There is nothing in all the universe but love." Divine love is being tuned into the subtleties of life and recognizing love in each moment. It is knowing who you are and accepting all that is. It is expressing gratitude for each experience that comes. It is seeing love at the heart of every situation and challenge. It is finding love in all places and in all things. Everywhere you go and in every person you meet you can find love. Become a divine magnet and charge your world with a heart of radiating love, and you will find that your happiness multiples. Call upon the power of love to melt difficult situations. Believe in love, become love, give love, and accept love. Walk in the circle of God's love. Love is a precious gift and a tremendous healing agent for all.
A World Full of Love
"Down from the deep and high up to the Stars LOVE is flooding the Universe..."
—Hildegard of Bingen
When we pay attention to the presence of love, to the uninhibited flow of this creative energy, we begin to notice more and more the manifestations of love on the planet. One such emergence of unconditional love is beautifully shown in the work of Barry and Suzi Kaufman. After learning about the power of beliefs, Barry and Suzi Kaufman began to look differently at their son, Raun, who was diagnosed with autism. Many people would continually say how sad their family's situation is, but despite these remarks, Barry and Suzi Kaufman began to focus on the beauty in the situation. They focused on the gentleness of their son and the hope in that he was alive. They focused on loving him unconditionally. Instead of trying to make Raun fit into the societal views of what it is to be normal, they instead focused on flowing their love to him just as he was. Through years of being with his accepting and loving parents, Raun completely outgrew his autism. Barry and Suzi Kaufman have worked with many children and adults using this process, which they call the Option Process. Barry Kaufman explains that the Option Process means that "you decide to love other people—and yourself, of course—by being happy with them just as they are, without needing to change them in any way, although you certainly could want and try to help others to be all that they want to be for themselves." (www.context.org) While people are being cured by the Option Process, Barry Kaufman draws our attention to what he feels is the real miracle: the way that we can all extend and respond to unconditional love.
As we express love more and choose love as the path and focus of our lives, we begin to naturally gravitate toward more loving action. As these practices become natural and effortless, we develop and refine the heart chakra energies so that we are able to stabilize and ground the energy of unconditional love in our daily life. When this practice takes on such a focus, and the old patterns are replaced by a more unlimited way of thinking and being, we can come to see the world in a new way, as a place in which every interaction and relationship is our teacher, and our lesson is to be love.
It is very helpful, within this practice, to begin to focus less on the manifestations of conditional reality, and more on the manifestations of unlimited creative divine love. As you practice this way more and more, you may find that you become witness to more beauty than you thought possible. You may experience that "seeing through fresh eyes" feeling, and the miracles in small, everyday experiences and interactions. You may begin to become more sensitive to the kindness of others, and feel filled with gratitude. You may be transported into a blissful state by the sight of a tree on the horizon and catch your breath in wonder. You may also feel compassion and understanding when others are acting out of fear, and see these times as a way to expand into even greater experiences of love. When you are having these experiences, your heart chakra is opening and becoming more developed. You are grounding your true nature in your human experience.
Even though it seems that there is much in this world that is "wrong," when we begin to shift our focus toward experiencing life from the heart chakra perspective, we can then begin to experience conditional reality from a different perspective. We may begin to have greater flexibility in our consciousness, and right and wrong may not appear to be black and white any longer. An example is the thoughts that might occur when seeing a homeless person on the street. From a conditional perspective, we may think "Why doesn't that guy just go get a job?" or "I wish I didn't have to drive this way, I don't like to have to see this suffering." You may also just feel fear, as if of some unnamed threat, as you experience the contrast between your perceived security and their perceived lack. Now look at this homeless person from an unconditional perspective. You may think "I wonder what his story is. He looks like he has had an interesting journey." You may have the experience of understanding that suffering is placed before us for us to learn and grow, and that our soul-family teachers hide behind those ragged clothes.
The population of homeless in our towns and cities tells us that there is an imbalance in the sharing of unconditional love and goodwill between people. This can become an observation, with no judgment. It can be a signal for us to increase our generosity and goodwill in our own lives. When we see young homeless people, we can celebrate their courage to stand out, to decide against conforming, and to strive to express their free nature even if it means to be challenged and to face struggle because of this decision. These young people are often following their own inherent wisdom. Sometimes this seeking leads them to turning toward such escapes as drugs and alcohol, which presents a challenge for those of us who are waking up to the power of love to share this message with young people, for they are in great need of unconditional guidance.
If we look around in the media, we can be deluged with manifestations of violence, hatred, injustice, and conditional reality. This can be overwhelming, and we can quickly connect with the flow of planetary grief, suffering, and fear. What this does is strengthen and validate the existence of these manifestations. How do we handle this, when opening our tender hearts to unconditional love? One suggestion is to pay attention to what is before you, to the relationships and experiences in your life, and to focus a flow of unconditional love, acceptance, and forgiveness into all your experiences. The Hopis believe that their sacred village of Oraibi is a microcosm of the universe, and every lesson that is occurring outside is occurring within as well, but on a personal level. Their focus is on paying close attention to all that occurs in this intimate setting, and focusing all their love, blessings, and healing energy toward resolving differences within their own community. This is how they feel they can be most effective in having a positive impact on all that is. This can be a very valuable practice for those committing their lives to realizing unconditional love and freedom.
Another very beautiful approach is the Tibetan practice of Tonglen. This practice involves meeting the suffering of others by finding our own places of pain and feeling them fully. It also involves letting go of judgments about pain and suffering, toward an understanding of these experiences as lessons to bring us into our fuller nature. In his beautiful book, The Prophet (1976), Kahlil Gibran wrote "Your pain is but the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." (www.columbia.edu) Within the practice of Tonglen, you would begin a meditation by focusing on someone you know who is suffering, someone you would like to help. You would then consciously breathe in the pain and suffering of this person, allowing them to be free of this energy as you bring it into yourself. On the out-breath, you would focus on filling them with love, joy, and healing energy, visualizing this shift for them, seeing them filling with light and love. Next, if you find yourself holding this pain, unable to transform it within your own body, you can breathe in the pain for yourself and all others who suffer from this pain. This is a form of alchemy, in which we develop our compassion to a degree where we can work with this energy in our own bodies, for the good of all beings. Zen teacher and author Pema Chodron, in an article on the practice of Tonglen, inspires us to, "Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us." She says, "Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings."
There are many, many amazing practices to help us open our hearts and anchor love solidly in our bodies, on the planet, and in our experience. There are many who are quietly leading lives of compassion and dignity, and focusing, like the Hopi, on their own neighborhood, in their own families, in schools, hospitals and churches. The evidence of love in action is all around us, and we can bring this love fully into being through our own experiences right now. When you seek this path with an open mind and fearless heart, you will see that love really is all there is.
Exercises
Self-Acceptance
One practice that comes from the Buddhist tradition is to accept and be with ourselves through any feelings that arise. In Radical Acceptance (2003), Tara Brach encourages us to pause whenever a strong emotion arises and take notice to the feelings in our bodies without judgment. Awareness can be heightened through naming what we feel. We might become angry, pause, and notice, "I feel a compression in my chest, burning, contraction in my face, the thought that this will not help..." We open ourselves to our experiences instead of closing ourselves down through distractions or thoughts of inadequacy. In doing this, we accept ourselves as we are, which makes room for then coming to love ourselves. Margot Anand tells us in The Art of Everyday Ecstasy (1998), "When you accept yourself, you begin to recognize how lovable you actually are. You begin to hear the voice of your heart, your inner lover who will tell you that life is on your side supporting you, teaching you, helping you grow." (77)
Connecting With Love In All Situations
Allow your mind to focus on your heart center. Take a few deep breaths into your chest. Now imagine a light at the core of this center. What does this light look like? Is it clouded over or shining clearly? What color is it? Now allow your focus to move to your breath. As you breathe in, focus on the energy of the air flowing into the light in your heart center. Visualize each breath expanding the light in your heart. Take several breaths focusing only on the expansion of this light. Then, as you breathe out, allow the light of your heart to expand to each of your other chakras, through your body, and your aura. Imagine the love energy flowing out of you wherever you go and in whatever situations arise. You can be in this state of love during all times. It is a matter of re-learning to open your heart in all situations. Come back to this state frequently to allow it to become a new pattern of being for you.
Practicing Loving-Kindness
Tara Brach tells us in Radical Acceptance (2003), "The quality of tenderness and love and goodwill that naturally awakens in us in response to seeing goodness is known in Buddhism as metta, or loving-kindness. While loving-kindness is intrinsic to who we are, it can also be cultivated through a refined set of practices that have been passed down in an unbroken line of teachings over the past twenty-five hundred years." (266) To awaken loving-kindness within ourselves, we can begin by remembering our basic goodness. We may remember a moment that we were kind to another, when we were a child, or perhaps imagine how we would be viewed by a compassionate being such as the Buddha, Jesus, or Kwan Yin. In practicing meta, we first offer loving-kindness to ourselves. We can choose a few phrases such as, "May I be happy. May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I feel peace. May my heart open to love." After offering these prayers of well-being toward ourselves, we may feel unauthentic or restless. Tara Brach encourages us to continue practicing metta toward ourselves. We can then widen our circle of love to say prayers of well-being to those in our lives that we love, then those that we feel neutral toward, those who we don't care for, and finally to all beings.
Practical Application Of Unconditional Love In Families And Other Intentional Circles
Make a commitment to accepting each family member exactly as they are, not requiring them to change anything, but recognizing the bright spark residing within them, and relating to that.
Make a commitment to witnessing and appreciating differences and uniqueness, and realizing the gifts that each family member brings to the whole.
Make a commitment to forgive mistakes, recognizing that actions are not always perfect, but the light within, the essence of the person, is always deserving of love, compassion, and forgiveness. Most importantly, forgive yourself first, for this softens the heart and makes it truly possible to forgive others.
Make a commitment to listening. Inherent in true listening is the tuning in to deeper communications, to the souls longing and desire to give free expression to the unique self. Authentic listening allows the listener and the communicator to be transported into a dimension of oneness, to experience greater truth together. This is essential in a truly successful family, especially one with young adults who are waking up to their own understandings of truth.
Make a commitment to peace within the family, and within this, a commitment to non-violence. Choose to create a loving, supportive, expansive environment in which family members are encouraged to be fully themselves, free from fear of judgment, control, or loss of personal power.
Make a commitment to showing up for yourself within the family, to expressing your own uniqueness and pursuing your own dreams, becoming a living example for all to do the same.
Make a commitment to truth and transparency within the family. With nothing to hide, we allow others around us to trust and be vulnerable as well.
Make a commitment to admitting to your mistakes, and doing your best to make amends for them. This also gives others permission to do the same.
Make a commitment to having regular family meetings, in which concerns are addressed, dreams and goals shared, and family plans made. Make sure and use all of the above applications in your family meetings.
Make a commitment to let all family members have a chance to be leaders, teachers, and initiators. This allows everyone's gifts to shine. Allow all, even (especially!) the youngest members to make family plans and decide on the goals and directions of the whole. This insures a balanced and supportive environment for all to thrive in. This also insures adults will get some time to play, and young children will get the chance to share responsibility, so everyone will feel more balanced.
Make a commitment to upholding the truth that the family is a bright, swirling, beautiful creative expression of unconditional, pure, divine love.
Make a commitment to be fully present to enjoy this miracle!
Choosing Love Each Moment
When faced with challenges, crisis, and uncertainties in the moment, we always have a choice. We can choose love, or we can choose fear. Jerald Jampolsky authored the book Love Is Letting Go Of Fear (1979), and this statement expresses a universal answer to the question "what is unconditional love?"
When we understand love as our natural state, free from fear, the phrase "unconditional love" expresses a reversal of the limited experience of conditional love, back to the experience oneness. Conditional love and unconditional love, then, are two sides of the same coin, and one cannot exist without the other. Within this clarity, it can be seen that conditional love is an unnatural state of being, a resistance to our natural state. This resistance is caused by beliefs rooted in fear. This fear has its roots in the primary belief in suffering and death. This may sound like an oversimplification of a very complex reality system, yet take a moment to imagine...
Imagine yourself as immortal. You do not experience pain, and your being cannot suffer, nor can any other being. Would you know fear? If you knew nothing else but continuous experience, growth, and beingness, would you not be fearless? Your dance with all other energies would have a freedom from concerns of loss, pain, suffering, abandonment, or betrayal. The hesitancy and building of trust necessary to many human relationships would not exist, and the playful dance of joy and bliss would naturally occur between all.
Now, know that you are immortal. Your physical body may experience pain, but this is just an experience. Suffering is a condition of your limited human focus, yet your true self expands far beyond your human focus. Now look at the daily challenges, the uncertainties and fears that come up so often. See them in terms of this bigger picture, this greater spiritual perspective. Take a deep breath and affirm your true nature. Can you imagine fearlessness? Can you imagine staying in the natural state of bliss even though you are having many experiences? Can you imagine, in each moment, choosing love instead of choosing fear?
Living with a human focus, this understanding often requires a "leap of faith." When we can trust life, when we can essentially trust ourselves as competent divine creative beings, we can truly choose fearlessness. This naturally leads to having little need to protect the self. When you lose the need to protect yourself, your focus naturally shifts to having continuous experiences of love, joy, and oneness with others. When you are fearless, and someone is struggling with fear within themselves, rather than resonating with their fear, you will naturally act in a supportive way. You will guide and help this one to be fearless and "in love" along with you. Everyone is a playmate, and seeing others suffering and confused in their experience, you send energy effortlessly from your heart to help them open their hearts and heal. We describe this effortless heart-flow as the feeling of "compassion." When you are fearless, you can choose love easily and freely, in each moment, with each experience you have. When you are challenged, you can think to yourself "What would I do if I was fearless?" and "How would I act if I had no need to protect my position?" or "What would I do with the realization that I truly have nothing to protect?" Some people like to use "What would love do?" What would Jesus do?" or "What would Ammachi do?" Asking these questions in moments of challenge can be a very powerful and transformative practice.
Conclusion
Part of the spiritual evolution of each individual and the world as a whole is to move into reconnecting with the endless well of love. Everyone is at different stages of this grand journey, and we can see this pull toward an evolution in consciousness both in the experience of bliss as well as in experience of intense depression and longing for something more. This evolution is expressed in the movement through the chakra system, which we can see taking place at the collective level as well as individually. Anodea Judith tells us that on the global level, we are moving from the third chakra to the heart chakra. Judith states, "You are the ones who will be leading humanity's rite of passage into the next age. For the awakening of the global heart occurs as each of its many cells opens to the power of love in its own heart and joins together to pump life and breath into every corner of the globe."
Charles Fillmore, as quoted by Catherine Ponder in The Prospering Power Of Love (1996), says, "The more we talk about love, the stronger it grows in the consciousness, and if we persist in thinking loving thoughts and speaking loving words, we are sure to bring into our experience the feeling of that great love that is beyond description, the very love of God. Each of us makes the choice to open or close ourselves off from the love that permeates the universe during every moment. Our choices affect the future reality that we are creating now, not only for ourselves but for all beings here on earth. The ability to act with unconditional love throughout the challenges life brings to us must be our greatest yearning as we work together to evolve the consciousness of humanity. When we open ourselves to love and allow the power of the universe to flow through us unhindered, we are holding this channel of energy open for the entire world. We become expressions of divine love and radiate this to all. On the other hand, when we shut ourselves off from love in any form, we constrict this flow of love, which then affects all as well. This makes each moment of our lives a great opportunity to hold the love that is part of each of our being. As more and more of us let go of our fears and open our hearts to embracing our true selves, we make this a reality of life on earth. Sanaya Roman says in Soul Love (1997), "You become the light, lighting the way. You become the stillness that opens doors. You become the love that heals...Your love releases any chains of fear, limitation and the past. Your love opens gateways to the future; releases the hidden potential and adds the light that allows all that is good to emerge, blossom and come into being." We can allow love to bloom from the deepest part of our true nature into full expression during our lives.
True Love Is Without End.
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http://www.ammachi.org
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http://www.susankramer.com
http://www.iloveulove.com/wisdom/wisdomquotes.htm