Reconnecting With 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)
“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.