Love

In a certain sense, love is one of the thorniest problems we confront as humans. I can hear the cry now, “Love is not a problem at all!” Yet, despite the fact that love, boundless universal love, is arguably the most basic and essential human quality for our individual and collective flourishing, for many of us love is a problem because we have little to no idea what it is. Stop for a moment and consider if you have really ever thought about what love is. Have you ever felt real deep and penetrating love? What are loves’ qualities and characteristics? Can it be described? Love is a problem for us because many of us have been brought up in families, societies, cultures, and religions which have forgotten what love is. Love is ignored, usually unconsciously, while competition, greed, and self-interest rule the day. My goal here is to explore what love is and what it is not, in the process putting forth a few of my ideas concerning the qualities and characteristics which get to the heart of what love is or may be.

Let’s start with a bang! After considerable thinking and consideration of what love is, let me come right out with my working definition. Love is unconditional regard for all beings. This proposition has several parts which we must unpack in order to arrive at what I mean, thus far, by love. The first word-idea is unconditional which means without limits or conditions. This word-idea is commonly misunderstood. Some people hear the word unconditional and call to mind a person who sacrifices their own needs for the needs of others despite the cost to their personal emotional, psychological, and physical well-being. For highly realized beings and in moments of deep love such a sacrifice may be genuine. Although, my issue with this idea of what unconditional means is that it can be psychologically destructive, easily creating a martyr complex in an individual.

Sometimes a person simply does not have good boundaries, self-awareness, and self-care practices and hence they focus all their attention on others and neglect their own very real emotional and psychosocial needs. This person, for various reasons, conceives of their identity and worth only in terms of what they do for others. All the while missing the subtle cues issuing forth from their heart-minds concerning what is essential for their psychical well-being, including a basic sense of satisfaction in the realms of work/vocation and creativity. For example, if a child’s sense of self is not fostered and celebrated, and in turn they are told it is selfish to focus on them selves, they will often build an identity centered on pleasing others and accordingly have no idea of their own proclivities and callings. Note, when I speak of celebrating and encouraging the child I don’t mean encouraging some exaggerated individualism. Rather, I am referring to the importance of acknowledging and fostering the child’s basic goodness, uniqueness, with all the gifts, quirks, strengths, and peculiarities that come along with the particular individual. If a child (who is a future adult) is to ever consider a broadening of their self-identity to include a profoundly felt sense care and respect for others, then he or she must have a decent level of self-awareness (individuality) to expand, go beyond, perhaps even transcend, in the first place.

As concerns the unhealthy sense of self-giving I have been describing, there are often subtle, or not so subtle, egoistic undercurrents lurking just out of sight. Instead of self-transcendence, the person is actually creating an unconscious ego-identity wrapped up with neglect of self (as relative and illusory as the concept of self may ultimately be) and always doing for others. This kind of dong for others is actually a curse on both the doer and the one done for. Resentment easily builds in the doer if he does not receive the gratitude and recognition he thinks he deserves. In addition, he will likely be unable to admit to himself that he expects gratitude from others because he imagines himself to be selfless and doing his deeds for noble humanitarian or divine causes. This man may also be seeking a love he never received for being the uniquely beautiful and flawed being that he is from those he “helps.” He hopes others will love him, will see and recognize him, for what he has done and is doing. He yearns for this recognition. As far as he is concerned his very existence depends on it. Again, he may be resentful if he doesn’t receive the attention and adoration from other’s which the wounded child in him seeks. This man doesn’t realize that he is lovable for no other reason than that he is himself (whatever that self may or may not mean). He doesn’t realize that love is the primordial principal, the glue that holds all life together, and that he is love and hence can never be separated from love. If only he knew and felt these things with his innermost being his madness would end immediately.

Now, we come to positive definitions of the word unconditional. By positive, I simply mean what unconditional is and not what it is not. To embody the unconditional presupposes that a being’s self-awareness has brought him to the point where he begins to see beyond his own self-interest and experiences the conditioning which separates himself from others begin to dissolve. He is able to give of his skill, intelligence and heart energy in the ways best suited to him and the situation at any given moment. There is a deep understanding that he cannot control others, situations, or often himself. Likewise, he knows that sometimes he has to say no to others when he does not have time or energy to give. This “no” awareness also makes him truly able to say “yes” and give of himself with his whole heart when the timing is right.

One of the paradoxes of the word unconditional is that within it is contained the word conditional. Part of being unconditional means knowing the conditions and capacities one must abide by at any given moment and setting boundaries based on this information. These boundaries don’t have to be immovable, but rather fluid and changeable depending on ones ever fluctuating energy levels, desires, and circumstances. In other words, one cannot make the unconditional conditional with any particular notion of what unconditional means. Therefore, unconditional can encompass the conditional within itself, although, the unconditional is not limited or in any way defined by all of our illusory ideas of conditionality.

Finally, spiritually speaking, he understands that all complex creatures suffer and desire happiness and contentment, hence compassion begins to arise for all beings— including the thought-form he calls himself. The realization dawns on him, however slowly, that while he has the responsibility to follow his own bliss, his happiness in no more or less important than anyone else’s. As this state deepens, concerns for the other begin to be his concerns as well. Going still deeper, he sees that there is in fact only one desire for enlightenment, bliss, love, and the end of suffering. This desire is one, it is common to all and the property of none, it is a cosmic function that is filtered through multitudinous forms which seem to be separate and distinct but which are in fact so many comings and goings of the great cosmic life force seeking to know itself in diverse embodied form. Not one, not two. This is what I call the realization of the unconditional.

We have now explored in some depth the word-idea unconditional, both what it is not and what it is. Let us continue our exploration of Love with the next word in my proposed definition. Remember, my definition is, Love is unconditional regard for all beings. The next word is regard. By regard, I mean care, compassion, interest, and concern. Basically, the person with regard for others truly cares for others. He cares for their happiness and wellbeing. His hope is that they feel content and free from suffering. While he knows that on a certain level each being must realize freedom and happiness for themselves, he also understands that his actions, based on the quality of his consciousness, help to create an atmosphere in which peace, happiness, and ease prevail. Hence, the way a person of regard gives of herself is through her own peace of mind and heart. This giving in no way implies that she is simply inactive. Peace of mind and heart pervade all that she does whether it is talking to a friend, meditating, building a house, or walking in nature.

From her own experience, she knows enough about life to have empathy for all the troubles people experience in life. As previously mentioned, the underpinning of this empathic stance consists in a switch from seeing others as objects separate from herself to be used for her own personal gain, to subjects with many of the same basic needs (love, companionship, understanding, care, etc.) that she has herself. Due to her regard for others, her desire for fulfillment is no loner tainted by the sense that there is not enough love, time, and accomplishment to go around. In other words, she no longer thinks that if she does not get her desires met as quickly as possible someone will get what she wants. Rather, life is now experienced in terms of mutuality. She understands that when we care for one another’s happiness, contentment, and accomplishment we will work together so that each person’s needs are considered simultaneously. Furthermore, she has the sense that to be truly happy necessitates working for the happiness all of all beings. At this stage, she is still views the other in terms of herself, but her view and understanding of self has deepened to the point where she no longer sees self and other as two distinct categories.

Working for the happiness of all beings leads us into the last portion of my definition of love. Love is unconditional regard for all beings. By “all beings,” I mean humans and non-humans alike, and by non-humans I include animals, insects, rocks, trees, oceans, the air, etc. The idea that love is for all beings indicates that on one level love is unattached from any particular being. This does not mean that we won’t love particular manifestations of life but rather it means that love is beyond all forms. Love is a state that permeates our consciousness and flows forth to all beings precisely because of our sense of intimate interconnection and interdependency with them.

As I see it, when love is too attached to one particular form it is easy for mental and emotional states such a covetousness, jealousy, and paranoia to creep in. We may expect too much from the other, wanting them to live up to our very particular expectations of what love is and what they should do and be. This love is not really love at all because we are trying to force another to complete us. The attempt to fit others into our desired patterns and plans implies the belief that we are not whole and that only another being, doing what we tell them to do, will complete us. This desire is doomed to failure as it leads to frustration, disappointment, and dependency of at least one, if not all, of the people involved in the relationship.

Despite this, it is not uncommon to start cultivating deep love with one particular being. In the Buddhist tradition there is a visualization exercise in which one begins to cultivate love and compassion by sending the positive energies to one being who the practitioner already feels lovingly towards. Then, the adept extends the love and compassion towards someone he feels neutral towards. Next, he sends love and compassion to someone he doesn’t like very much, or maybe even hates. In the end, love and compassion are generated for all beings everywhere. In this example, love slowly and methodically extends to all beings. One must be realistic and take this exercise as slowly as needed. It does no good to try to be loving and compassionate towards someone who one is not ready to do so. Yet, as one’s unattached love and compassion (unconditional regard) for one person increases, that love naturally begins to overflow to others. It is like the stereotypical person newly in love who goes around singing and seeing everyone and everything as extremely beautiful. One sees all beings as needing, worthy, and deserving of love and one knows that at the deepest level all beings are the love that they seek even if they do not yet know it themselves. More profoundly, one simply loves all beings because one sees and knows that there is nothing else to do but love as love is the glue that binds all matter together. There is no effort in this sort of love, no calculation or trying. There is simple love, as LOVE IS and is all there is.

In conclusion, my definition of love is made up of three components: Love is (1) unconditional (2) regard (3) for all beings. The term unconditional basically means infinite flexibility to act, think, and feel in a given situation without being bound by any absolute or predetermined philosophy or code of conduct. In Buddhist terms, my term unconditional is similar to upaya (skillful means). The second term, regard, adds an ethical dimension to the first term (unconditional) by adding the qualities of care, compassion, empathy, and mutual concern into the equation.

The idea of regard implies the transformation of a sense of strict ego-boundaries which separate self and other into a more fluid and interconnected experience of the relationships of all beings. This transformation of strict subject/object dualism ranges widely. At the near end of the spectrum one has a basic recognition, extending to ever deeper levels as the ego lessens its grip on the individual that all people suffer and desire happiness as much as “I” do and hence deserve the same care, compassion, and consideration “I” hope for myself. At the further reaches of the spectrum, an extremely subtle realization unfolds in which the complex interconnected web of cosmic-earthly relations which knows no strict separation in its seamless unity in diversity is embodied in lived experience by the individual who no longer is an individual in ordinary egotistical terms. Remember, the weakening of the isolated ego presupposes a previously established “healthy” or “solid” (I use these terms loosely) ego which can be dismantled as one sees ever deeper into the conditioned and ultimately illusory thought/experience construct known the individual ego.

The third and final idea in my definition of love is that this unconditional regard applies to all beings. In other words, love pervades the entire cosmos and therefore equally flows forth from and into all beings. Hence, love is impersonal and unattached to any particular subject/object but at the same time love never leaves out the particular in its embrace because love consumes the whole, the All.

With this said, the real, or shall I say initial, challenge is learning to love one being. It is no accident that the Buddhist compassion exercise starts with one being and extends outwards. We can easily get caught up in abstractions and speculations about love, whereas for most of us love takes place with one or a few people in the here and now amidst our own issues and the stress of jobs, family, and numerous responsibilities. It is significantly more difficult to actually care for a person than it is to imagine some groundless universal love. In order to truly love someone we have to learn to care for them with all their faults and shortcomings, as well as for their admirable qualities. Often, others’ rough edges, or sometimes simply their ways of being that differ from our own, can cause friction in our relationships. We dislike something another does or says because the way we interpret the act seems hurtful or offensive. Whether or not the person’s intention was harmful, the act triggers something in us, some unresolved hurt from our past, which causes us to react, often with greater intensity than the offense, or perceived offense, warrants.

Being triggered indicates a certain amount of normal self-centeredness. People have a tendency to assume that many more things revolve around them than actually is the case. When we take something personally we forget that usually what others do, especially when an act is hurtful, has very little to with us. In reality, the person is defending themselves, in one way or another, due to their inability to integrate the pain of their own wounds. As we move away from an egocentric orientation towards life, we take so called offenses less personally. Detachment from egocentricity opens up the space and ability to love other beings as they are, warts and all, in each and every moment. If we can see others in a non-judgmental and unattached fashion then a great compassion awakens for all the person’s hopes, joys, frustrations, and hurts. We see a beautiful being striving for happiness, fulfillment and contentment in the best way they know how. By the time this level of detachment and love is awakened in a person, their love naturally overflows the bounds of just their partner or parents, whoever they were focusing on initially and slowly but surely grows and encompasses all of life.

The underlying characteristic that unites all three aspects of my definition of love is non-attachment. The hallmark of the unconditional approach is non-attachment to any condition, such as dogmatic rules or absolutist codes of conduct. Instead, as I have said, there is an open and flexible spontaneity which enables us to respond skillfully to each situation as it arises. Non-attachment also applies to our regard for others. One is unattached to the ego-identity which separates self from other.

To some, the word non-attachment sounds like cold indifference to the joys and concerns of others. When understood in the context of regard, non-attachment means that the love-realized being has a naturally spontaneous empathy for all beings. This natural empathy exists minus attachment to the drama which often accompanies relationships due to each person’s fragile ego seeking fulfillment through the recognition and approval of others. Again, that love includes all beings is explained by that fact that love is an energy that permeates the entire cosmos and is therefore not attached or possessive of any particular form.

The being who has truly realized love is permeated by this cosmic force (love) and acts as a conduit, or embodied locus, through which loves flows forth unto all beings with no effort or willfulness on the part of the form channeling love. There is nothing for the love-realized being to be proud of or egotistical about. When love is perfected the ego is transcended and there is no “I” to take pride in the great achievements of love. It is better not even to speak of such a person as to do so draws undue attention to him or her. This person, who is no person at all in the regular sense of the word, has simply become that love which has always been and always will be.

A Radical Pragmatism: On Knowledge and Knowing

When I talk about knowledge, I am thinking about a very specific sort of knowledge. Not so much science, philosophy, sociology, etc. to me, these are information sets that frame, view, and understand the world and experience in various ways. While ways of knowing are diverse and interesting, I do not think that any of them in themselves help us to be better people and this betterment or refinement of ourselves, and the knowledge that will take us there, is what I am interested in. For example, one can be a brilliant scientist or a great sociologist, and be a real jerk at the same time. So, first and foremost, I am looking for a transformational type of knowledge. I will call this knowledge self-knowledge or introspection.

By introspection, I mean taking account of what we see in ourselves at any given moment, without any overlay of what we think we should be feeling or thinking. Just bare honesty of where we are at mentally and emotionally. Then, I think it is important to look for perspectives on why we act in the various, often habitual, ways that we act. At this stage, it is not enough, to me, to just analyze these things mentally because I think it is easy to over intellectualize (and again, one can be a psychologist, therapist, or psychiatrist and still be a nutter). Furthermore, it is important to me not to get caught in, trapped by, any particular school of thought. Along with the process of analyzing our thought patterns, I think it is also important to learn to experience our emotions deeply. We need to find the blockages in our ability to let certain emotions in and feel them, perhaps because of past experiences that caused us to call this or that emotion unacceptable.

Next, I think a practice like meditation is important because in meditation there is an opportunity to sit back and witness the flow of thoughts and emotions, not just being led away by them but rather seeing them arise and fall away thereby getting a sense of how we are usually attached and identified with our thoughts and emotions which can lead us into a lot of trouble (stubbornness, meanness, etc.) if we don't questions our mental and emotional tendencies. Furthermore, in my experience, during longer stints of meditation there is also the ability to have some non-normal experiences of consciousness which cue us into some of the deeper levels (levels not normally experienced, at least by me) of consciousness.

Next, there is the questions of ethics. How should I live my life? I think this is important because at some point I need to see if my actions in the world correspond to my insights and values, at the moment. Perhaps there is even a certain type of knowledge gained by doing (gardening, feeding the hungry, etc.)

So, in the end, as in the beginning, I am thinking of a knowledge that helps us to understand our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions better, that helps us live in more honest and kind ways. Two of the marks of this type of knowledge and knowing, to me, is that it is relative and impermanent. There are no final conclusions, just a process of continual self-exploration, always remembering that our ability to see ourselves is conditioned by the particular ways in which we think and feel (which are not objective/universal) and that that which we don't yet know about ourselves prevents us from seeing deeper within our relative framework, in that moment.

INTUITION

To me, intuition is something like a hunch. I know something but I don't know why I know it. For example, perhaps I have this strong feeling, or a dream, that someone I love has died and then I find out a short while later that they did die (perhaps right around the time I has the hunch/intuition). Or perhaps I just knew someone was going to call and they called.

I think that sometimes we can have a strong sense of something (an intuition) of what is going to happen because of familiarity with the type of situation. Perhaps we have seen someone we love do something over and over again and we then start to see signs that remind us of these previous experiences. Once these signs are noticed then we just somehow know that this person is doing 'such and such' again, even though no one told us and we haven't seen it ourselves yet.

Speaking more philosophically, there is a vast amount of information that we process at all times. We are only consciously aware of so much of this information at any given moment. Perhaps the reason for this is because it would be too overwhelming to be aware of all the information, and images, at once so our minds are aware of only that which is most necessary for our normal functioning. In addition, we also have our habitual thought and emotional patterns which likely cause us to notice some types of images and information much more readily than others.

So, perhaps intuition is the ability of our psyche to fill in those gaps (the often unrecognized images and information) that normally exist below conscious awareness. When we become more aware of the causes and conditions, information and images, that normally lie below the surface of our awareness we are able to intuit or guess that such a such a thing happened or is likely to happen. I don't think it is always necessary for us to know consciously that the mind has taken in more information than normal which has caused the intuition. I think it sometimes just happens and the proof, or the result, is this knowing beyond the known (the known being what we are normally, currently, consciously, and/or habitually aware of), which I am calling intuition.

I like that..."Intuition is knowing beyond the known."

Courage

What is courage? I believe that courage is the ability to look directly at whatever is arising in the present moment and respond without retreating into old fears or relying on conventional wisdom for a quick and easy answer. A situation that requires courage implies a challenge. We do not need courage for mundane tasks. Courage is reserved for those tasks which ask us to step outside of the known, our comfort zones, and engage with a situation that makes us uncomfortable. What is it about a given situation that makes us uncomfortable? When a situation asks us to do something that we do not know how to handle based on past experience/our conditioning we become uncomfortable, fearful, and filled with anxiety. Courage is that quality which allows us to feel these feelings of fear and despite these fears look deep into our heart-mind and discern what is the correct response and act, or not act, upon it.

It is easy to get caught in the fear and never act. We can perseverate on an issue, thinking it over and over without ever doing a thing other than thinking and worrying. In the beginning, I think courage is related to faith, and by faith I mean trust in the unknown. We have to be willing to step outside of our comfort zone and do that which we know must be done despite the thoughts and emotions that try to hold us back from action. In my experience, I have found that many of the fears I have are in fact not founded upon reality, i.e., they either don’t come true when I do the thing I was scared to do, or I find that by doing what my higher self urges me to do I can accept responsibility for whatever happens, hence not having my actions dictated by fear what of others will think or do in response to my actions.. In other words, in the beginning we have to have faith that acting in a way that is not dictated by our conditioning will produce favorable results. We may be frightened, but even if we don’t do exactly the right thing, or say the perfect words, the act of steeping outside of the known, outside of our fear, creates a new movement in our minds, a movement towards greater flexibility of mind, of greater wisdom and intelligence.

For a moment, we are in the present moment. We responded appropriately to the given situation with as much as our being as we can muster in that moment. Ideally, we would meet each moment will full awareness of our highest purpose but until we reach that stage of fearlessness, making small steps in that directly will greatly boost our confidence in our own ability to respond skillfully to a given situation. The more we act in this courageous manner the easier it becomes to act with courage. By stepping outside of the known and acting courageously we see that our fears are actually unfounded. These fears do little more than hinder us from expressing our self in a considerate and intelligent way.

We also gain a great freedom by acting courageously. We are imprisoned within ourselves, our fears and neuroses, when we are unable and/or unwilling to step outside our comfort zone, no matter how painful the comfort zones makes life for us. As we begin to act courageously in the face of our fears and doubts we liberate ourselves from the confines of our old fears and see each situation with new, with fresh, eyes.

FAITH AND BELIEF

Faith — I do not have faith in a god (God) or heaven, in the sense of these things being either “true” or “false.” All of these things/places may exist but I have no idea. Concerning religious doctrines, I don’t approach them on the level of thinking that they are either literally true or absolutely false. I see religious/spiritual stories and doctrines as existing more on the imaginative and psychic plane. These realities speak to the imaginative and creative principle that seems to be a part of my psychic make up.

I sometimes think about faith in the following way. Let us take the question “Do I have faith that the sun will rise?” I take it for granted. When I think about the phenomenon of the sun rising I realize that for a variety of reasons the sun could not rise over the earth (if a meteor obliterates the earth). I suppose my normally unquestioned belief, due to repeatedly experiencing the sun rising, that the sun will rise is a faith of sorts but this seems like a very shaky and impoverished way to define faith. This seems more like habituation and assumption and some would certainly argue that this is what faith in religious ideas/beliefs are, i.e., that people have faith in beliefs due to familial and cultural conditioning which have no evidence which can prove them true or false.

The best definition I have for faith is that when I move into an unknown and/or uncomfortable situation/mental-emotional state, that if I act from my heart/intuition things will work out despite my fears to the contrary. Faith is the impetus to move forward with something when it goes against what I know and am comfortable with. I can’t say that this faith leads me to believe that everything will take place the way I hope it will but that I will likely be okay when I act in a way that is counter intuitive to my conditioning. In this way, faith is related to courage for me. At a certain point when the particular unknown is no longer as scary and mysterious as it once was, I leave behind that particular need for faith and courage which I needed in a given situation, because now I am familiar with the situation and have inner resources that help me deal with that situation with more ease. Yet, there are always new situations which challenge what I am comfortable with and it is this “faith” and “courage” which again compel me to move into the unknown and uncomfortable.

Belief — Belief is another difficult topic. I have issues with the idea of concrete belief in a particular idea, doctrine, or person. My experience of life is that my mind is in constant flux. Ideas change from one moment to the next. To latch on to a particular concept or doctrine as unshakably true makes no sense to my experience of life. So, one way I would define belief is professing the truth of a particular mental-emotional idea/complex, or set of ideas, as literally and unshakably true. In this sense, once I start to use my powers of reasoning, I find that I am a skeptic.

Concerning a topic such as the belief in God (or angels or demons), I think of belief in black and white terms. Either it (God) is real, objectively true and correct or it is false. In that sense, belief is not very interesting to me when it comes to religious topics. I would say that the idea of God is a very powerful symbol with a long and interesting history. It means something, many things in fact, in different parts of the world. The idea of God is part of our culture and worldview, as it is part of my personal mental-emotional experience and history. The idea of God has a psychic importance.

The Friction of Life

In a certain, very real sense, life is a product of tension. Think of it like this. Two sticks rubbed together in the correct manner have the possibility of causing sparks, even fire. This fire can be very useful and constructive. We can use it to cook and keep warm. We can even use the fire to illuminate the night. But for this fire to be possible there must be certain pre-established conditions already in place. To even be able to light the fire one must have some skill. First one must collect the proper kindling (emotional maturity) in the area where the fire is to be lit. Put in another, more practical way, when two people really get to know each other, and by this I mean two people really getting under each other’s skin, they bear witness to and participate in one another fears, weaknesses, hopes, joys, sorrows, and expectation. In other words, they confront their own and each other’s human vulnerability.

We are so used to hiding the vulnerable parts of ourselves not only from others, but also from ourselves. Like the two sticks in our example, when two people’s vulnerable spots start to rub against each other, and I don’t mean sexually, although sex cannot be left out of the equation, it inevitably causes tension, heat, friction, and suffering. But if the individuals involved have a modicum of emotional maturity then they can rub, they can feel the heat and friction, and instead of simply breaking down in fear or rage, the two people have the possibility of creating the sparks that can lead to a fire.

If the two people can create a flame between themselves this is a really monumental event. There is no telling what the flame will do, but certainly a great growth process has been initiated for the two people as individuals and as a couple. In its most exalted state the flame could be called The Living flame of Love, but remember that there is nothing naively romantic about this notion. The Living Flame of Love is much more then just romantic love; it is a deeply passionate and compassionate love for life. We could call it religious love or spiritual love, i.e. love for the divinity that is life and is more then life itself.

When two people come together we talk about a third thing that is born. Let us call this third thing the flame we have spoken of, but as we have discussed, it will only become a flame under certain circumstances. If we as human beings want to go beyond fear and tension then we have to be able to stay with the friction of two beings rubbing up against each other for an extended period of time. There is no telling what will happen due to this friction, but we can say you will be the better off for experiencing the fire of life, the flame of love, rather than passively being trapped in fears and insecurities as life passes you by.

This process just spoken of also happens internally in each human being. It is how a soul is created. Remember that Gurdjieff used to say that humans are not born with souls. We each have the seed of a soul and under certain conditions that seed can grow into a soul, but there is no guarantee that this will happen. In fact, many people walk around living there lives mechanically with only the unrecognized potential for a soul buried somewhere deep in their hearts.

We each have a yearning. We each have a desire to live a soul filled life, but most of us do not know how as of yet. This same fire, this religious love that we spoke of earlier, is what is necessary for us to begin to really live as free and independent human beings. Only in this sense, we must focus on how this fire is lit in each one of us individually and not just between two people. The fire lit between two people who are willing to make the plunge into love is a reflection of the fire that is being lit in each individual’s heart. There are some saints whose love is so powerful that they never need to marry anyone because an inner marriage happens. The love that happens between two people is very important and by saying what I am now saying I in no way mean to devalue love between two people. I am just saying that there are two processes going on at once.

This living flame of love that happens between two people is a reflection of the radical opening of the heart that is going on in each individual. In fact, a deep love between two people would not be possible without this deep opening that is happening in each individual. Again we come to the friction. Sometimes an individual is just conscious enough in their own life that the two poles within them begin to rub against each other. These two poles are the objective-subjective, personal-collective, and/or microcosmic-macrocosmic aspects of our being. Normally these two sides of ourselves are split off from one another and we live a very confused life.
We think one thing and act in exactly the opposite way. We are bombarded by the cacophony of voices and opinions within ourselves and it is virtually impossible to do anything with confidence. The first step is becoming comfortable with ambiguity.

As the sparks slowly start to fly from the friction of the two poles within ourselves a little space is opened up in or psyches. With this space we can witness the war or eternal argument that is going on within our hearts and minds all of the time without getting totally attached to the messages being thrown back and forth by the various parties involved. Sure we will falter. Sometimes we will circum to the confusion, but we will have a little space, just enough to see that who and what we are is more then just this constant battle cry that is being raised within ourselves.

As the sparks continue to gather they will eventually ignite the kindling, the seed of soul potential, in the individual. This is a true “Ah-ha!” moment. Now there is the possibility of real growth and the activation of the deeper spiritual awareness within our being…this is as much as I know.

Don't Try To Understand Your Life

Do Not Try to Understand Your Life!

I have heard it said that human beings are meaning making machines. I agree with this. As long as we attempt to make meaning in our lives we are machines. Either a person has meaning in their life or they don’t. If one has to force a meaning and/or context onto their lives then it would seem that what they need to address is the bigger issue of inner poverty that they are experiencing. As long as our inner lives are impoverished it does not matter how many books, relations, or degrees one has. One can live amongst the greatest wealth, but if they are poor inside then their lives meaning nothing. That is just the catch though, for life is inherently meaningful.

What I am trying to say here is do not attempt to understand your life. Don’t attempt to force meaning onto your life. No matter how profound you think you are, no matter how well you know Plato or Jung or Shankara, you always exist within a paradigm. This paradigm necessarily limits your vision of reality because a given paradigm can only let so much information in. Not only thins, but a paradigm also interprets the information we are given in a certain way which conditions how we see life, existence, and reality. This is fine. There is nothing wrong with thoughts and the conditioning which produces them. The problem is when we begin to believe in the paradigm. We get into trouble when we think that the particular thoughts, or methods of investigating and interpreting reality, that are so appealing to us are in fact “the truth.”

I know the old maxim of the Delphi oracle, “Know they Self,” but I say don’t believe it. The second we say we know ourselves is the second we get into a lot of trouble. As soon as we think we know ourselves we put a box around reality. We convince ourselves that this is who I am, this is who I should be, this is how I should act, and/or this is what I should become. All of a sudden we drastically reduce our ability to perceive the wonderful movement that is life.

Let me give you an example. The Buddha said not to believe anything he taught unless you experience it for yourself. This is a favorite saying that so called free-thinking spiritual seekers like to quote. I say that this idea can get us in a lot of trouble. More then anything the Buddha’s idea seems to be a tool to perpetuate the Buddhist religion. What is being said is, “Think for your self, experience for your self, but only within the realm of what the Buddha and his students taught and experienced.” This is not free thinking at all. The Buddha says not to believe anything he says unless you experience but then he takes your experience away from you by saying follow these ideas, rules, and practices and then see what you come up with.

Maybe, just maybe, if you are a really good Buddhist meditator you will experience these things that the Buddha and subsequent Buddhists experienced. This is a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course you will experience what the Buddha said he experienced, to one degree or another, if you are following his regimen with his ideas in mind. If you think about impermanence and interconnectedness long enough within the Buddhist context, then of course that is what you will perceive of as reality

Really, to be free you must break all such boundaries. You have your experience and your life. You have the book of your life! Why are you so interested in reading the book of Jesus’ life or Krishna’s life and hearing what they have to say about life, truth, and reality when you have your own life? Sign posts along the way? You have your life and your experience. You have your mind and your relations. Why not just look at these things deeply always realizing that lurking on the horizon is something you don’t know? There will always be some thought you haven’t had before or some perspective you haven’t thought about your current situation within and these are good to have. Momentary perspective is wonderful. It can help us see things in a different light. It can help us heal old wounds, but remember that the perspective you “had” is now gone and life has moved on.

Most of us want assuredness so badly. We want to know the truth. We want things to make sense. We want things to remain the same, unchanged. Good luck! You are in for a great disappointment. What about radical openness to the unpredictability of reality? I am not saying that we should not make choices, which one might infer when I say not to cling to any particular thought as a representation of reality. Of course we have to make decisions, but isn’t it interesting how often the actions we take, which end up being best for us and others in the end, are not the actions we “want” to take.

The hard decisions, the decisions in which we really grow, are the ones the go against the known. For us to mature as individuals necessarily means to push through stagnant patterns of thinking and behaving. Each time we do this it is equivalent to taking a leap into the unknown. And when do we most commonly do this? We do this when a situation becomes so intolerable that we realize the ways in which our current way of thinking and being is inadequate to meet the larger reality of the situation. Reality will drag us kicking and screaming, against our will, into the unknown. The more resistance we put up the more damage we will cause to ourselves and others on our way out.

As a friend of mine once said, “How far down the rabbit-hole are you willing to go?”