Heart Space Transmissions: Love…

What is love and what does it mean to you? Many people get caught with the idea that love is simply an emotion or feeling that we have for another person. In my experience, it is those feelings of loving connection that help us to open up to the possibility of what Love is. However, Love itself is more than a feeling, more than a state of mind and even more than a state of being. Some people use the word “Love” as an alternate name for God or the Divine. This understanding of Love suggests that Love created all things and therefore exists in all things.
Yet, how then can we find Love in all things?

 

By releasing judgment. Judging something as “other than” love takes away from us the opportunity to experience Love in all things. It is true that many beings and forms can express themselves in ways that are not true to their essence of Love. However, does this mean that Love does not exist there? Or perhaps that it is hidden under layers of ego, fear, trauma, or other conditioning? In realizing this, Love must also become action. It is the Love activated within us that can find true connection to others, to Creator and to the Earth and all beings. The simple act of expressing Love and compassion to others begins to allow the Love within them to awaken more fully. Simply by being recognized.
Mother Theresa said it like this:
“Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

How then do we activate Love?
Is it necessary to go out and build a temple for your Love? Or to become a saint, or volunteer with 5 non-profits and charities? Could it be enough, for now, to allow Love to grow inside of us, by giving it space? We can make more space for love by letting go of judgment and fear. By noticing love in others and allowing that to begin to dissolve the illusions of separation.
Mother Theresa’s wisdom here is priceless. My two favorite quotes of hers are similar:
“It’s not about HOW MUCH you do, but how much Love you put into what you do that counts.”
And so, when we feel the urge to do more than we know is possible for us in the moment, let us also remember these famous, simple and profound words:
“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
So it could be said that it is Love that has the power to unite and connect us because it is Love that flows in and through each of us. And with love in our hearts and in our minds we want to be treated fairly and with compassion and we want that for others as well. This, as so many teachings, can be found in the simplicity of the Golden Rule. It’s been said that each and every religion and wisdom tradition can boil down to this very important understanding. If nothing else: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Treat others as you would be treated yourself” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
And please please please first, Love yourself fully and with great compassion and tenderness. And then love others that way as well.

I also want to touch on expressions of Love. Devotional Love and Unity Love. Many wisdom traditions and spiritual practices light up a path… a path that leads where exactly? To God. Indeed mystics and seekers are yearning to share moments with the Infinite and there are two very different ways of experiencing this.
The first is Devotional love. Some argue that being Devoted to God or to Spirit or to the Great Mother in itself suggests that we are indeed separate from God. Yet there have been moments in almost everyone’s lives where we yearn for deeper connection, to give Great Thanks, To dance and sing with praise on our lips, To feel lifted from a dark place and be touched with Love before being tenderly set back on our feet. There is beauty in Devotional love for others, for Life, for Creator and all Creation. The medicine of devotion inspires us to have loving self-care that we may be worthy and show up in our devotion in a good way, so we may offer our words, our actions and our grand bouquets of love at the feet of the Infinite One.
Another way of experiencing love for, with and from the Divine is through Unity Consciousness and non-dualism. In this understanding, the lines of separation fall away and we merge as one with All That Is. Quantum physics refers to this as the unified fields and many indigenous traditions call it the web of life. Meditation, Breathing, time in nature and non-ordinary states of consciousness can awaken this feeling of Oneness. However, we do live in a world of polarities and those polarized realities will often stick their heads into our Oneness bubble and… POP. It is inevitable, although the experience of Oneness with all creation is both profound and subtly sweet, the feeling remaining in our memories and heart like an echo as we have been imprinted and upgraded with each experience in the presence of Creation.
A combination of these schools of thought is practiced by both the ancients, and modern mystics.
Because what makes you long for and crave the Divine more than having tasted that sweet nectar?
What makes you want to sing the song of the Sacred more than having heard that song directly?

In Love and Gratitude,
Colbee