"I am your own voice echoing off the walls of God." -- Rumi
I fell in love a few times in my life and then one day, I fell in love with love itself and my life was transformed forever. I believe that the healing power of love allowed me to survive a life-threatening illness and I know without a doubt that it is the most tranformative power on earth. My wish is that we all tap into our own source of unconditional love. By finding love within first, we can transform our inner landscape and our world for the better. We shed insecurities, feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem because we know we have all the love we need inside of ourselves.
The Great Disconnect
Throughout our lives, we usually become aware of love mostly through experiences with others and through intensely beautiful moments happening in our hearts. When love is present in our lives and gifts us with positive experiences, we feel as though we are on top of the world. We are elevated to the highest highs our bodies, minds, spirits can handle, life is bliss. But when we lose the connection with that love and the sand castles are washed away, we fall into despair and experience the other side of the coin, the raw pain and suffering lack of love causes. The pain of separation from that love is searing and devastating. It is not love that hurts, it's the feeling of being suddenly separated from it that tears us apart!
It is possible to permanently connect with love and to transition from love experiences to love as a state of being. This connection is, in effect, our pathway to liberation from the cycle of pain and pleasure and from birth and death as we know it. Once the connection with our own love source is firmly established and we live life from our heart center, we in effect align ourselves with the fastest path to freedom. The more open to love we become, the more love we experience.
In the next few weeks, I will share with you the experiences that allowed me to feel love on a totally different level and I hope that you share with me what role love is playing in your life, in your heart.
I have felt that as we advance on the path of love, we become open receptacles where love can pour in and saturate every molecule of our being until we can completely and only identify with love as a state of being. It's miraculous how love can find subtler and deeper levels to identify with inside of our own self: It is as though love masterfully finds its target and melts our blockages and resistance on contact. Love is the most exquisite agent of change and transformation available to us.
It's a myth that to be truly spiritual, we must renounce the world, but we must learn to cultivate the silence and the awareness that allow a gentle detachment and space between life and our reactions to life's events. This is the space where love can usher in and reshape the whole landscape of our awareness. We surrender to the truth of each moment because love is truth in action. A monk sitting in a cave may feel victory because he successfully tamed his attraction to worldly distractions by removing himself from that particular environment, but his mind may still be spinning with just as many distractions as the householder man in the midst of his daily worldly life.
Love Is Freedom
Just as love's goal in the world is to expand its own experience through myriads of individual lives, love's goal in the soul is to take us to higher and higher states of consciousness all the way to a state of complete freedom. The more our consciousness expands, the more love experiences will come into our lives. Every state of expansion offers its unique gifts of manifesting the most appropriate love experiences for our growth. As love expands, so does consciousness.
We are plugged into the most powerful source of energy and all we are asked to do is to allow the power of love to unfold our life story, with grace and mystery.
"Love is the force operating throughout the entire universe and of course between humans. Recognized by philosophers east and west, it is a self organizing drive to greater unity." -- Ken Wilber
Love is freedom. Love's energy vibrates in the gaps between our thoughts, the soft space before our emotions manifest and when the mind is at rest. It's the perfect reflection of our full potentiality as human beings.
The sudden and complete recognition of love's power and intensity dissolves our identification with the ego instantly. In the now. It cannot be otherwise. It is too big for the mind to wrap around, too delicious for the heart to stay closed. It is too earth-shattering for the intellect to comprehend. The ego cannot survive in this most fertile love environment because it is rendered completely powerless. It has found its master and it knows it.
When we enter love's path to freedom, we become devotees of love, intent to live from our hearts, for and through love. We are no longer bound to the ego's demands and the ego's reactions. Love melts our identification with our ego structure and ushers the most fulfilling discovery of our oneness with each other.
The discoveries on the path of the heart abounds with a richness and depth of nuance that are astonishing. Love is the master, the heart is the pupil and the entire universe is the classroom.
Let's embark together on this journey and share how love is transforming our lives.
Toni Emerson is a writer and a speaker. She is currently working on her book, "The Love Dialogues." For free love quotes delivered daily to your inbox or to your loved one's inbox, visit her website: www.LoveQuoteOfTheDay.com.