What’s love got to do with enlightenment? Everything. Most of us are searching for love. The problem is we’re searching in all the wrong places. And, although we’ve all experienced the feeling of love at least once in our life, we don’t really understand what this feeling is or where it comes from. No wonder we’re frustrated and confused.
Love seems to come and go in our life and we don’t seem to have any control of how, why or where it comes or goes. When we’re not in an intimate relationship, we feel we are missing love. When an intimate relationships ends, we feel we have lost love and maybe we’ll never find it again. When we’re in an intimate relationship even then sometimes it seems like love has flown the coop.
What does this beautiful, miraculous, wonderful, confusing, painful, frustrating and impossible to understand experience of love really mean? And what can it possibly have to do with spiritual awakening? As I said in the beginning it has everything to do with enlightenment.
First off let me be very clear about one important thing. Love can NEVER be lost. You couldn’t lose love if you tried no matter how hard you tried. Your very nature IS love. You can’t be separate from love any more than you could be separate from you. It just can’t happen. So why do we so often feel separate from love when there isn’t a loved one in our life and sometimes even if there is? That’s because we don’t understand what love is and where it comes from. We think love comes from someplace outside of us. We began believing this right at birth. We believed it was our parents that gave us this feeling of love. We believed it was our family and friends and later more intimate friends. We believed so strongly that love came from outside of us in some interaction with others that we have become completely unaware of this love that is always here. In fact all of these interactions simply awakened our awareness of this love that is always here. And the love we feel in these interactions is only a very tiny, limited, shallow experience of this love that is always here and we can never be separate from. And, as you know, even this tiny, limited, shallow experience of love is absolutely wonderful!
So we have been conditioned all of our life to not be aware of this love that we are. Because this conditioning has so effectively blinded us to our true nature as love, we search for it outside where it cannot be found. No wonder we’re frustrated and confused. No wonder we feel lonely and uncared for.
But there is hope. Because this love is what we are and can never be separate from us, it is always available for us, as us. As soon as we turn our attention toward it, we realize it is right here and always has been. This is a wonderful discovery. This is waking up.
My suggestion is to focus on the love that is always here. Turn your attention inward instead of outward. Recognize that when you interact with someone and feel love stirring in your heart, this love is stirring in your heart. It is not outside of you. That should give you a hint of where to look for it. We don’t have to wait for someone to trigger this awareness of love. It is always here. Be aware now.
Before you met your beloved this love was here. When you met your beloved this love was here. Only now you were probably more aware of it. After your beloved leaves you, this love is still here. There is nowhere for it to go. Only your awareness of it has changed. Put your awareness of love on the love that is always here. If you do this, you will no longer be frustrated or confused. You will no longer be lonely, whether you are with anyone or not. And it’s probably not surprising that many people will want to be with you. Love is extremely attractive. And you ARE love. Only now you’re aware of it. And people sense this. It is like a powerful perfume that attracts people like a magnet. Everyone wants love. They just don’t know where to find it. But now you do.
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