Love Seeing Love

         The Hindu salutation “namaste” is often translated as “the divine light in me bows to the divine light in you”.  I resonate with this reverent acknowledgement of our essential nature and our essential oneness.

         According to my favorite cosmological story, at the very beginning, a creative and intelligent emptiness – the nameless mystery some call God – burst into the energy of love.  Love, the first expression of God, gradually cooled to become everything and everyone.  So, in this story, everything and everyone is love.  Divine light is love.

         I invite you to try a thought experiment.  For the next week or so, whenever you look at someone or whenever you look in a mirror, imagine this:  Love is seeing love.

         Namaste! 

Love-Flow

         Love is a complicated, sometimes loaded, word.  Its meaning changes with the people using it and the context in which it’s used.  Despite its baggage, it’s the word around which I organize my soul’s purpose in this life stream. 

         When I speak of love in my teaching and writing, I’m referring to universal love or unconditional love - as distinct from egoic (personality-oriented) or romantic love.

         For me, love is a verb and a noun.  As a verb, to love means to flow freely with the positive, intelligent, creative, healing energy of the universe – the energy that permeates everything and each of us.  As a noun, love is the flow of universal energy - a dynamic process of receiving and radiating. 

         If we try to radiate without receiving, we exhaust ourselves.  If we hoard energy and try to receive without radiating, we get spiritually constipated.  Receiving and radiating are equally essential to love-flow.

         Love is unconditional.  It makes no judgment about the worth or value of whom or what we love.  It’s like the radiance of the sun, which shines on everyone and never withholds its energy because someone isn’t a “good” person. 

         Love is intrinsic to who we are.  At the heart/soul level - the deepest level of being - love is what best defines us.  And, when we’re most connected to heart/soul, this flow is not just who we are, it’s what we do.

         Love moves through us.  We don’t have to earn it or work to create it.  We simply need to soften and surrender to its flow.  This is a bit like stepping into the current of a river and allowing it to carry us – simply, naturally, effortlessly.  Love does the heavy lifting.

         Simple, yes.  Easy, no.  The theory course on unconditional love is not that difficult.  The lab is where it gets tricky.

         We’ve learned so many ways to impede the flow of love – so many ways we block ourselves from receiving and radiating.  Habitual emotions, stories, beliefs, expectations and patterns of behavior – mostly related to fear and unworthiness – trick us into tightening down, creating barriers and holding ourselves back from the river of life.

         As we focus on receiving fully and radiating freely, we become more mindful of our barriers and, hopefully, more compassionate toward them.   As we inhale universal/unconditional love into our fear and unworthiness, we gently invite these obstacles to melt away.  Gradually, they do melt.  And if, again and again, we breathe love into our hearts and breathe love out from our hearts, we will deepen our capacity to receive and radiate – fully and freely.

         With persistent practice, new habits of love-flow take root and blossom.

Cultivating Contentment

         It’s easy for us to get caught in habits of discontentment, where our inner world focuses on the negativity of what’s missing, what’s wrong or what could go wrong.

         A couple years ago, knowing he’d been dealing with some physical pain, I asked my friend Rich how his shoulder was feeling.  He said something like:  “It still hurts some.  But then I remind myself of the thousands of other body parts that feel great and are working just fine - and I feel grateful.” 

         I was awed by that response.

         As a psychotherapist, I know the benefits of what we call “cognitive restructuring” – making conscious efforts to alter habits of thinking that don’t serve our highest good.  We can cultivate contentment by deliberately noticing what’s good in our world, appreciating the beauty around and within us.

         Spring Forest QiGong offers another approach.   In that system, contentment and discontentment are associated with the lungs.  Lately, I’ve been breathing the energy of contentment into my lungs and exhaling discontent - picturing butterflies flitting off into the universe, where all energy can be transformed into some aspect of love.  Often, after just a few breaths, I feel contentment as a warmth that begins in my chest and melts into the rest of my body.

         I soften and relax.  My body smiles.  Cultivating contentment opens pathways to peace and love.      

Unblocking the Flow

         I’ve come to see the flow of life as an unrestricted movement of love-energy within us and between us.  In this flow, we freely receive the loving energy of the universe, and we freely allow it to move unimpeded through us and radiate outward from us. 

         After infancy, few of us continue to flow freely with love as a consistent way of being in the world.  We block the flow by not receiving, by not radiating – or both. 

         For me, old stories of unworthiness and old rules of engagement interfere with receiving.  Old hungers and a tendency toward self-absorption trick me into being stingy and less giving with love.  Self-protection strategies and assumptions of scarcity block the flow at both ends: receiving and giving.   Under those conditions, love’s economy cannot boom – or bloom.

         We tighten, rather than soften – closing instead of opening.  We mistrust ourselves and this natural flow.  We mistrust others.  We mistrust life.  Of course we do.  We’ve all known hurt and disappointment in our attempts to connect in love’s flow. 

         May we approach ourselves with mercy and compassion as we work to free ourselves from the imprisonment of fear, shame and old habits of mistrust.

         For me, one key is to open regularly and receive deeply from the inexhaustible wellspring of love that is this universe - to bask from above and below, from around and within.  Trusting this dependable abundance reassures me that it is safe to love extravagantly – as nature intends.  Trusting this abundance brings a smile to my face and joy to my heart. 

         Healing love radiates like the sun.

Vibrating Light 

         The Guarani, a deeply spiritual indigenous tribe living in South American rain forests (Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina), have a healing tradition that is passed down through the generations and is grounded in the healing power of love.  From the Guarani perspective, each of us is an energy field of light and love. 

         Elizabeth Cosmos writes of her experience with the practice of Ama-Deus, a healing approach rooted in Guarani spirituality.  Here’s a passage that speaks to me:

         “The main point in our evolution is to view and know life from a spiritual or energetic perspective.  The indigenous people and the mystics understand this and safeguard it with their lives, and now, some scientists are building a language for the subtle fields.  We are finely vibrating oscillating bodies of light interwoven with the electromagnetic bodies of others, of the earth, and of the Universe.

         As we learn this language and perceive from the heart, the veil of separation will dissolve.  There is no separation in the physical world and the spiritual world.  Viewing life from an energetic perspective sees all life as one, whether from the subtler spiritual planes or the denser physical material planes.  An energetic perspective simply gives a more complete picture, and this perspective follows that all life is sacred and intimately connected.”

Elizabeth Cosmos, Ama-Deus: Healing with the Sacred Energy of the Universe, pp. 154-5.

Liberating Love

         Human love, as commonly understood, is a messy affair.  It tends to spring from an evaluation of the beloved – what’s lovable and not so lovable in him/her.  It also evokes self-evaluation - questions about one’s capacity to love and worthiness to receive love.   

         From the perspective of young ego, love is exhilarating and dangerous - a high stakes venture, where the prize is precious and the risks, devastating.  Egoic love is entangled with, and strangled by, fear and judgment.

         We fear being rejected or abandoned or cheated or used/abused by the other. We fear the humiliation of self-judgment when love is unrequited.  No wonder we hold back.  No wonder we self-protect.  No wonder we become strategic and controlling.

         At another level, none of this angst is necessary.  At this deeper level, love is neither scarce nor dangerous.  It’s the energy that holds everything together – from atoms to families to this planet.  It’s abundant and unavoidable - the energy of everything, the energy of who we are. 

         At this level, the flow of love is natural and effortless.  Navigating human interactions may still be complex and confusing, but love is simple.  And, while love is a natural and effortless flow, it requires intentionality and persistent practice to make a more permanent shift away from the egoic paradigm of separation and scarcity. 

         Liberating love is a process - and I’m still a learner. While much has been written about this process – and much more could be – I offer three brief suggestions. 

         First of all, we need to realize that humanity can move beyond an egoic approach to love.  In this growth process, we humans typically move from “immature ego” (where we’re way out of balance - either overly preoccupied with self and disregarding of others or overly preoccupied with others and disregarding of self), to “mature ego” (where there is a healthy balance of care and regard for self and others), to immersion in the flow of universal, unconditional love – our true, natural state.

         Second, every day in a regular way, let’s declare our intention to soften and open to the flow of universal love.  My practice is to do so first thing in the morning, face-to-face in front of a mirror.  Often during the day, especially before important interactions, I remind myself of this commitment to flow.

         Third, let’s use our breath to practice being in the flow of love.  For example, we can inhale the energy of universal love from below, above, around and within; and then exhale love in every direction and especially toward what’s right before us. Sometimes, I picture golden light entering through every pore, gathering in my heart, and radiating out from my heart toward others.  Sometimes, as breathe in, I focus on a felt sense of love coming into my heart, then radiating outward as I exhale.  There are many ways to practice.  It’s important to find what works for us - and stick with it!

         When we approach relationship in the flow of universal love, we cannot be depleted, we cannot be cheated, we cannot lose ourselves.  We don’t become invincible or invulnerable.  We’re still human.  We still experience the full range of human emotion.  Ego, however, is not in the driver’s seat.  Flowing with universal love frees us from attachment to outcome and, ironically, allows us to have wonderful outcomes – powerful and positive effects on those around us.

         With persistent practice, receiving and radiating love becomes more habitual and more natural.  We move into harmony with our love nature.  We feel a deeper sense of integrity and connection – and peace.

         We liberate ourselves.   We liberate love.

Love First

         I have long believed that if I want anything to change – in myself or in any situation I encounter – I must love it first.

         This brief piece of writing was shared in group last night.  (Thanks, Ann.)  Each time I read it, it deepens within me.  Maybe it will touch you, too.

         “In the end, so much of the conflict we feel in our hearts is because we’ve split ourselves off from the very life we are living. We partition ourselves from the things with which we are at odds, treating them as unbelonging even as we live them.

         “We vaguely imagine some other place, some better job, some other lover—but the irony is that so much of what makes us unhappy is our own rejection of the life we have made.

         “Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own. We must look at it squarely, with all its unbecoming qualities, and find a way to love it anyway. Only from that complete embrace can a life begin to grow into what it is meant to become.”

         Excerpt from Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner (belongingbook.com)

Love the Body

         The roles have reversed.  In younger years, I told my body what to do and, generally, it complied.  Now, my 73-year-old body gives most of the orders, and I do the complying. 

         It’s my job to listen to the body – respectfully attending to its needs and requirements.  It’s been quietly taking care of me since before I was born.  Now it’s my turn to care for it.

         My body used to be more forgiving.  Now it’s more assertive.    It quickly lets me know when I overdo it or feed it badly or deny it the rest it needs.  It squawks when I slack off my stretching and exercise routines or neglect meditation and QiGong practices.

         Historically, when the body spoke to me in the language of pain and discomfort, I tended to react with irritation – essentially telling the body to stop complaining – unaware that I was sending messages of rejection and creating mistrust.

         Now I say: “thanks for telling me.”  I do my best to send compassion and love to whatever hurts inside me – sometimes using imagery, more often using the breath.  I inhale healing love into the painful place.  Exhaling, I release tension and unneeded energy.  

         When I’ve been cranky with my body - or critical or neglectful or disregarding - I apologize.  I do my best to repair any damage I do to this important relationship.

         We are in constant dialog with the body.  It speaks to us in so many ways.  And, with the choices we make and the tones we take, we speak volumes about our care – or lack thereof.

         The message matters.  Choose mindfully.  Love the body.

Re-Membering Christchurch

    Three months ago, I was in New Zealand walking through streets and parks in Christchurch – a beautiful city that was devastated a few years back by an earthquake that toppled much of the city, including the two main cathedrals in town – one Anglican, one Catholic.  I’m pretty sure I walked by the mosque where such terrible violence, and most of the deaths, occurred.  I see from the map that it stood at the edge of a park I’d visited. 

         Stunned, not quite comprehending the enormity of this horror, I wrestle with a conclusion that I’ve come to hold ever more fiercely in recent years – the conclusion that divine presence is at the core of each of us, even those who behave heinously.  I question once again my sense of the human condition.

         I know we humans are wounded by the experience of separation that incarnation brings.  I realize how vulnerable the individual human psyche is to the many ways in which we are hurt by each other and harmed by various social structures around us.  How easy it is for us to be captured by fear and loathing and by ideologies that justify unthinkable cruelty.  I ache.

         I’m deciding not to jettison the conclusion I hold dear.  I see the light of spirit shining through in the loving response of Christchurch’s mayor.  I see that same spirit in the outpouring of love and support from around the world.  At a more personal level, I see that spirit in the love that surrounds me.

         So, how do I account for the atrocity in Christchurch? 

         I’ve come to experience the divine presence as powerful and persistent within us - and it’s very quiet.  The light-source within can be covered and crusted over so completely in a human being that it cannot be seen or known from outside or inside.  In some cases, like this one perhaps, human activity can only reflect darkness.  No light seeps through. 

         At 4am this morning, I was awake.  This poem came.

Re-Membering Christchurch

In a Christchurch mosque

Children, women, men

Gathered to pray –

And were preyed upon.

Martyred by night

Returned to the light

We pray for them now.

Hearts join as one.

All churches,

All temples,

All mosques –

All Christchurch now.

         Harm to anyone, harms everyone.

         May we re-member.  We are one.

         May peace begin within.

         Final note:  I’ll be traveling in South America for the next few weeks.  Will post again upon my return.  Namaste!

Snow-track Contrasts

         For over a month now, the snow in central Minnesota has made for some beautiful and exhilarating cross-country skiing.  After 6 inches of new accumulation last night, this morning on the trails was particularly gorgeous and, as it turns out, quite instructive.

         Fluffy white snow piled high on tree-branches and balanced precariously atop the many oak leaves still clinging to their branches.  Vibrant, near-violet, blue sky provided the perfect contrast/backdrop for awesome viewing.  Sparkling sunrays glistened off snow all around me.  Usually I ski without stopping.  Today, I paused several times, for several minutes at a time, to soak in and soak up the scenery.  Gratitude was skiing with me.

         When I strayed into rumination, the beauty of my surroundings called me back to the present moment.  For me, the contrast between present and not present mirrored the contrast between violet-blue sky and sparkling white snow – so vivid and clear.  

         The trails hadn’t been groomed yet.  For about half of the 2-mile loop, I followed a single track set down by someone who’d been there before me.  Then, I branched off to a more difficult section of trail no one had skied yet.  Another contrast became apparent.  Blazing a new trail takes a lot more effort.  The exertion is exhilarating for me – and so is the ease and speed of following a track that’s already been travelled.

         Reminds me of the spiritual path.   I’m grateful for teachers who have paved and eased the way.  And I’m grateful for the quiet moments of inspiration when I’m guided to bushwhack into new territory, blazing a trail that’s new – at least for me.  The experiences are different, and both are good.

         I see that contrast is all around us – in all areas of life.  It opens doors.  It teaches and grows us.  It helps us clarify who we are and expand into who we truly are.