You Are Love - Annette Nibley Turn your attention away from the dream right now. Just for right now, you don't need it. Let the thoughts and worries of the dream character continue as they will, but just step back for a moment and watch it happen, watch the dream character involved in its dream. And while the dream character is going about its business, turn your attention to the one thing right now that is shining and clear, peaceful and unassuming, steady and solid : the consciousness with which the dream character is being observed. Just rest here, in the unchanging consciousness which reflects but is not changed by what it reflects. This is reality. Nothing else is. Rest your attention here. Get to know it. Let the reality of consciousness be known to you, as you. Nothing needs to be done here. No thought affects it, and so thought is not needed. No action affects it, and so action is not needed. It's not possible to do anything with this consciousness because this consciousness is everything already. Pay attention to it for a moment right now and it is easily noticed that consciousness is complete. And since consciousness is complete, you are complete. The only thing that ever makes you feel like you are not complete, not whole, and that you need to "return" somewhere to find wholeness, is that you have put your attention into the dream life, and forgotten that wholeness is all that you really are. So observe the dream character as it desires enlightenment, and as it desires love, reassurance, respect. Watch the dream character as its life plays out. It is not who you are. You are this consciousness, which has no mortality, no vulnerability, and no limits. Beyond all imagination, the nothingness within which resides the seed of all existence, the shining creation of infinite universes - this is you. Put your attention here, and allow your sense of this to grow. If you are looking for Wholeness, here it is. If you are looking for True Love, here it is, in the One Unlimited Self that is Reality. No other love is possible. And this Love is already here, as You.

The Abode of Love - Rupert Spira Question : Recently, a woman I love and I believe loves me decided she wanted to be just friends and that being an 'in-love' couple was not what this relationship was. In feeling the pain of that I had a channeled reading with a woman who brings through her one or more of my guides for this life experience. Now just so you know, my take on all this is that this is all part of the appearance, yet seems very real to me. Nevertheless, I have recognized that part of my story, as my guide explained and this resonated with me, is that I believe I am not lovable and so have drawn women (at least nine) into my life over many years who I love and they seem to love me and then change their minds all of a sudden, reinforcing the 'unlovable' belief. For some years I have been aware of this belief and have cleared some of the unconscious conditioning that keeps this story showing up over and over. In the past 3 weeks I have been (it feels) clearing even more of this belief. The longing to be in a loving, co-creative relationship seems even stronger now than it ever has been. Why do I have this powerful yearning, this ache, to merge deeply and completely with a woman ? How can I let go of this repeating experience so that the deep and merged love relationship fulfills itself ? When I am not in a relationship I seem to do fine on my own. It doesn't seem that I am trying to fill a lack in myself, just this longing to be love and be loved fully. Awakening/liberation seems an entirely unrelated 'happening' to what I've just described. I have thought that the ever-increasing release of conditioning would result in more peace, more joy, more love (and this seems to be true) but do not think it would promote waking up from identification with the apparent 'me'. That's as clear as I can state it for now. Maybe if you answer me I'll have a clearer view of all this. Thanks and love, Len. Len : Why do I have this powerful yearning, this ache, to merge deeply and completely with a woman ? Rupert : The desire to merge deeply and completely with a woman is the desire to loose oneself as a separate entity. It is in this merging, that the separate self sense is temporarily extinguished and this experience of the dissolution of the apparent self is, by definition, the experience of love or happiness. That is, it is the experience of Presence tasting its own Being. When the mind re-emerges out of this timeless experience of love in which it was not present, it creates a lover, 'me' and a loved, 'her.' With the birth of this apparent duality, the love which was revealed in a timeless moment to be our very own nature in the absence of the sense of 'me' and 'her', is again veiled. And now, feeling that love is lost, the mind, in the form of this apparent entity, 'me', goes out into the apparent world again in search of the lost love, in search of another 'her,' trying in this way to recreate the circumstances which seem to have precipitated the previous experience of love, that is, merging with a woman. However, it is not the woman that causes the love. It is the woman that temporarily puts an end to the search and in that moment Presence, no longer apparently veiled by the agitated search for love, tastes its own Self. That is the experience of love. It has nothing to do with women ! Len : How can I let go of this repeating experience so that the deep and merged love relationship fulfils itself ? Rupert : By understanding what has been said above. In other words, by understanding that Love is ever-present, inherent in our own Being, but only seems to be veiled when we believe and feel ourselves to be a separate and limited entity. Love is not the result of this search. It is prior to the search. By understanding this, we stop looking for love in the wrong place. And the way we do this is by looking in the right place. And the right place is that place in us that is prior to the mind, prior to feelings. It is our ever-present Awareness, in which the desires, the frustrations, the women, the longing, everything... comes and goes. Take your stand there, which means simply to see that that is what you always are. Simply be knowing this presence of Awareness to which, in which and ultimately as which all things appear. That is the true abode of love. Len : It doesn't seem that I am trying to fill a lack in myself, just this longing to be love and be loved fully. Rupert : If there is no lack then there is no longing. If there is longing, there is lack. You are already the love that you long for. It is the longing that veils it. Let the longing dissolve in understanding and you will find yourself as the very thing you are looking for. And this Presence that we are, that we share, is the element in each of us that is truly lovable. The desire to share this love is very natural and an intimate relationship is a beautiful expression of this. So many ingredients are present within it with which this love can be expressed and celebrated. Len: Awakening/liberation seems an entirely unrelated 'happening' to what I've just described. I have thought that the ever-increasing release of conditioning would result in more peace, more joy, more love (and this seems to be true) but do not think it would promote waking up from identification with the apparent 'me'. Rupert: You are right ! It is not the 'ever-increasing release of conditioning (that) would result in more peace, more joy, more love but rather the other way round. If we take our stand as this open, welcoming, loving Presence that we always are, the conditioned mind and body slowly realign themselves with this experiential understanding. All the unlovable awkward characteristics that seem to thwart love get ironed out by love itself, and the mind and body are slowly refashioned into a shape that is in line with love itself. If we are in a relationship where both parties share this love of truth then the relationship itself will both highlight those areas in each party that are yet to be colonised by love and at the same time provide the loving embrace in which they are slowly and naturally dissolved. In this way a relationship is both a sadhana and a celebration, the latter slowly taking precedence over the former.

On Love and Aloneness - Jeff Foster I am alone in the garden. The sun is rising. A little robin tugs at a worm in the grass. In true love, there is no object of desire, affection and tenderness, for the beloved has collapsed into the lover. The object has collapsed into the subject, and there is only love. Only love, and nobody to be aware of it, nobody to know it and nobody to deny it. Only love, both radically alone, and intimately connected to all things. A subject and an object can never be in love. They are forever divided from each other, split from each other. They can only gaze longingly into each other's eyes across an unbridgeable divide, with the fervent hope that one day, perhaps one day, love will bridge the chasm, and the isolation of multiplicity and fragmentation will give way to the joy of intimate companionship, togetherness, and unity. But no, love cannot and will not bridge the gap, for the gap is inherent in the subject-object split. Indeed, the gap is the subject-object split, and nothing can fill a gap which is so deeply engrained into the very foundations of our experience. No, love cannot bridge the gap, because a subject and an object, a lover and the beloved, are inherently, fundamentally separate. It is unlikely that they will ever truly meet as people, as human beings. True love is the death of this terrible divide, and with it, the ending of all division between two people. This will never be achieved through effort. The very effort to end the division strengthens the division, gives power to the division. This is because the division is not there. It has never been there, and it will never be there. The division is an illusion, and when you fight an illusion you are bound to lose. Lovers can never meet through effort, although they may die trying. So, our lovers continue to gaze longingly at each other across this unbridgeable divide, a divide that, in their innocence, they have created for themselves. How to help them ? Any effort they make to come together will pull them more strongly apart. Are they doomed to live and die like this ? Is there a way out ? Yes there is, but it involves death. Not physical death, but death of the ego, death of everything that separates, death of everything that fragments, death of everything that divides, death of everything that isolates, death of everything that has been carried over from the past, death of everything that projects into a future. Death of the idea of love itself. Finally, it will involve death of the beloved, death of the lover. Death of you and me, and with it, death of all that comes between us. A descent into pure nothingness, a plunge into the unknown. It is quite a risk. He who risks in this way may taste it, the sweet and simple joy of radical aloneness that is true love. Look ! The robin tweet-tweets as he hops over the dew-soaked grass, and the morning sun begins to warm and wake the slumbering creatures in this Garden of Eden that we have named Earth, and nowhere can I find isolation, loneliness, separation, because all things are in all things, and everywhere is mother, everywhere is home. And I smile to myself with the realisation of the utterly, utterly obvious. I have not found you, but I have recognised something that has eluded me for a lifetime : you are not out there, but in here. You are part of the experiencing structure I take to be myself. So I do not love you, for there is no 'me' to love and no 'you' to be loved. No, I do not love you, for you are an integral part of that which loves. The great search ends here, now, in this moment. There is only love, and you are that - you are love itself. You are what I feel now, you are the thoughts bubbling up from nowhere and dissolving into nothingness, you are that robin over there, and the fresh dew on the morning grass, and the sun in all its radiance, and we are eternally, timelessly bound in this way, you and me, together with all things. Except there is no 'me', no 'you', and no 'things'. So we will never be apart - no, we cannot be apart, not now, not ever. So, this morning, I am alone in the garden, and you are here with me to see it all.

Love - Scott Kiloby Love is such a simple word, yet so misunderstood. In my first book, "Love's Quiet Revolution", I used the word love a lot as a pointer. Through the years, I stopped using the word because people seemed to misinterpret what was being said. By love, I don't mean one person loving another person, either romantically or platonically. Certainly, that is a kind of love that can arise. But love, with regard to non-dual realization, is something totally different. Yes, this love is what is experienced when the sense of being a separate person disappears. But that is only a small part of it. It's not just the sense of a separate person that disappears. It's the sense that nothing is separate. No matter where you go, you cannot find something that feels independent from what you are. Nothing feels "out there", estranged, or isolated. Life is intimately present. The sun feels just as inseparable as a bodily sensation. Ask yourself, how far is the thought, "Sun," from the warmth of the sun ? Both appear right here, in present awareness, inseparably. Love is the experience of all dualities collapsing. It is the recognition that there is no thought that can capture the freedom of life. Opposites just don't work anymore. Words like time v. timelessness, form v. formlessness just don't convey solid information. Dualities collapse, melting into one sweet essence. Love is seeing two people arguing, knowing that there can be no right without wrong, and so the two are inseparable even in the heat of conflict. The entire world feels intimate precisely because no separate thing can arise without a thought arising. Things are really thoughts. And thoughts appear intimately and inseparably within the awareness, right here and now, that sees them. Even the duality between awareness and thought disappears. Love is not being able to find a thought that is actually independent of awareness. This nondual love cannot be comprehended. It is beyond the mind. The most profound thought and the most absurd thought are equally drenched in love. They are both love pretending to be two different things. The heart knows it unquestionably. But it is not the kind of love we normally experience, thick with attachment to an other. In this love, there is no other. There is only love, appearing in every form. And there is a knowing that there aren't really separate forms at all. Paradoxically, each form is loved completely and totally in its own right. This is a complete unknowing. But it is not simply the act of throwing one's arms up in the air and saying, "I don't know." That is just another label, a superficial statement. This is a deep, deep unknowing that goes to the very core of being. This unknowing removes every ounce of what you take to be a separate self, leaving only love. This is an unknowing that is not attached to the past and has no expectations for future. Therefore, whatever arises is perfect. There is only love. So simple, so sweet. Nothing to comprehend. Love just is. It is being whatever it is being in this moment. Nothing is excluded.

What Is Love ? - Unmani The word Love has been used ad nauseum, and that is partly because we can not understand it and partly because we know exactly what it is. They say that Love is blind. I disagree. Love is Truth - absolutely all- seeing, absolutely aware and conscious knowing. Noticing all that is. I am speaking of the Love which is who You really are. This is the 'You' who is aware of all that happens, and yet is never affected by what happens. Love that loves itself despite it all. Love has no name. No shape. No form or even a feeling. Love is unbound by condition, space or time. Love never cares what is next or why things happen. Love is always fresh and new. It is free – Freedom itself. But Love is also an annihilation. Love is the end of 'me'. In Love there is no 'you' or 'me'. There is no mine and yours. All boundaries melt. Nothing to hold on to. True Love is a death. A death of all separation. We have many ideas of what Love is. We think Love is lovey-dovey. We think Love is an emotional thing. We assume Love is outside of ourselves. We think Love comes and goes. We think that Love is the rush that you feel when you fall in love with someone. But as soon as we think we know what Love is, we also know that it is not only that experience. Love is not confined to any one particular physical or emotional sensation. Love is so much more. So much, much more that it is endless, limitless. T You can never put your finger on it. Love can not be pinned down. It can not be known, because for it to be known it has to be limited. Love is absolute Freedom. Love is absolute Presence. It outshines all confusion or seriousness which seems to limit and restrict. All ideas of who you are or what you think Love is, are simply burnt up in Love and seen to be meaningless. You don't need to seek, find, or go out and get Love. You don't need to demand it from others, or even expect it. You can't get, seek, find, demand, or expect what You already are. Love is already here. Everything is already infused with Love. You are already Love. Love is not an experience which can come and go. Love is who You are and this is the only constant, when everything else comes and goes. There are moments when Love is recognised, such as when you fall in love with someone or when you are out in nature or look at the stars. It is in these moments that consciousness seems to open and expand as everything and all separateness is gone. This natural movement towards openness is the expression of Love. In that expanded and open state, you know that you are Love. You know, beyond logic, that you are not separate from what is seemingly outside of 'you'. But these moments can also feel very frightening and vulnerable, especially when you are so used to living behind walls of protection. And so often follows the return to the more 'normal' contracted state of being wary of other people and afraid of life situations. These states of expansion and contraction come and go in this play of life. Expansion is when You recognise and experience yourself as Love and contraction is when you experience yourself as a separate individual. This state of love comes and goes. It seems that you can fall in love with someone and then fall out of love again. You can like or dislike someone. This state of love comes and goes and seems to be able to be switched on and off. You can choose to be loving or friendly towards some people and not others. You can decide who you like or dislike. You can have ideas of who you are not supposed to love and who you not should love. For example, you are supposed to love your family and not love someone who does not share the same beliefs. But the Love I am pointing to, is the Love that is unaffected by what you think or believe. This Love loves no matter what is happening, in fact, often despite what is happening. When you recognise this Love which transcends all experience, then you recognise who You really are. This plays out when you interact with other people, you know the deep connection which goes beyond whether you like or find them agreeable. This union is usually unspoken and yet is so much more powerful than the words spoken. When this Love is recognised then openness meets openness. Two melt into one. There are no more boundaries – only absolute intimacy. We know this so clearly in nature or with animals or babies, who do not seem to have a sense of a separate identity. We can easily feel at peace and love them. But when two adults interact, usually there are so many boundaries which are believed in. Two separate identities with such strong walls which protect and separate them. We are so wary of each other. But when these walls come down, even just for a moment, all there is, is Love. Perhaps it is just in a look or a smile, and suddenly there are no two people, there is only one Love. It could be with a stranger on the train, or with your best friend. Love does not depend on whether or not you know the other person or even like them. In this play of Life there is a natural movement towards openness and truth. Once you begin to recognise that you are not separate, there is no end to this movement of Love. Love deepens and opens itself like a flower. There is no end to its flowering. When there is a yearning for truth, this natural movement towards openness and truth is never-ending. It is continuously deepening and opening itself to Love. Wherever truth finds lies, the lies become such a contradiction that they can not last for long. You can not hold on to who you think you are, or any unconscious patterns, for long. Love tears down your whole house. You lose everything. Love is Truth. Without the Love aspect, Truth is dead and meaningless. Without Love, Truth becomes an abstraction which is cool and analytical and this is not absolute Truth. In absolute Truth there is a willingness to expose all lies, all beliefs and assumptions to this intimate connectedness with everything, which is Love. This is the willingness to lose it all. Whether the personality likes it or not, an intimate connection with all that is, is there. Defenses stand down naturally in the acknowledgement of the Love that is. Although thought does its best to hang on for dear life, more and more walls come crashing down, as beliefs and assumptions are seen for what they really are in the face of Love. This is the deepening. Forever expanding into everything. There is often an expectation that this Freedom or Love should be experienced as that, constantly. However, true Freedom is not dependant on any experience of freedom. True Love is not dependent on being in a relationship or any experience of falling in love. The Love that simply is, despite any experience or thought to the contrary, is the Love that you know you are right now. What a relief ! You don't have to walk around with a permanent smile on your face or have blissful experiences, to know the bliss that is beyond any experience. So when there is any feeling or experience of lack, it is known that it is not a real lack. When you have a problem or unpleasant emotion, you know that it is not really a problem because you know that who You truly are never has any problem. Who You are never lacks, despite any thought 'I lack'. When you love someone, this is a playful expression of the Love that You are. One playing as two. One playing at meeting myself. Loving myself in this play of Life. And in this play of loving another, a 'me' meets a 'you' and they fall in love. And yet often in this falling in Love is the recognition that the 'me' and the 'you' are not really separate. In Love all separation disappears. This is the Union, the Oneness that You are already. This is Love. The knowing beyond all appearances of a 'me' and a 'you', that there is only Love. Love can never be understood because thought can never understand, what is limitless. The nature of thought is to limit, separate and to put labels on everything. That is its nature and it can not do anything else. Thought tries endlessly to understand it all. To know it all. But Love is to not know. To fall into never knowing and disappear. No limits, no separation. What a contradiction ! You spend so much time trying to understand what Love is and how it works and then Love comes like a tidal wave and destroys you ! Most of the time you behave as if you are afraid of Love. You prefer to play with all the words and concepts of Love, rather than face the actual annihilation of Love. This fear is the separation that you long to go beyond. You long for Love, but you fear it because you know it is death. You long for it because you know that in dying, only then can you really live. You feel stifled by thought and concepts but often find no way out of it. Thought tries to go beyond thought and so there is only circling in thought for years. In believing thought you live a half life. You compromise. You take life so seriously and believe that it is difficult. But beyond all that, somewhere deep down, you know that that is not so. You know that it is really so simple. Right now, what can be serious ? I mean literally right now. Reading this word. All that is happening is physical sensation of perhaps holding the book, or sitting on a chair. There is seeing of these words on the page. But that is all. It is really so simple. So easy. Fear comes up because thought is threatened. In fact everything that you have ever known or believed in is threatened. In Love every thought, concept or belief is seen to be a joke. All that you have taken to be real and true is seen to be a dream floating in what You really are. All boundaries melt and disappear. All that is known is seen to be a safety net from falling into not-knowing. Absolute insecurity. In recognising the Love that You are, the reality underneath the overlay of thought is revealed in all its ordinary splendour. Love knows the beauty in all things, even if they appear ugly, painful or distorted. They are all part of this extra-ordinary play of ordinariness. An ordinary sound, a sensation, or a texture, is revealed to be extra-ordinary in its simplicity. Just the way it is. A conversation with someone is seen to be a beautiful dance of energy. It is only thought that labels things as right or wrong or ugly or not good enough. Beyond thought it is all absolutely perfect just as it is. Even thought is seen to be fantastic. It imagines, it criticises, creates stories, it learns, it remembers. Love loves itself and so all experience is loved just the way it is. Love is present awareness aware of itself and in Love with itself. This is Love for the mere fact of existence itself. It isn't a Love that is caused by anything. It isn't based on whether you have a good day, or a good feeling. In fact, it could be not such a good day, or not such a good feeling, and still Love is. This is a Love that loves to live this Life because in Life it is actually meeting itself moment to moment.

Resistance in the mirror of relationship - Scott Kiloby Each relationship is an opportunity to see whether you are at war with life and others. If a person walks up to talk to you today, it is an invitation to allow awareness to fully welcome that person, to listen intimately to what she is saying, and to be the space in which she is speaking. This allowing is not a doing. It is a present recognition that awareness is always and already open, loving and compassionate. If there is resistance within you to the person or what she is doing or saying, the person is acting as a mirror in which your own resistance is being revealed. This person is showing you your illusion of separateness. You are living in a conceptual dream called self v. other. When you encounter this "other" today (and the other includes every manifest object that appears in awareness) notice any corresponding resistance in the form of irritation, frustration, unease, uncomfortableness, anger, or resentment. In allowing your relationship to people, situations, and things to be a mirror in which your own resistance is being reflected back to you, the possibility of waking up out of that resistance is available.

Relationship - Isaac Shapiro Relationship is an area in which there has been a huge deepening for me. There were a number of mechanisms functioning in me that I had never seen. I started to see the way our subconscious mind is functioning. Everything that we want is not about what is just here now. It is about future. It is about not being present. There were a number of wants in me, about relationship, about sexuality; I was so used to them that I took them for granted. I didn't see how the thinking of my mind around sexuality, specifically wanting sex, looking at women and having that orientation, what that did in my experience. I just put it down to : "Oh well, that's natural for me". As I looked into it, I could see that my mind thinking about sex, was making my body want it. My body wanting it then became a way in which there was trying to manipulate to get it and of course that would play up in relationship in a very painful way. So what happens as the seeing goes deeper is that there is more availability to love, to genuinely just love, without manipulating, just being the space. What I am appreciating with Anandika, is it seems like we meet where there is love, where there is the space to look at anything that comes up. Since being together we have faced many challenges, in terms of our living circumstances. There is such a willingness to be present as layers of resistance come up. It is a beautiful acceleration being together. I am grateful to be with her and she says that she is grateful to be with me. What I wanted in relationship I could never have, because I wanted it. The very wanting got in the way. As I saw through the layers of wanting, I started to have my life manifesting as what I always wanted, but could never happen, because I wanted it. It's funny that way, yeah ? As soon as we try to manipulate to get something, it can never happen.

The Heart of Relationship - Adyashanti Awakening to the truth of perfect Unity means to awaken from the dream of a personal self and personal others to the realization that there is no other. Many spiritual seekers have had glimpses of the absolute unity of all existence, but few are capable of or willing to live up to the many challenging implications inherent in that revelation. The revelation of perfect unity, that there is no other, is a realization of the ultimate impersonality of all that seems to be so very personal. Applying this realization to the arena of personal relationships is something that most seekers find extremely challenging, and is the number one reason why so many seekers never come completely to rest in the freedom of the Self Absolute. Inherent in the revelation of perfect unity is the realization that there is no personal me, no personal other, and therefore no personal relationships. Coming to terms with the challenging implications of this stunning realization is something that few people are willing to do, because realizing the true impersonality of all that seems so personal challenges every aspect of the illusion of a separate, personal self. It challenges the entire structure of personal relationships which are born of needs, wants, and expectations. It is in the arena of personal relationships that the illusion of a separate self clings most tenaciously and insidiously. Indeed, there is nothing that derails more spiritual seekers than the grasping at and attaching to personal relationships. The revelation of perfect unity reveals the true impersonality of all relationships. The ego always interprets "impersonal" as meaning cold, distant, and aloof. However, "impersonal" simply means not personal, or void of a separate me and a separate you. The mind cannot comprehend a relationship without separate entities, much as a character in a dream cannot comprehend that all other dream characters are simply manifestations of the same dreamer. Yet when the dreamer awakens, he instantly comprehends that the entire dream, and all the characters in it, were none other than projections of his own self. In the dream there is the appearance of separate, personal entities in relationship, but upon awakening, one comprehends the impersonal (non-separate) Self that is the source of all appearances. To deeply inquire into the question "Who is another ?" can lead to the direct experience that the other is one's own Self - that in fact there is no other. However, I have seen that for most seekers, even this direct experiential revelation is not enough to transform the painfully personal ways they relate. To come to this profound transformation requires a very deep investigation into the implications inherent within the experiential revelation that there is no other. It is in the daily living of these implications that most seekers fail. Why ? Because, fundamentally, most people want to remain separate and in control. Simply put, most people want to keep dreaming that they are special, unique, and separate, more than they want to wake up to the perfect unity of an Unknown which leaves no room for any separation from the whole. There is a powerful tendency in most spiritual seekers to avoid probing deeply into the implications inherent within profound spiritual experience and revelation, because these implications are always threatening to the sense of a separate self, or ego. It is the implications inherent within profound spiritual revelation that demand the transformation of the apparent individual. Inherent within the revelation of perfect unity is the realization that there is no other. The implications of this realization reveal that in order to manifest that unity in the relative world, one must renounce the dream of being a separate self seeking to obtain anything through relationship with another. Indeed, personal relationship appears to happen in the relative world, but in reality, all appearances simply arise as temporary manifestations of a unified whole. In the relative world these appearances are in relationship, but not as separate entities. Rather, they are the play of the one Self projecting itself as apparent entities in relationship to one another. As long as you identify yourself with the projection of separateness, you will continue to deny that you are the Source of all projections. When you truly and absolutely awaken to this fact, and comprehend the overwhelming implications inherent within this awakening, you will continually experience that all apparently personal relationships are in truth nothing other than the play of your Self. To realize that the personal me is an illusion born of false identification with the body, thoughts, and emotions brings a profound sense of freedom. This is fundamentally the realization of emptiness, of what you are not. But contained within the realization of emptiness (formlessness) is also the realization of what you ARE. In the most absolute sense, you ARE this conscious emptiness which is the source of all appearances (existence). But you are the appearance as well - not just one part of the appearance called "me", but all of it, the entire whole. This is the challenge, to let your view get this vast, to let your view get so vast that your identity disappears. Then you realize that there is no other, and there is nothing personal going on. Contrary to the way the ego will view such a realization, it is in reality the birth of true love, a love which is free of all boundaries and fear. To the ego such uncontaminated love is unbearable in its intimacy. When there are no clear separating boundaries and nothing to gain the ego becomes disinterested, angry, or frightened. In a love where there is no other, there is nowhere to hide, no one to control, and nothing to gain. It is the coming together of appearances in the beautiful dance of the Self called love. To the seeker who is sincere, an experiential glimpse of this possibility is not enough. If you are sincere, you will find it within yourself to go far beyond any glimpse. You will find within your Self the courage to let go of the known and dive deeply into the Unknown heart of a mystery that calls you only to itself.

Because There Is Love - Rupert Spira Question : I attended the meeting in Marin in which you responded to a question from the audience with : "Because there is love". There comes a generalized quietude when the essential emptiness of the self is apperceived.Here it is experienced as an artesian warmth that seems to spread out wherever awareness is focused. But it seems that the consensus concept of 'love" fall short in its description. Do you think that "love" has any reality outside of the conceptual arena ? Rupert: The answer, "Because there is love," was given to the question "How do we know that Consciousness is impersonal ?" The implicit understanding in this answer is that the word 'love' is used to point towards the experiential understanding that there is only one Consciousness. If a number of people were asked if they knew or felt that the Consciousness with which they were hearing this very question was unlimited and impersonal, most would answer 'No.' However, if one asked those same people if they felt or knew that love existed, most, if not all, would answer 'Yes'. In other words, few people doubt the experience of love, but most of us misinterpret it. The mind in fact knows nothing of love, precisely because it is not present during the experience. That is why we like it so much ! Love could be said to be the dissolution of those boundaries or borders which seem to separate us one from another. In other words it is the dissolution of the dualising mind. When the mind returns and tries to describe the non-objective experience of love in which it was not present and about which therefore it knows nothing, it misinterprets the experience. The mind returns saturated, as it were, with the taste of love out of which it has arisen. It retains, so to speak, the perfume of this non-objective experience. Not knowing where this perfume comes from, the mind manufactures a story to account for the new and happy state in which it finds itself. Out of the seamlessness of experience it imagines two entities, in this case a loving subject, 'I', and a loved object, the other, 'you,' which are supposedly connected together by an activity of loving. As the shine wears off the mind, it seems that the experience of love is lost. Bewildered as a result of this apparently lost love, the separate entity goes out into the world again in search of a relationship that will recover the experience of love, not realising that it is its own presence, the apparent presence of the separate entity and its counterpart the separate other, that veils the love for which it is searching, and that in fact lies at the heart of all experience. So off we go again until we meet a face that reminds us of the true Beloved, at which moment the separate self plunges again into non-existence and love tastes itself anew. So, in answer to your question, 'Do you think that "love" has any reality outside of the conceptual arena ?' I would say that love's ONLY reality is outside the conceptual arena. Our attempts to conceptualise love (such as I have done here) are feeble attempts, using the abstract symbols of the mind, to point towards the reality of our experience, which is intimately and directly experienced and known by everyone, and yet which is completely beyond the capacity of the mind to know, grasp or understand. In fact the mind does not even know how to think of love, let alone to know or define it. If we try to think of love... we do not even know where to start looking - it is closer than close and yet in an unknown direction. Love only knows itself. Version Française

Enlightenment Can Never Threaten Love - Rupert Spira Question : I am in a very happy relationship with a woman I shall be marrying this year. We think we have finally (we are in our mid-50s) reached the plateau of understanding and happiness after the decades of usual mistakes and consequent difficulties. Before I knew her, I was pursuing spiritual fulfillment in a rather random fashion but since I discovered the direct path things have come on extraordinarily rapidly and I have experienced a number of breakthroughs. With this development, my wife (I call her my wife) has suffered from an increasing sense of worry that our relationship will suffer. She says I have an innate independence and need to look inwards (true) and that when I achieve enlightenment this will manifest itself increasingly to the point, I suppose, that I will not need her and will be quite content in my own head and heart. She suffers easily and is very fearful of the prospect. Neither of us has any experience of enlightenment in others. Can you make any comment that will reassure us? I do not, under any circumstance, wish to risk hurting my wife or our relationship for what she construes as a selfish motive. Thank you for your thoughts. Answer : A relationship between entities is, by definition, always a fragile alliance, no matter how well we may try to disguise or avoid it. Sooner or later we have to have the courage and the intelligence to face that fact. In the absence of such courage or intelligence, life tends to have more astringent ways of delivering the message. Having said that, there is no reason to be discouraged. The love we experience in friendship is precisely the recognition that we share the same Consciousness, that is, that we are not separate entities. We may not recognise it, but that is what the experience of love is. Even in everyday parlance we all have the sense that love is somehow the dissolution of all that keeps us separate, apart and distant from one another. That is precisely why we like love so much - it relieves us of the burden of separation which is alone responsible for our unhappiness. So enlightenment or the true pursuit of enlightenment can never threaten love. On the contrary, it is enables love to truly flourish. In fact, the only thing that can threaten love is the belief and feeling that we are separate entities. It is this belief alone that generates psychological fear and need. A relationship between entities is, therefore, always based on fear and need, that is, on the need to maintain the sense of separation, and it inevitably leads to conflict. How ironic that we should resist this interest in Truth when it is the one thing that exposes and gently dissolves the fear and need that spoils the love we prize so highly. Therefore, if the relationship between you and your wife is based solely on fear and need, it will be threatened by your interest in enlightenment. This does not necessarily mean that your relationship will fall apart as you grow in love and understanding. There will be a choice at some stage : either the relationship grows with you or, in due course, it will probably fall apart, unless there are external factors, such as children, illness etc. which may provide other reasons for staying together. However, from what you have told me, there is nothing to suggest that your relationship with your wife is based solely of fear and need, although there may be elements of that present. My intuition is that you have a genuinely loving relationship. The love in your friendship can only grow from your interest in Truth. Interest in Truth, for want of a better word, is the least selfish of all possible pursuits, although it may not always appear so from the outside. I understand that you do not wish to hurt your wife and I also understand that she doesn't share your interest. In fact, she does share your interest because interest in enlightenment is identical to interest in love, but she has not recognised this yet - there is absolutely no judgement in that. In some ways you have the broader perspective so the onus is on you to understand her fear, to help her to understand its nature and above all to help her see that it is fear and need, not enlightenment, that spoil love. So I would try to show her that your interests can only serve love and happiness. If she has no overt or formulated interest in these matters, this may not be possible through words, but your own lovingness, peace and happiness, as it grows, will be the surest and most effective ways of communicating this to her. Your innate independence is the finest thing you can offer your wife - she may not realise this now, but in time she may. I understand of course the delicate nature of the situation but the fact that you have asked this question shows that you have the sensitivity to handle it lovingly and skilfully. I wish you both well.

Where There Is No Other - Andrew Cohen When two or more individuals, who have awakened to what I call the Evolutionary Impulse, or Authentic Self, come together in deep dialogue and focused conversation, the experience is something akin to thinking aloud with yourself. Why? Because there is only one Authentic Self. The ego can only have a relationship with other separate individuals, but the Authentic Self can only have a relationship with itself. If you awaken to the Authentic Self and another also becomes illuminated by that same Self, you will find that you both experience a strong pull to be together, but what you are drawn to is not the other individual's unique personality. The Authentic Self isn't interested in other individuals. It is always only seeking itself in others. When people who have shared absolutely no personal history come together in this higher state of consciousness, they experience an ecstatic intimacy that infinitely transcends any kind of closeness or connectedness that can be experienced in a more familiar or personal context. Carried on the wings of the Authentic Self, our self-consciousness falls away, and an intoxicating sweetness envelops us. Here, where there is no other, we all awaken to a radiant transparency, fueled by egoless passion. Here, conflict and competition disappear. We are not separate individuals coming together; we are one Self experiencing sheer delight in being with itself. Version Française

Presence Does Not Love. It IS love. - Rupert Spira Question : I believe you that the witness is one with all appearances since some months ago when I was trying to see the Seer! Suddenly for a couple of minutes I had this experience that every sound was me, the birds playing on trees were me, the pupil going to school were me, the sound of door was me, even the breeze was one with me, I was one with all I saw, heard and felt. My dear Rupert, sorry to ask you this naive question; would you kindly show me a way to that realm. I don't need any awards and I don't want attending to something or be something. I just want to love everyone and everything, a silent love without any words, just like the moment you put down the 'I' thought and join people and the life around you, then you feel the fragrant of life, no hindrances, no complicated and masked matters, just simple loving being. With love and gratitude, Afshin. Afshi : I believe you that "the witness is one with all appearances..." Rupert : It is not enough to believe that the witness is one with all appearances. See very clearly that this is always your experience. Ask yourself first of all, if you ever have the experience of anything without Consciousness or even if it would be possible to have such an experience. Then see clearly that there is no distance between whatever is known and the Consciousness that knows it. Explore your experience and see that all objects appear not just to Consciousness but in Consciousness. And lastly that there is no other substance to any appearance other than Consciousness itself. You have had a taste of this for a few minutes but explore your experience and see that it is always so. It is not an extraordinary heightened experience. It is very simple and natural, closer than you think. Afshin : I just want to love everyone and everything, a silent love without any words, just like the moment you put down the 'I thought' and join people and the life around you, then you feel the fragrant of life, no hindrances, no complicated and masked matters, just simple loving being. Rupert : See clearly that as long as there is everyone and everything, there is a personal 'I'. In other words the personal 'I' and the world and others always come and go together. They are two sides of the same coin. And this personal 'I' cannot love anyone or anything. In fact it is, by definition, the veiling of the love that is inherent in our own being. All that is required is, as you say, to put down the 'I' thought, that is, to see clearly that you are not a separate entity. Take your stand knowingly as the Presence to which, in which and as which all apparent things and others appear. That Presence does not love. It IS love. Everything that is done from this place of Presence is Love itself in action, tailored appropriately to the situation at hand. If this seems to abstract, then when faced with an apparent other, be open to the possibility that whatever it is in them that sees, hears, feels and thinks, is the same as whatever it is in you that sees, hears, feels and thinks. In other words treat everyone and everything as your very own self. The response you receive from the situation will be the confirmation of that possibility. Live this possibility and it will turn into reality.

Sex, Romance, and Conscious Evolution - Andrew Cohen The arena of sexuality and romance is one of the easiest places to get lost and confused. This is of the utmost importance to understand for those individuals who are serious about higher spiritual development, and who are personally committed to the evolution of consciousness and culture. That being said, it is also a potentially joyful and liberating part of the human experience. And it's an area of life that we definitely don't want to avoid or repress, because as we all already know, that creates its own enormous problems. So I've always tried to create circumstances in which individuals would be so spiritually enlightened and would have so much integrity that they would be able to perform the near-miraculous feat of embracing this challenging domain of life without creating any karmic result. What that means is simply that sexual and personal intimacy would not become a source of pain, confusion, suffering, or a fundamental distraction from our highest aspirations. Usually, our sexual and romantic relationships are the domain of the status quo. Why ? Because that's where we are biologically and culturally conditioned to create safety, comfort, and security. So for those of us who are conscious evolutionaries, whose highest aspiration is to create the future, the goal in this area of life would be that our relationship would never become a place where the personal and cultural status quo that we are striving to transcend is protected. It should never be a refuge for the old. And that is a very radical shift. Version Française

Love Is The Fabric Of Experience - Rupert Spira Presence, You, I, is the witness and the substance of every experience. And as there is nothing other than experience, Presence is everything. As witness it is knowing. As substance it is being. But knowing and being are not two distinct aspects of Presence. They are seamlessly one. Presence knows a thing by being that thing. And Presence is a thing by knowing that thing. It is what I am. This identity of knowing and being is our most intimate and direct experience. In fact it is all that is ever experienced. It is known as love. This Presence is and it is present. If it were not, and were not present, it would not be Presence. Have we, that is, this Presence, ever experienced the absence of Presence? What would be present to know this absence ? We, that is, Presence, cannot know its own absence, because it would have to be present in that knowing, as that knowing. There is never an experience of the absence of Presence. Into what could Presence disappear ? Into that which is non-existent ? How could that which is disappear into or become, that which is not ? And from what would Presence appear in the first place ? If Presence was not present, what would there be ? Non-existence? But non-existence cannot be. Therefore non-existence is non-existent. Only Presence is. And if Presence is ever-present and everything is that Presence, can anything disappear ? No thing ever ceases to be because no thing ever comes into existence. The substance or being of every apparent object is only Presence, and Presence always is. There is only one substance, substantial, immutable, un-mysterious, always known, always experienced, never not being. It is this one substance which takes the shape of all appearances without ever being or becoming anything other than itself. Whatever is known is the knowing of Presence knowing itself. Whatever is, is Presence knowing itself, being itself and loving itself. Presence cannot cease to know itself or be itself. Even profound ignorance, Presence is knowing and being itself. That is, it is loving itself. Therefore, there is no real ignorance. There is no forgetting. There is no remembering. There is no losing or finding. Presence is never veiled from itself. And therefore there is no real unveiling of Reality. There is no Self-realisation because all that is real in any experience is already the self. There is no enlightenment, for Presence is already and eternally the light that illumines itself. It is that in which, through which and as which all seeming things that are known, are known. There is no awakening because Presence is always already awake in itself. How can this be known if it is not known ? By seeing clearly that it is always known. That which is not known is not knowable. And that which is known is always known. So any movement or progress is always from knowing to knowing, which is no movement or progress at all. Right here these words and whatever else is being experienced in this moment, is known, but there is no other substance to this experience other than its knowing. That is, its being, its substance, is its knowing of itself. There is no knower of this experience and nothing that is known. There is just the knowing of it, which is simultaneously identical to the being of it. And this identity of knowing and being is known as love. Love is the fabric of this and every experience. If it is not clear, what is written here will seem to be complex, theoretical and abstract. However, if this is obvious, it is obvious, and what is written here will be seen as a simple way of describing the reality of experience, albeit within the limited confines of language.

Presence in Relationships - Eckhart Tolle Question : How do I maintain a sense of presence when I'm in the company of another person ? How do I bring presence into conversation ? Eckhart : It's not easy. The moment you start talking, the two minds come together and so they strengthen each other. A flow starts, a stream of thought. A moment ago you were present, and then somebody starts talking. What applies here is the loss of space during the conversation. Both participants of the conversation have lost any sense of space. There are only the words, the mind, the verbalization, the stream of thinking that becomes sounds. They are taken over by that. It has its own momentum... almost a little entity, a stream, that doesn't want to end. Often, it generates emotions in the body. That strengthens it, amplifies it. If the mental stream triggers emotions, which it often does, especially when talking about other people, what they did, failed to do, did to you, did to others, criticisms, gossip, all kinds of emotional [things], the ego comes in. When you can criticize another, the ego feels a little bit stronger. By diminishing another, in the delusional system of the ego, you have enhanced your own self-image a little bit. Any criticism of another is a part of that energy stream. And then emotions come, and they amplify the thoughts. It's the loss of space. For you to regain space, without saying "I'm not talking anymore," one thing is necessary for you - which is the realization that you've lost space. Without that, there's nothing you can do - when you're so taken over by a stream of thought, that you don't even know you've been taken over by a stream of thought - there's nothing you can do. "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." They are unconscious. They are the stream of thought. And as the stream of thought, you don't want it to end - because you don't want your own end. Every entity wants to remain in form for as long as possible. If there's the slightest realization that you've lost [space], at that moment you have a choice. What is your choice ? Your choice is to bring some presence, some space, into the stream of thought. But how do you do that ? It's coming at you not only from within your own mind, but it's coming at you from the other person too. The awareness is there, and it may only last three seconds, and then it's gone again. So you have to use those two or three seconds, where you realize the loss of space, and do something in that space where you have some freedom to act. By a conscious choice, you take your attention out of thinking - but you have to anchor it somewhere else, otherwise it won't work. So you choose your breath, or your body, or some other sense perception around you that you become aware of. When you are actually talking to another person, it's probably easiest to either use your breath or your inner body. Practice this beforehand, when conditions are easier, so that you can do it once it's necessary. Go into your inner body, feel that your energy field is alive. And you'll notice, you're not thinking anymore. You can still listen. The amazing thing is that you can listen to another person, without thinking, easily, beautifully. You are listening, but part of your attention is on your energy field - so you've taken attention away from your thoughts. There is a sense of aliveness in the background. It's ultimately formless; it's already the doorway into the formless. Feel that while you sit there and listen, and you've stepped out of the stream of thinking. Then, the quality of the interaction immediately changes. The other person may not consciously notice what's happening, and may carry on for a while. It also does not mean that you cannot respond anymore. But how you respond and the quality of your response changes, too. You are no longer contributing to the negative nature, which is often the case, in conversations. A certain amount of stillness, then, will also be a part of the words that you speak. It's so subtle that the other person probably will not notice it, consciously. So hang on to the inner body, let it be the anchor, and then you become present. If you lose it again, if the other person says something challenging, then after a little while you remember - and you go back into the inner body. That's a powerful anchor, and then everything changes from there. It takes continuous practice.

Love Is for Giving - Nirmala What is love and where is it found ? We search for love and try to get love, and yet it seems like we never get enough. Even when we've found it, it can slip away as time passes. What if there is a source of love that never fades and is always available ? What if love is as near and easy as breathing ? What if you have been "looking for love in all the wrong places" instead of actually lacking love? Love is both simpler and more mysterious and subtle than we imagine it to be. Love is simply the spacious, open attention of our awareness, which is the gentlest, kindest, and most intimate force in the world. It touches things without impinging on them. It holds all of our experience but doesn't hold it down or hold it back. And yet, inherent in awareness is a pull to connect and even merge with the object of your awareness. It's this seemingly contradictory nature of awareness-the completely open and allowing nature of it and its passionate pull to blend with and even become the object of its attention-that gives life its depth and sweetness. There is nothing more satisfying than this delicious dilemma of being both apart from and, at the same time, connected to something you see, hear, or feel. Awareness is the beginning of all separation. Prior to awareness, there is just oneness or "is-ness," with nothing separate from the oneness that would be able to experience it. With the birth of awareness comes the subtle distinction of two things: that which is aware and the object of awareness. And yet, those two are connected by this mysterious force we are calling awareness, or love. This flow of awareness and love that connects you to all you experience is the true source of satisfaction and joy. We have all experienced it to some degree. Whenever you fall in love with a person, pet, piece of music, beautiful object, or anything else, you have felt this flow of intimate, connected awareness. Unfortunately, we've been taught to believe that the source of this good feeling was the object of our affection. So we suffered whenever we lost our apparent source. When your lover leaves, your beloved pet dies, the concert ends, or your dream home is repossessed, you feel bereft of that loving, connected feeling. You are the source. But what if you are the source of the awareness that connects you to everything ? What if the love you have been seeking has always been right here inside your own Heart ? What if it doesn't matter what your awareness touches, but only that awareness is flowing ? That would profoundly simplify the search for love. Anything or any experience would be a suitable object for your love. The sweetness of love is in the flow of awareness itself. The completely allowing openness and freedom you might look for from a perfect lover is already here in your own awareness. It doesn't have to try to be accepting because awareness is, by nature, open and allowing. By itself, awareness can't do anything but touch. It can't push or pull or demand something from or limit the freedom of what it touches. And yet, it is not an aloof, distant observer. It is deeply and intimately connected to the object of awareness. In fact, awareness and the object of awareness come from the same source and are ultimately the same thing. This connection and intimacy that is natural in awareness is satisfying and fulfilling regardless of the object of awareness. In other words, whatever you are experiencing right now is your true love. Whatever you are experiencing is an opportunity to also experience the depth of your true nature as open, loving awareness. Your true nature is true love. It is the perfect lover you have been seeking, and not only is it always here, but it is who you really are. You might be thinking, "But wait, I don't feel like I'm in love or loving all the time. Sometimes I feel lonely or angry and cut off from love and satisfaction." So how can it be that love is here, but you don't feel it? Is love really absent in those moments, or is it just limited in its expression and flow? Are there really moments when there is no awareness? Or is there always some awareness, even if it isn't a lot? If there were no awareness, there also would be no problems because awareness is the beginning of separation (the sense of a separate self), and the end of awareness is the end of separation. Practically speaking, without awareness, there can't be loneliness, anger, or anything else. So when you are lonely or angry, there is at least some awareness, although possibly not much. Even when awareness is contracted and tight, as it often is when you are lonely, angry, sad, hurt, or afraid, it has the same nature as when you are happy and excited. Even a single drop of water is still wet, and even a single drop of awareness is still open and allowing of whatever it is touching. The only trick to experiencing the open and allowing nature of awareness is to look for it in the actual experience you are having. When your awareness is contracted by judgment or fear, it's not actually touching the object of your judgment or fear. Instead, it is touching the judgmental or fearful thought you are having. Awareness is completely allowing and open to that thought. That is the definition of awareness: it is the open and allowing recognition of the content of our experience. If awareness is not open to something, then we are not aware of it. The key to experiencing love is to notice where awareness is flowing right now. That flow of awareness is love, and it's the most satisfying and nourishing thing you can experience. There is naturally a direction to this flow of awareness. It moves from within your being to the objects nearby and the experiences you are having. You can only fully experience this flow of aware love as it moves in that direction. When someone else is lovingly aware of you (not of their judgments or desires regarding you, but simply of you as you are), you can experience the outer expression of their love. You can see the way they are looking at you, the smile on their face, and their reactions to you. But the awareness of you is arising in them. The love is flowing from them toward you, and so it is filling them with a sense of satisfaction and joy. If you also are to feel satisfaction and joy, it will depend on whether you are experiencing a flow of love toward them. It is your own open awareness that fills you with that sense of connection and appreciation. You are filled with love when you are giving it to someone or something else. Obviously, it's easier to open your Heart and express love when the requirements of your conditioning are being met. When someone who matches your ideal for a lover is attracted to and interested in you, it's especially easy to give him or her the same openness and attention in return. So naturally, when two people are falling in love, they are both feeling the fullness and richness of the free flow of awareness, or love. But the contact each of them has with that love is within themselves. It's their own love and awareness that is filling them up so richly. This truth-that you are filled with love when you love, rather than when you are loved-can free you from the search for love outside yourself. If you still aren't sure that it is your own love that fills you, think of a time when someone was in love with you, but you weren't in love with him or her. The flow of loving attention toward you wasn't satisfying. In fact, it might have been uncomfortable having someone so interested in you when you weren't feeling the same way. In contrast, when you are falling in love with someone, it can be rich, exciting, and energizing, even if it isn't reciprocated. In unrequited love, there is an intensity and beauty from the outward flow of love that is filling you in that moment. So despite the disappointment and hurt of not being loved back, you experience a fullness and aliveness as a result of loving the other. In the Renaissance, unrequited love was even seen as an ideal. It's the love flowing out from your own Heart that fills you with joy and satisfaction. The source is within you. Just one being. There is just one awareness and one Being behind all the individual awarenesses. The way you can reach that oneness of Being is by experiencing the flow of love from within your being. Paradoxically, the place where you are connected to others is inside your own Heart. You can't really connect to another externally. Even if you used super glue to attach yourself to another person, there would still be a sense of separation in your outer experience, not to mention how hard it might be to disconnect ! On the inside, you are already connected to everyone and everything. The connection is this flow of awareness that is here right now reading these words. It is in the loving nature of awareness that the sense of connection is found, not in the objects of awareness. You are connected to others in the awareness flowing from within you to them. Connection is not found in the flow of awareness and love toward you, as that flow is connected to its source inside the other person. This is good news ! You can experience limitless love no matter what anyone else is doing. The only thing that matters is how much you are loving, not how much you are loved. Right now, you can be filled to overflowing with the incredible sweetness of love, just by giving awareness to anything and everything that is present in your experience. You can't run out of love. You can give this awareness or love freely because awareness is the one thing you can never run out of. No matter how many things you've been aware of today, you still have awareness left for this moment and the next. Awareness is easy to give, and it doesn't cost anything or deplete you in any way. In your Heart, there is a limitless supply of love. Just see if you can give so much attention to something that you end up with no more awareness. We sometimes withhold love and awareness because we think that true love requires more than this simple, open attention. Our conditioning suggests that love requires things like compromise, sacrifice, and unconditional giving of our time and effort. Perhaps some of these are necessary for a relationship, but not for love. This is an important distinction, as we often confuse love and relationship. We mistakenly believe that love is dependent on relationship. But if we recognize that the source of love is within us, then relationship can be seen in perspective. Relationships are important, but they aren't as important as love. The experience of this inner flow of love is satisfying, either with or without a relationship. You can experience it with a beautiful object of art in a museum, a moving piece of music, an exciting moment in a sporting activity, or in a deep connection with another person. Love is what makes relationships and everything else worthwhile. What a rich possibility-that all the love you have ever wanted is available right now, just by giving it to everything you encounter, both within you and in the environment. Love is for giving, not for getting. And the more you give, the more fully it fills your Heart to overflowing.

Love, Emptiness and Energy - Steven Harrison We often feel that we are not loved enough. This is a reflection of the fact that we do not love, that we cannot find our capacity to love. Love is not something that we do to one another. There is no object in love and no subject. Love is what is present when there is no object-subject, when there are not two. This feeling of not being loved is in fact the need for love, the need for a cessation of the divided world in which our egos exist. This cessation does not come about through someone loving us. It does not come about by us loving another. Love is not causal. It cannot be created, it cannot be practiced, it cannot be taught. We can deeply inspect what we are, and in that we can see the structure of division which is inherent to thought, memory and ego. We can cease. We can be still. Love, which is the very energy and expression of life, is whole. Thought cannot approach this energy. Words cannot capture it. This energy of wholeness cannot be used, or divided, or squandered. It is us all, and all of us. This is not the answer to our question, it is the question fallen silent. Having seen the nature of our thought and ego, we may pass through this gateway into silence. We have left a world of fragments, and entered into something which is whole, but is empty. If there is no namer, then there are no names. If there is no subject, there is no object. This is emptiness. There is tremendous energy here because there is nothing to dissipate it. There is great creativity, because there is nothing to restrict it. Though the psychological self, the ego-center has gone silent, there is nothing lost. Out of this vast expansion of quiet, the energy of life expresses. The nature of this energy, because it is beyond cause and effect, is unknown. It cannot be contained by concept, or manipulated by thought or used in any way. We are not the experiencers or explorers of this energy. We are this energy : expressing, exploring, manifesting and disintegrating.

True Love - Floyd Henderson I am neither in the world nor of the world. Neither are You. For persons, the world is in them, specifically in their "mind". In the perception of persons, they seem to be moving among millions of different things and people. Some occasionally recall the Oneness that they once knew and seem to be "floating with millions of their likenesses", but the recollection is fleeting except among the fully Realized. Among the Realized, all perception ends and all truth about the Functioning of the Totality is realized. The Oneness is known. The (despised) false roles that were being played disappear and thus self-contempt, the result of dishonestly playing such phony roles, dissolves. To be true to the Self is the only way that SELF-Esteem and SELF-Love can happen. SELF-Love appears when self-hatred (hatred of the false selves) ends. When True Self awareness happens, when Self-Love begins, when the Oneness is understood, then love (in the relative existence) is understood. To know the Real You is to know that It IS the Real Me. To know that You ARE Love is to know I AM Love. Everything is matter or energy. Love is energy. You, in the relative, are matter sustained by energy, love being one of those energies for some. Today, if I tell you "I love you", the truth behind those words is in the understanding that "love" is not an action verb. It is only a noun. It indicates that I know Who or What I AM, and that YOU ARE THAT TOO. Sane, I shall not behave in a destructive manner. Sane, I cannot harm You for You are Me. Anything not the Real You and the Real Me is illusion and is not Love. Love is that knowing, knowing I AM everything. To sense that you are not loved cannot be changed by anything you can DO, for to sense you are not loved is not about you. It is about the perceiver of you. If you sense that one in your presence does not love you, it says nothing about you. It is the sixth sense telling you that that person does not know his/her Real Self. You - the Pure Consciousness - are telling You that he/she does not know that You ARE One with "Him or Her" and that "He/She" does not know what True Love is. An accurate conclusion that the person you are with does not love You simply means that the person still thinks love is a verb and does not yet know You ARE Love and They ARE Love and thus there is no separation or individuality. Love is illusion among persons living in duality. True Love is known only when the unicity is known, but even that knowing is limited to the relative. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

What's Love Got To Do With It ? - Mandi Solk Love has everything to do with "It". Love is "It". Tina Turner's song goes : "What's love got to do with it ? What's love but a second-hand emotion ?" But Love is not an emotion. Emotions comprise of feelings, created by thought, such as : need, fear, jealousy, yearning, longing, misery, happiness, excitement and so on, but true love has nothing whatsoever to do with these fleeting and constantly changing fluctuations in thought energy. So, what is the nature of Love ? It is unemotional, non-possessive, utterly supportive, truly compassionate yet impersonal. Love is pure; It is whole and complete within its own nature – it needs nothing and nobody to sustain itself. Love is boundless; limitless; "without end". Love is energy, the DNA, the very "stuff" of Life – it is Life and is Life-giving and Life-maintaining, just like the sun. And Love is also the Sun because Love is everything. Love is God, Life and Source. Love is also you and me – but there are no "you's" and "me's"; no separate blue or red facets – just the one colourless diamond that appears as many separate colours. Love is creation – it exists in and of itself and has no need of anybody to uphold it. It is light and luminous yet indestructible and eternal. It is the Source and is always there and never leaves us, because it is us. Like the diamond that produces the effect of all those apparently differing colours, it is just Being which produces the effect of an array of different individuals. And as reflecting facets of the one diamond we can of our own selves do nothing. As it says in the Bible (John Ch.5 v 12) : "Of mine own self I can do nothing". And later in John 14. v 10 : "It is the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the work". This is really saying that if I think I exist as a separate individual, then I have no power and no real strength. However, as the "veil" gradually dissolves, and it is seen who "I" truly am, then there is nothing that cannot be done or known. The veil is woven by "attachment thoughts" – thoughts that obscure the truth of who I really AM. I am Love, and as such, I am complete, all-mighty and all-powerful. Love is so often misunderstood. Even though we are composed and comprised of it, Love cannot be known because Love is unknowable, intangible, invisible, indivisible, limitless, infinite, immortal and All Power and we cannot possibly be separated from it, because we are It. One of the greatest causes of suicide is the feeling of acute loneliness, separation and isolation, resulting in feelings of desolation and desperation. The thoughts consist of not feeling cared about, a lack of affection or cherishing etc. But in truth there is no lack of care or love – because Being, God, is everything. "This" is true beneficence. No "other" person can give us what we already have. This is why we can rarely find the perfect partner when we are looking for only human and material characteristics. We have more chance of finding the right partner, whether it's in love or in business, when we see that we already are that which we seek. Everything we are seeking in another, we already have within ourselves. We are the Whole and therefore we encompass every quality of love that we seek in another. What is meant by this, is that actually there are no humans therefore there are no human needs; all there is is Divine Love and so that which is sought has already been delivered. When "human" cells are observed, they are continuously repairing themselves. The entire nature of Being is self-healing, self-adjusting and self-supporting. The substance of Life is Good, (which is another word for God.) All that is going on is Good and everything is in complete balance. Any appearance of BAD or evil, has no reality, because the foundation of everything is pure beneficence – pure Love. There is no "I" – there is only "All". When things are being done, they are being done by no-one. If I want a cup of tea and I go and make one – there is in fact no "me" making a cup of tea – tea is simply being made, by no-one; ultimately, the tea is being made by God (Being making tea !). Remember there is no "I" – the impression of a "me" is simply the result of a continuous stream of thoughts that arise in an identifying of "myself" as the Source. But there is no individual at the source of Being – the Source of all being is God/Life/Love. So God brushes your teeth and washes your hands, takes you shopping and buys your clothes, feeds you and looks after when you're ill. You think you are doing all of that but there is no you. "You", are being done ! When this is clearly recognized, all the seeking falls away and the gratitude that is felt is truly awesome. Sometimes gratitude is felt so deeply it brings a lump to the throat. We are never alone and left to fend for ourselves. We are always all-one and beloved, reflecting love. Love is the "stuff" we are composed of. There is only completeness, whatever the outward appearance. There isn't a "me" that is located in the body – "I am" everywhere – everyone and everything – "I" fill all space and I also am all space. Lack does not exist in nature. The mind, or rather our thoughts, are obsessed with lack – in particular lack of money or lack of the right partner – or lack of ease – so then we experience dis-ease. The more our thoughts concentrate on lack, in this dream we're living, the more lack appears in our experience. But when we are intimate with Being, there is the seeing of continual abundance, because Being both fills and is All Space. There is no difference between the basic substance of a chair, a concrete floor, chocolate, or a human etc. – it's all energy – "spiritual substance". All is God/Being/Presence – etc. "We are made in His image and likeness". Being is both full and empty at the same time. "Full", because "I am" everyone and everything. But also "empty" of a person, a "me" an identity or centre. Nobody's home. There is no-thing outside of "I" and therefore no attachment to anyone or anything because "I am" everyone and everything. Just thoughts arising – one after another after another. Thoughts are simply energy, or Being, vocalizing itself. Thoughts are continuous because Life is continuous. Thoughts are no more than fluctuating frequencies of energy that we hear. For this reason, thoughts can never be taken seriously because they are subject to constant change – just like the weather. If the weather appears cold and wet, thoughts may automatically become "miserable" – alternatively, if it is a warm, bright sunny day, thoughts may become positive and uplifting. There is no deep foundation to them – and "you" are not creating them; they endlessly generate themselves. We become mesmerised into thinking that our thoughts are us, that "I" am my thoughts and also that which I think. Yet there is no solidity to "me" – "I" am a complete myth. "I" am just another thought arising in Presence. There is no me and no you.

From Addictive to Enlightened Relationships - Eckhart Tolle Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional. They may seem perfect for a while, such as when you are "in love", but invariably that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical violence occur with increasing frequency. It seems that most "love relationships" become love/hate relationships before long. Love can then turn into savage attack, feelings of hostility, or complete withdrawal of affection at the flick of a switch. This is considered normal. If in your relationships you experience both "love" and the opposite of love - attack, emotional violence, and so on - then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your "love" has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego's substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation. But there comes a point when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet your needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain, and lack that are an intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the "love relationship" now resurface. Just as with every other addiction, you are on a high when the drug is available, but invariably there comes a time when the drug no longer works for you. When those painful feelings reappear, you feel them even more strongly than before, and what is more, you now perceive your partner as the cause of those feelings. This means that you project them outward and attack the other with all the savage violence that is part of your pain. This attack may awaken the partner's own pain, and he or she may counter your attack. At this point, the ego is still unconsciously hoping that its attack or its attempts at manipulation will be sufficient punishment to induce your partner to change their behavior, so that it can use them again as a cover-up for your pain. Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to — alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person — you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever. This is one reason why most people are always trying to escape from the present moment and are seeking some kind of salvation in the future. The first thing that they might encounter if they focused their attention on the Now is their own pain, and this is what they fear. If they only knew how easy it is to access in the Now the power of presence that dissolves the past and its pain, the reality that dissolves the illusion. If they only knew how close they are to their own reality, how close to God. Avoidance of relationships in an attempt to avoid pain is not the answer either. The pain is there anyway. Three failed relationships in as many years are more likely to force you into awakening than three years on a desert island or shut away in your room. But if you could bring intense presence into your aloneness, that would work for you too. Whether you are living alone or with a partner, this remains the key : being present and intensifying your presence by taking your attention ever more deeply into the Now. For love to flourish, the light of your presence needs to be strong enough so that you no longer get taken over by the thinker or the pain-body and mistake them for who you are. To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment. To disidentify from the pain-body is to bring presence into the pain and thus transmute it. To disidentify from thinking is to be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior, especially the repetitive patterns of your mind and the roles played by the ego. If you stop investing it with "selfness", the mind loses its compulsive quality, which basically is the compulsion to judge, and so to resist what is, which creates conflict, drama, and new pain. In fact, the moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace. First you stop judging yourself; then you stop judging your partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way. That immediately takes you beyond ego. All mind games and all addictive clinging are then over. There are no victims and no perpetrators anymore, no accuser and accused. This is also the end of all codependency, of being drawn into somebody else's unconscious pattern and thereby enabling it to continue. You will then either separate — in love — or move ever more deeply into the Now together, into Being. Can it be that simple ? Yes, it is that simple. Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form. In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love. Although brief glimpses are possible, love cannot flourish unless you are permanently free of mind identification and your presence is intense enough to have dissolved the pain-body — or you can at least remain present as the watcher. The pain-body cannot then take you over and so become destructive of love.

Peace, Happiness and Love - Ruppert Spira Peace, happiness and love are simply the names we give to the knowing of our own Being as it truly is. Normally we imagine that our essential Being is a little, vulnerable, conscious entity located inside the body. As such, it is believed to have been born, to exist in time and space, to be subjected to and dependent upon the changes of the body and to be destined to disappear and die when the body dies. However, if we look clearly and simply at this conscious Being that we intimately and directly know ourselves to be, we find that it has no inherent limitation or location. This experiential understanding may not be formulated in terms such as these but it is well known by all as the experience of peace, happiness and love. The belief and subsequent feeling that our most intimate Being is limited and located within the body or mind veils the peace, happiness and love that are inherent within it and initiates a search in the realm of objects, activities, substances and relationships, in an attempt to recover the original ease of Being for which we long. At some point and usually as a result of the inevitable failure of this search, we begin to question the very one who is unhappy and in search, and discover that it cannot be found as a separate, limited entity. Instead we find the intimacy of our own impersonal, unlocated Being and with this discovery the peace, happiness and love that are inherent in the simple knowing of Being, are restored. And what is it that finds this ? Being or Presence is itself all that is present in this recognition, to be able to "know" itself. That is, it finds itself. Presence recognises itself. In time and as a result of this recognition, the mind, the body and even the world become permeated with the peace, happiness and love that have been discovered in the core of our Being, and all our activities and relationships in the world are subsequently realigned with it. These activities and relationships do not cease as a result of this understanding. In fact, they flourish. However, they now become the means whereby we express, share and celebrate our true nature of peace, happiness and love, rather than a means of securing it. In our meetings we simply take our stand knowingly as Presence itself and explore the beliefs and feelings that suggest that we are anything less than this absolute freedom and love itself.

Transcending the Basic Duality of Sex - Osho Life is not there at its maximum when you are born; it is at its minimum. If you do stick at that, you will have a life which is just near death – just a borderline life. By birth, only an opportunity is given, only an opening is made. Life has to be achieved. Birth is just a beginning, not the end. But normally we stay at the point of birth. That is why death happens. If you stay at the point of birth you will die. If you can grow beyond birth you can grow beyond death. Remember this very deeply: death is not against life; death is against birth. Life is something else. In death only birth ends and in birth only death begins. Life is something totally different. You have to attain it, achieve it, actualize it. It is given to you as a seed, just as a potentiality – something which can be but which is not already there. You have every chance of missing it. You can be alive because you are born, but that is not synonymous with really being in life. Life is your effort to actualize the potentiality. Hence, the meaning of religion; otherwise there is no meaning in religion. If life begins with birth and ends in death, then there is no meaning for religion. Then religion is futile, nonsense. If life does not begin with birth, then religion has some meaning. Then it becomes the science of how to evolve life out of birth. And the more you move away from birth in life, the more you move away from death also because death and birth are parallel, similar, the same – two ends of one process. If you move away from the one, you are simultaneously moving away from the other. Religion is a science to achieve life. Life is beyond death. Birth dies; life, never. To achieve this life you have to do something. Birth is given to you. Your parents have done something : they have loved each other, they have been melting into each other, and out of their life force, melting into each other, a new phenomenon, a new seed – you – is born. But you have not done anything for it : it is a gift. Remember, birth is a gift. That is why all the cultures pay so much respect to parents – it is a gift, and you cannot repay it. The debt cannot be repaid. What can you do to repay it ? Life has been given to you, but you have not done anything for it. Religion can give you a new birth, a rebirth. You can be reborn. But this birth will happen through some alchemical change within you. Just as the first birth happened through two life forces meeting without you – they created an opportunity for you to enter, to be born; that is a deep alchemy – so a similar thing has to be done now within you. Your parents met – your mother and your father. Two forces, feminine and masculine, were meeting to create an opportunity for some new thing to be born. Two opposite forces were meeting, two polarities were meeting. And whenever two polarities meet, something new is born, a new synthesis is achieved. A similar thing has to happen within you. You also have two polarities within you, the feminine and the masculine. Let me explain it a little more in detail... Because your body is born out of two polarities: cells from your mother and cells from your father, they create your body. You have both types of cells – those which came from your mother and those which came from your father. Your body consists of two polarities, feminine and masculine. You are both, everyone is both. Whether you are man or woman it makes no difference. If you are a man you have a woman within you: your mother is there. If you are a woman you have a man within you: your father is there. They can again meet within you. And the whole yoga, the whole tantra, the alchemy, the whole process of religion, is how to create an orgasm, a deep intercourse between the polarities within you. And when they meet within you a new type of being is born, a new life becomes alive. If you are a man, then your conscious is masculine and your unconscious is feminine. If you are a woman your conscious is feminine and your unconscious is masculine. Your conscious and unconscious must meet so that a new birth becomes possible. What to do for their meeting to happen ? Bring them nearer. You have created a separation; you have created all types of barriers. You do not allow them to meet. You try to exist with the conscious and you go on suppressing the unconscious. You do not allow it. If a man starts weeping and crying, someone is bound to say immediately, "What are you doing ? You are doing something womanish, feminine". The man stops immediately. The masculine is not expected to weep and cry. But you have the possibility; the unconscious is there. You have moments of feminineness, you have moments of masculineness; everyone does. A woman can become ferocious, a male, in some moods, in some moments. But then she will suppress. She will say, "This is not womanlike." We go on creating a separation, a distance. That distance has to be thrown away; your conscious and unconscious must come nearer. Only then can they meet, only then can they have a deep intercourse. An orgasm can happen WITHIN you. That orgasm is known as spiritual bliss. One type of orgasm is possible between your body and the body of the polar opposite sex; it can happen only for a single moment because you meet only on the periphery. The peripheries meet and then they separate. Another type, a deeper type of orgasm, can happen within. But then you meet at the center and there is no need to separate again. Sexual ecstasy can only be momentary; spiritual ecstasy can be eternal; once attained you need not lose it. Really, once attained it is difficult to lose it – impossible to lose it. It becomes such an integration that the fragments disappear completely. That is why when someone asked Buddha, "Who are you ? A deva, a heavenly being ?" he said, "No !" And the questioner went on asking. Then the questioner became desperate because whenever he asked Buddha who he is, if he is this or that, Buddha went on saying, "No !" Then finally he asked, "At least you must say that you are male. You must say yes." Buddha said, "No !" "Then are you a female ?" the man asked desperately. Buddha said, "No !" – Because a new unity has come into being which is neither male nor female. When your inner man and inner woman meet, you are neither: you transcend sex. That is the meaning of the oldest Indian image of Shiva as Ardhanarishwar – half man, half woman. That is the symbol of the inner meeting. Shiva is neither now: he is half man, half woman – both and neither. He transcends sex. Remember, unless you transcend sex, you cannot transcend duality. This is a deep psychological problem – not only psychological but ontological also. If you remain a man or a woman, how can you conceive of the oneness of existence ? You cannot. Being a man, you cannot conceive of yourself being one with a woman. Being a woman, you cannot conceive of yourself being one with a man. A duality persists. Sex is the basic duality. We have been arguing about and discussing for centuries how to attain the non-dual. But we go on discussing it as if it is some intellectual matter: "How to attain the non-dual ?" It is not an intellectual matter; it is ontological, existential. You can attain the non-dual only when the duality within you disappears. It is not a question of meditating on the non-dual and thinking, "I am the Brahman." Nothing will come out of it; you are simply deluding yourself. You cannot attain non-duality unless the basic duality of sex disappears within you, unless you come to a moment when you cannot say who you are – man or woman. And this happens only when your inner man and woman melt so much that they dissolve into each other – and all the boundaries are lost, and all the distinctions are lost, and they are one. When the inner orgasm, the spiritual ecstasy happens, you are neither. And only when you are neither is life born. In a single moment of meeting between your parents, your mother and father, you were born – in a single moment of meeting ! Remember, life is always out of meeting, never out of separation. Life comes only in a deep meeting, in a deep communion. For a single moment your father and mother were one, they were not two. They were functioning as one being. In that oneness you were born. Life always comes out of oneness. And the life that I am talking about, or Jesus talks about and Buddha talks about, is the life which will happen inside you, within you. Again a communion, a melting, happens, and the two sexualities within you dissolve. Remember, I say again and again that sex is the basic duality, and unless you transcend sex the Brahman cannot be achieved. All other dualities are just reflections and reflections of this basic duality; birth and death – again a duality. They will disappear when you are neither male or female. When you have a consciousness which goes beyond both, birth and death disappear, matter and mind disappear, this world and that world disappear, heaven and hell disappear. All dualities disappear when the basic duality within you disappears, because all dualities are simply echoing and re-echoing the basic division within you. That is why the old, ancient Indian seers have put the Brahman in the third category. He is neither male nor female. They call him Napunsak – impotent. They call him the third sex, the ultimate reality of the third sex. The word Brahman belongs to Napunsak Ling: it is neither or it is both. But one thing is certain: it transcends the duality. That is why other conceptions of God look immature, childish. Christians call him father. This is childish, because then where is the mother ? And how is this son Jesus born ? And they say Jesus is the only son but where is the mother ? The father alone giving birth ? If the father alone gives birth to Jesus, then he is both – mother and father. Then do not call him father. Then the duality comes in. Or, some religions have called the ultimate being the mother. Then where is the father ? These are just anthropomorphic feelings. Man cannot even think about the ultimate in any other terms than human, so he calls it father or mother. But those who have known and those who have transcended the anthropocentric attitude, the man-oriented attitude – they know that he is neither. He transcends both; he is a meeting of both. In the ultimate, mother and father both are merged. Or, if you will allow me the expression, I would like to say: the Brahman is mother and father in eternal orgasm – one in an eternal ecstasy of meeting. And out of that meeting comes the whole creation, out of that meeting comes the whole play, out of that meeting all that exists is born. Here, in this meditation camp, we will be trying to bring your unconscious and conscious nearer, your feminine and your masculine nearer. You will have to help me, to cooperate with me. In the meditation techniques you have to destroy all the barriers between your conscious mind and the unconscious. And you have to be free, as totally free as possible because suppression has created the barriers. So do not suppress. If you feel like screaming, scream. The very scream will bring your conscious and unconscious nearer. If you feel like dancing, dance. The very dance will bring your conscious and unconscious nearer. Really, dance can be very helpful, because in dance your body and your mind are in a deep meeting. It is not only the body which is moving; within the body your consciousness is also moving. Really, a dance becomes a dance only when your body is filled with the grace of your spirit, when your spirit is flowing out of your body, when your spirit has taken a rhythm with the body. All the old religions were dancing religions. They were more authentic. Our new modes of religion are just false. You go into a temple or into a church or into a gurudwara and you just verbalize there. Someone preaches and you listen. It has become cerebral. Or, you pray and you talk with God. Even with God you use language. You cannot be silent with him; you cannot believe that he can understand you without your talking. You have no faith ! You do not trust him; you want to explain everything to him. I have heard : one mother overheard her small child praying in the night to God, and he was saying, "Dear God, beloved God, stop Tommy from throwing things at me – and by the way, I have told you this before". But this is what we all are doing : praying to God to "stop Tommy from throwing things at me." Even if you go to the Vedic rishis they are doing the same : "Do this; do not do that". You cannot allow him to do whatsoever is his will. You give your own program. And if he follows you, you are a believer and if he doesn't follow you, you will say that he doesn't exist. He can exist only if he exists as your follower. But existence cannot follow you. Existence is greater than you; existence is the whole. You are just a fragment, and a fragment cannot be followed – the fragment has to follow the whole. This is what a religious mind is: the fragment following the whole, the fragment surrendering to the whole, the fragment not struggling, the fragment in a let-go. Religion has become verbal, linguistic. Here we will try to bring the authentic religion. The secret most core of it is that you must come to it totally – with your mind, your body, your emotions, everything. Nothing is denied. You cry and you weep and you laugh and you dance, and you sit in silence. You do all the things that your inner being happens to do; you do not force it to do anything. You do not say, "This is not good; I should not do it." You allow a spontaneous flow. Then the unconscious will come nearer and nearer to the conscious. We have created the gap through suppression: "Don't do this, don't do that", and we go on suppressing. Then the unconscious is suppressed. It becomes dark. It becomes a part where we never move in our own house. Then we are divided. And, remember, then there are perversions. If you allow your unconscious to come nearer to your conscious, too much sex-obsession will disappear. If you are a man and you deny your unconscious, you are denying your inner woman; then you will be attracted to outer women too much. It will become a perversion because then it is a substitute. The inner femininity has been denied; now the outer femininity becomes obsessive to you. You will think and think about it; now your whole mind will become sexual. If you are a woman and you have denied the man, then 'man' will take possession of you. Then whatsoever you do or think, the basic color will remain sexual. So much fantasy about sex is because you have denied your inner other. So now this is a compensation. Now you are compensating for something which you have denied to yourself. And look at the absurdity: the more you get obsessed with the other sex the more you feel afraid; the more you deny the inner the more you suppress it; and the more you suppress it the more you become obsessed. Your so-called brahmacharis are totally obsessed with sex for twenty-four hours a day; they are bound to be. It is natural: nature takes revenge. To me, Brahmacharya – celibacy – means you have come so near to your own feminine or your own masculine, so near that there is no substitution for it. You are not obsessed with it; you do not think about it. It disappears. When your own unconscious is nearer to you, you need not substitute it with someone else outside. And then a miracle happens. If your unconscious is so near, then whenever you love someone, a woman or a man, that love is not pathological. If your unconscious is so near, that love is not pathological. It is not possessive, it is not mad. It is very silent, tranquil, calm, cool. Then the other is not a substitute and you are not dependent on the other. Rather, the other becomes just a mirror. Remember the difference : the other is not now a substitute, something which you have denied. The other becomes a mirror of your inner part, of your unconscious. Your wife, your beloved, becomes just a mirror. In that mirror you see your unconscious. Your lover, your husband, your friend, becomes a mirror. And in that mirror you can see your unconscious clearly mirrored, projected outside. Then wife and husband can help each other to bring their unconscious more and more near. And a moment comes, and it must come if life has been a really successful effort, when wife and husband are no more wife and husband : they have become companions on the eternal journey. They help each other; they have become mirrors to each other. They reveal the unconscious of the other and each helps the other to know himself or herself. Now there is no pathology, no dependence. Remember one thing more : if you deny your unconscious, if you hate your unconscious, if you suppress your woman or man within, then you can go on saying that you love the outer woman but deep down you will hate her also. If you deny your own woman, you will hate the woman you love. If you deny your own man, you will hate the man you love. Your love will just be on the surface. Deep down it will be a hatred. It is bound to be so, it has to be so, because you will not allow the other to become the mirror of your unconscious. And you will be afraid also. Man is afraid of woman. Go and ask your so-called saints. They are so afraid of women. Why ? They are afraid of the unconscious, and the woman becomes a mirror. Whatsoever they have hidden, she reveals. If you have suppressed something, then the other polar opposite can reveal it immediately. If you have been suppressing sex and you are sitting in meditation in a lonely place and a beautiful woman passes by, suddenly your unconscious will assert itself. That which has been hidden will be revealed in the woman passing and you will be against that woman. You are foolish – because that woman is not doing anything at all, she is just passing there. She may not even know that you are there; she is not doing anything to you. She is a mirror, but the mirror is passing and in that mirror your unconscious is reflected. The whole so-called spirituality is based on fear. What is the fear ? The fear is that the other can reveal the unconscious and you do not want to know anything about it. But not knowing will not help, suppression will not help. It will remain there. It will become a cancer and by and by it will assert itself more and more, and ultimately you will come to feel that you have been a failure and that whatsoever you have suppressed has become victorious and you are defeated. My whole effort is to bring your unconscious nearer to your conscious. You become so much acquainted with it so that it is not unknown. You become friendly to it, then the fear disappears– the fear of the polar opposite. And then the hatred also disappears because then the other is just a mirror, helpful. You feel gratitude. Lovers will be grateful to each other if the unconscious is not suppressed and they will be hateful to each other if the unconscious is suppressed. Allow your whole being to come into function. Your emotions are imprisoned, encapsulated. Your body movements are imprisoned. Your body, your heart, have become just as if they are not part of you. You simply carry them along like a burden. Allow your emotions full play. In the meditations we will be doing, allow your emotions full play and enjoy the play, because many new things will be revealed to you.

The Resonance Of Love - Ruppert Spira Q : I have been thinking for many years about perception. As a psychologist I would often use the theme of "changing perception" about a situation in order to facilitate releif from stress/anxiety in clients. Working with bereaved and traumatized children it occurred that their perceived self (and perceptions of others) changed during the healing process. They used art work and play to express feelings. Recently I have experienced frustration when trying to communicate (to others) this single thought; it is only our perception which changes". Clearly there is some error in my thinking and I would appreciate how I may clarify this. I have used the example of how we see ourselves in relative to others. For example we may like someone a great deal but upon overhearing them making a cruel remark about us or finding them stealing from us, or perception (of them) alters. Yet they possibly have NOT changed and nor have we but our perception (it seems) irrevocably alters. Or when we are "in love" with someone and then then fall out and meet them at a later date, they seem to have changed but it is only our perception. I would appreciate any feedback or clarification you can give. A : You give the example of when our perception of a person changes but their perception of us seems not to change. However, the observation that their perception has not changed is in fact simply OUR perception. In fact we have no knowledge of anyone or anything outside perception. It is precisely this idea that the other exists outside and independent of our self, Consciousness, that is responsible for the conflict that we are trying to resolve. The conflict cannot be resolved with the same separating tool (the dualising mind) that creates it in the first place. Conflict between people is not resolved in the mind; it is resolved in the dissolution of the mind with all its fixed positions, opinions, attitudes, certainties etc. It is dissolved in listening, openness, sensitivity, love. If we are frustrated because someone is not understanding us and then blame or judge them for not understanding, we simply add our own frustration into the mix and compound the conflict. In such a case we may try again to meet them in understanding in a new way. Instead of imposing our own view of the situation we may take our stand in openness, welcoming and listening. If our words come from this place, chances are they will find their way to the heart of the other. And their words will find their way into our heart. If not, both parties have done their best and must wait. Either way, conflict is not resolved in the mind. The mind is dissolved in that place where all resolution occurs. Even in a professional situation such as the one you describe, it is in the deep listening rather than the speaking that the healing takes place. It is the same in the situation with a teacher. The apparent teacher considers the apparent student to be his or her very own self, that is, to be the beautiful Presence that he or she knows him or herself to be. That is the effective ingredient in the relationship. The words are simply the context, not the substance of the relationship. When we go out to play football with a child, is it because we love to play football ? No, it is because we love the child. Football is just a way of being together, of allowing this resonance of love to shine. It is in this resonance of love that all psychological conflict is healed. Version Française

How to Get More Love in Your Life - Gina Lake The question, "How can I get more love in my life ?" is itself part of the problem, because this question assumes that you don't have enough love right now and that you have to do something to get it. It also assumes that love is something you get from other people. If you believe these assumptions, you will get busy trying to do something to get love, and you will be doing those things from a sense of lack, which is not particularly attractive. When you believe you lack love, you create a sense of lack within yourself, and that sense of lack becomes somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophesy, as people sense that you want something from them. When we are looking to get something from people, even love, it is coming from the ego, which is a place of self-centeredness, tension, and discontentment : "What can you do for me?" Other egos are also looking for what someone else can do for them. Those who are looking for something or someone to fulfill them from the outside are not likely to find it, not only because other people don't necessarily want to fill that role, but also, more importantly, because we can never get enough love from outside ourselves to fulfill the ego's feeling of lack. The only solution to wanting more love is realizing the truth about love: It is your nature to love, and you have an unlimited supply of it. But you must choose to activate this supply of love by giving it to someone else. The way to get more love is to activate your own capacity to love. When loving is flowing out of us to others, we experience love. Love doesn't come from others. This is apparent at those times when someone is in love with us, but we aren't in love with him or her. Someone loving us isn't enough to get us to feel love. Love isn't something someone can give us. What we really want is to feel the love we have inside ourselves. The source of love is inside of us, and we feel love when we choose to give it. We are used to thinking of love as an emotion, a feeling that sweeps over us, like when we fall in love. Falling in love is the most wonderful feeling, and yet, the feeling of falling in love isn't true love, and it doesn't last. We long for that feeling to be our ongoing experience, but it can't be. Falling in love is a feeling that comes and eventually goes. True love is not so much a feeling as a doing. It is an act of acceptance, openness, kindness, receptivity to another. We experience love as a result of being open and attentive to and accepting of whomever is in front of us. Love also flows when we are simply open to and accepting of life and whatever experience we are having. Love flows from us (and is experienced by us) whenever we are fully present and accepting of how life is showing up right now, whether a person is showing up in the moment or not. Love flows whenever we aren't complaining about life, wanting something different, or judging and evaluating whatever is going on. Love is our natural state. It is the state we drop into whenever we are simply saying yes to how life is showing up in the moment. The only thing that can interfere with this yes is the mind saying no to life. So the only thing that can interfere with love is a thought! No person or circumstance can interfere with your ability to feel love unless you allow it to. And no person can make you feel love unless you allow it either. The really good news is that love is a possibility in every moment. It is in our control. It is our choice: We can choose to love whatever and whomever we are experiencing or not. Our default position as humans seems to be to reject and find fault with our experience and with the people we encounter. But that doesn't have to be our response to life. We have the power to ignore the judgments and negativity of our minds and to open our hearts in acceptance to whatever happens to be showing up in our life. When we do that, we discover that there is no shortage of love. When we are very present in the moment to whatever experience we are having, instead of involved in our thoughts about life, love flows outward from within us to whatever and whomever we are experiencing. We also find that love from others is the natural response to this outward flow. But the love that is returned to us is not the source of our love, as nice as their love might be. You are the source of love, and you have the power to feel love. In any moment, you can choose love instead of following your train of thoughts about what you want and how you'd like things to be. You are the creator of your experience of life because you can choose how you respond to life. We may not be able to control what comes our way and whether we are in a relationship with someone at a particular time. But we can control how we choose to see and respond to whatever life brings us. Once we learn that we are masters of our experience in this way, life can be full of love whether we have someone special giving us love back or not.

What is Love ? - Bentinho Massaro What is Love ? Love is here. Love is forever. Love is endless, always present. There can never be a lack of love, nor is love ever missing. If we ever feel that that is the case, then there is simply us believing in our stories about life that blind us from Love's obvious presence. But never is it not here. Love is like the background of everything. Like the canvas is to a painting or like the sky is to the clouds. Love is the very basis of everything, without it, we are not; without Love, nothing is. All is that basis; all is that Love. It is the nature of everything and it cannot be surpassed. Whenever you stop thinking for a moment or stop believing in your ideas, you will notice that there is a present background for all these thoughts and emotions to appear in. This background will be seen to be present right now. Much like a space that is there in which thoughts either arise, or stay absent from. Once this space is recognized directly, this background from which nothing ever leaves, we may also realize that this space is the very substratum of everything that is known within it. This space is most easily noticed when there is no clinging to the passing thoughts. Like the blue open sky is more noticeable when there are no clouds or when we at least have the courage to not be distracted by the clouds and take a moment to realize and recognize the sky in which they exist. After having gained trust and experiential confirmation in this recognition of spacious Love, it will become apparent to us that this Love is also here whenever we are thinking and clinging to thoughts and emotions. All arises, endures and dissolves spontaneously within Love and these appearances are free in nature, from the very moment they arise. The act of Love and Loving yourself. Whenever you feel down, then that is how you feel. Whenever you feel great, then that is how you feel. The very act of acknowledging that you feel a certain way and allowing that feeling to be without trying to come up with, or derive from it, any form of meaning, direction or implication, is Love loving itself unconditionally. To believe that feelings and thoughts need to be reacted upon or acted out in order to resolve, is the great misconception. All is already resolved since nothing ever isn't. Love is in, through, with and as all that arises. There is no such thing as distinction or value in the eyes of Love. Love sees only itself in and as everything. Love is completely drunk with its own nectar and expresses itself in seemingly foolish, yet amazingly effective ways. Love is Foolish because there is no filtering, no intervention and there is no interception in any given moment. There simply isn't anyone to review the expression before it is allowed to be expressed. When Resting as the background of all phenomena, we rest as Love and see through its limitless eyes. From this restful seeing there is no one to intercept, intervene, think about, judge, categorize, analyze or solidify any appearance whatsoever. There is only Love expressing itself directly, spontaneously, without limit, hesitation or control. So how can Love not seem foolish at times when seen from the eyes of an interpreter ? The Commitment to Love. Instead of reacting upon our thoughts and feelings, we can love them as they are. We can learn to be patient with ourselves and through that patience realize in our direct experience the background of all that we consider our talents, flaws or human expressions. By committing to something beyond the scope of our transient movements of energy, even if we are not yet sure as to what we are committing ourselves to exactly, we will be much more patient and stable whenever these movements of energy occur. We will have a gaze that's set on infinity and nothing that passes our gaze will distract us, for we are looking directly into what lies beyond. Like the constant movement of a windscreen wiper cannot distract our focus from the road. Through this patience, dedication and ability to encompass and allow all that can arise to be as it will, we will see the background of all movement. It is then and there that we will know what Love is, directly. Not conceptually, not intellectually, but decisively as being what we are as the all-inclusive basis in which and as which everything exists. Love Forgetting Itself and then Remembering again. We tend to forget and overlook the simplicity of what's already here. That's because we analyze and give value to things. By giving value to something, you make a distinction between that one thing and everything else. Love is total, distinction-less equanimity with all things of all sorts. When seen from Love, the World is new and fresh in every moment. Love is not defined by - and therefore not confined to - feelings of love alone. Love is there as the Self-Aware space in which these feelings of love are experienced. Likewise, Love also includes hatred as being a perfect and flawless perception within itself. It sees everything as itself, hence it's a peaceful equanimity that's at perfect balance with itself. Nothing is ever denied existence; all is allowed exactly as it comes. Love is completely in Love with what we call war, hate, and all such things. To see everything as being an expression of that one Love, is to remember Love through its naturally inherent Self Awareness. To Relax, means to stop all seeking and all defining (which equals dividing). So do just that : Relax. Again and again, throughout all your personal challenges, relax your ideas and stop looking for an strategy or a one-way ticket out of the situation you're in and be that gracious compassion for whatever you may experience. Be all-inclusive; allow everything to come and go as it pleases; release yourself from all controlling tendencies and avoiding attitudes. Face your thoughts and emotions and have that stable, compassionate gaze which allows all to arise and dissolve and is never distracted by any specific movement. Remember this love to be the substratum, the true nature, of all appearances equally, again and again, whenever you remember to do so and more and more Love will reveal itself to be the basis of all that exists. To the point where recognizing love, even in the face of confusion, is inescapable. Love is simply here to stay and nothing ever escapes its scope. Loving yourself means to allow the full spectrum of your experiences to be experienced without any fleeing or manipulation. Love is Free, Love is Total, Love is Now. Already Perfect Love is all you are. Just Relax.

We Are the Expression of Love - Suzanne Foxton It is a hard road to convince any ego to embrace and love absolutely everything. Some believe that this is a step toward that elusive clear seeing, where each apparent thing is seen exactly as it is, without the projections and conclusions and judgments of the mind; ultimately, that those things are seen to not exist at all as anything separate, or objective. Those things that appall most egos, those things labelled "bad" or "evil" or "destructive" - the possibility of loving those things thought of (and felt of) as repellent and inharmonious seems impossible, for an ego needs a foil, a raison d'être, something to do, something to conquer, something to be opposed to: an object for the ego subject. Human beings, self-aware and conscious of their doings, usually believe those doings must be tightly controlled. The ego can go through a billion different conniptions, disciplines, and practices to submerge itself or negate itself, can feel the joy of everything-ness in utter harmony without the ego-veil and decide that this bliss is the ultimate quality of everything - benign, neutral; but generally expansive and life-embracing unconditional love. This is the final answer, to the ultimate question : we are love, we are the expression of love; we, and everything we see, is love, manifest. This, and only this. No subject and object : just love. Everything-ness, being-ness, aliveness, awareness, is love; and all the machinations of the mind and ego work against this omnipresent bliss and harmony. These machinations must be rooted out, stripped away, deconstructed, so that this reality - this absolute truth - can be clearly seen, and completely lived. There are many stories of practice in the traditions of Advaita Vedanta or Zen Buddhism, or even occidental love-based therapy, and many others. Remarkable stories of thirty years of astute practice and asceticism; of extensive study and knowledge; of the peeling away of the layers of the ego, the deconstruction of all the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the naked revelation of our personas as one defence after another is seen for what it is, and discarded. There is admonition to devote oneself to the conditioning that has formed our unique persona, and rip it away. This takes great dedication, or at least great courage. Know thyself, in order to negate thyself. Only this way is true seeing possible. Deconstruct the story of life in order to see that it never happened at all. Evaluate and see how your relationships with others are based on fear, and the otherness dissolves. Oneness at last becomes blindingly apparent. Perhaps the story that can be deconstructed, in an instant, in less than that, in no-time, is the story of the ego's deconstruction. This is oneness, life, everything, for it is oneness, life, everything - now. However, in playing the game of a story unfolding, in time, in this illusory material world, perhaps the story of the ego's deconstruction is more to the point than most. There is no one right story. There is no proper way; all ways are proper, for each way does not really exist.

Beingness Is God, God Is Love - Nisargadatta Maharaj In Ramesh Balsekar's "Pointers From Nisargadatta Maharaj" which is a True Sage translating a True Sage, Ramesh writes : What several visitors notice after listening to Maharaj for some time is that he rarely uses the word 'love' in his exposition of the true nature of man. In fact, he often says that in the process of manifestation of the unmanifest there is nothing religious or devotional as such. Should a visitor specifically ask Maharaj whether love had no place in what he expounds, he would smile and ask a counter-question : What do you really mean when you use the word 'love' ? What significance does the word have for you ? This question would generally make the visitor speechless because this word is one of those which are hopelessly misunderstood and freely misused. Maharaj would then continue : Does not the word 'love' basically signify 'a need' of some kind, for you love the person, or the thing that satisfies your need ? Indeed, the love between man and woman satisfies the need of each for the other whether the need be physical, by way of companionship, or in any other form or manner. When one fnds that the other no longer satisfies the need, 'love' first turns to indifference and later on perhaps to 'hate'. Why do couples change partners, wedded or otherwise, so often, particularly in the West ? For the simple reason that they no longer seem to satisfy each other's need as they did earlier. One visitor, who wanted to pursue the enquiry further, asked some questions. Visitor : But sir, this is definitely a narrow view of the word 'love'. There must surely be something like impersonal or 'universal' love ? Maharaj : Ah! Let us be clear what we are talking about. Are we talking about a sentiment, a relationship between two persons ? If so, can love be really anything other than the inter-related opposite counterpart of 'hate' - both being feelings that one person has for another ? Such a relationship can only occur in a dualistic manifestation of subject-object. If, however, you are thinking in terms of Noumenal non-manifestation, which is a state of total subjectivity, (without the slightest touch of anything objective), something which can only be suggested by the subjective pronoun 'I', total Unicity, which can be conceived only as a state of fullness, wholeness, holiness, no words can be adequate. And, of course, in that state a love-hate relationship would be quite inconceivable. Relationship between whom? If, therefore, you are using the word 'love' to indicate the Noumenal state, this word, like any other word, would be totally inadequate. V : Honestly, I had not considered the matter so deeply, so analytically. Perhaps what I had in mind was something that is conveyed by the words 'God is Love', or 'Love is religion'. M : (Laughing) Here again, my friend, what are these but combinations of words based on someone's concept which he liked and wished to thrust on others ? And the 'others' are more than willing to accept any concept which gives them some sort of moral moorings. In such cases the seeker is happy and complacent in his pose of the seeker. He feels so much superior to others, 'misguided souls who are wasting their lives'. And in this pose of 'enlightenment' he is happy to hang on to a concept, based on a pleasing combination of words, that feeds his seeker-ego ! V : But Maharaj, the words 'God is Love', and 'He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him' were used by St. John, [St. John Of The Cross, a Mystic who penned 'Dark Night of The Soul'] a great Christian saint, who is also believed to have been a Jnani. M : I do not doubt that he was a Jnani. But unfortunately, there does not seem to have been a clear apprehension amongst his followers of what these beautiful words meant to the Christian sage who uttered them. What St. John had in mind was certainly not that God, is an objective, phenomenal entity whose essential nature is love. Now, let us go back again to what I told you about need being the basis of love. Consider what is the most priceless possession of any sentient being. If he had the choice of possessing either all the wealth in the world or his 'beingness', or 'consciousness' (you may give it any name to add to the thousands that have already been heaped upon it), that which gives him the sense of being alive and present, and without which the body would be nothing but a cadaver, what would he choose ? Obviously, without consciousness all the wealth in the world would be of no use to him. This Beingness, this conscious presence that he is, is the Beingness of every sentient being on the earth, the very soul of the entire universe - and indeed, therefore, this-here-now, this conscious presence, cannot be anything other than God. It is this which one loves more than anything else because without it there is no universe, no God. This, therefore, is Presence-Love-God. And, St. John was obviously very much conscious of this when he said 'God is Love'. It is very clear that all he could have meant is that he (John) and He (God) were not different as pure subjectivity, as Noumenon. And, therefore, he who is anchored in the conscious presence that is Love, that is God, 'dwelleth in God and God in him'.

How You Treat Others - Adyashanti Spiritual people often want unconditional support and understanding from their friends, family, and mates, but all too often seem blind to their own shortcomings when it comes to the amount of unconditional support and understanding that they give to others. I have seen many spiritual people become obsessed with how unspiritual others are and assume an arrogant and superior attitude while completely missing the fact that they themselves are not nearly as spiritually enlightened as they would like to think they are. Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others — with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are. As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back, you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy. When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy. It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free. To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am describing is the birth of true Love.

Relationship With Others - Unmani Obviously some people feel their relationships do work, but the nature of relationships is that they do have ups and downs and that's what people love - the drama of the ups and downs. Having a fight and then making up is the best bit, isn't it ? But it's based on the idea of two - two separate people coming together to meet. Being in love is another way of wanting to meet as one. So it's a kind of an impossible paradox - a terrible paradox in a way because you are absolutely whole, absolute oneness, and yet you play as if you're a separate, individual, separate from the one you love - and in that, you're trying to meet and become one with the other. But you're already one. So the idea of relationship is based in the idea of separation : that you need to 'come together' in order to become one. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't have relationships. They happen and can be beautiful and playful, wonderful - and also painful - all of it. What goes up must come down ! Along with beautiful experiences must come sad ones : that's life. The other aspect to relationships is, in the same way that being with a 'teacher' can be a trigger to recognise who You really are, so can a relating to another. When there is an absolute 'falling into' being with anothe - that's the same as being with a 'teacher'. If there's an absolute surrendering to the other - a dissolving - then that's what I would like to call true Love. It doesn't have to be sexual love, or a motherly or fatherly type - there's no particular type. And it's also the kind of Love that happens in Satsang meetings. It is all about recognising the surrender that is. Then it doesn't matter who it is that you surrender to - a lover, a 'teacher', the shopkeeper that you buy your milk from. This is being in love with Life.

Relationships and True Love - Eckhart Tolle What is conventionally called "love" is an ego strategy to avoid surrender. You are looking to someone to give you that which can only come to you in the state of surrender. The ego uses that person as a substitute to avoid having to surrender. The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for "I love you" and "I want you." To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change. The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of "not enough", of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state. When the ego singles something out and says "I love" this or that, it's an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego : the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar. For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special – who you thought would ultimately "save you". Suddenly love turns to hate. The ego doesn't realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn't realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being - not being at one with yourself. The object of love is interchangeable, as interchangeable as the object of egoic wanting. Some people go through many relationships. They fall in love and out of love many times. They love a person for a while until it doesn't work anymore, because no person can permanently cover up that pain. Only surrender can give you what you were looking for in the object of your love. The ego says surrender is not necessary because I love this person. It's an unconscious process of course. The moment you accept completely what is, something inside you emerges that had been covered up by egoic wanting. It is an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. When that happens, a completely different kind of love is present which is not subject to love/hate. It doesn't single out one thing or person as special. It's absurd to even use the same word for it. Now it can happen that even in a normal love/hate relationship, occasionally, you enter the state of surrender. Temporarily, briefly, it happens : you experience a deeper universal love and a complete acceptance that can sometimes shine through, even in an otherwise egoic relationship. If surrender is not sustained, however, it gets covered up again with the old egoic patterns. So, I'm not saying that the deeper, true love cannot be present occasionally, even in a normal love/hate relationship. But it is rare and usually short-lived. Whenever you accept what is, something deeper emerges then what is. So, you can be trapped in the most painful dilemma, external or internal, the most painful feelings or situation, and the moment you accept what is, you go beyond it, you transcend it. Even if you feel hatred, the moment you accept that this is what you feel, you transcend it. It may still be there, but suddenly you are at a deeper place where it doesn't matter that much anymore. The entire phenomenal universe exists because of the tension between the opposites. Hot and cold, growth and decay, gain and loss, success and failure, the polarities that are part of existence, and of course part of every relationship. We cannot get rid of polarities on the level of form. However, you can transcend the polarities through surrender. You are then in touch with a deeper place within yourself where, as it were, the polarities no longer exist. They continue to exist on the outer level. However, even there, something changes in the way in which the polarities manifest in your life when you are in a state of acceptance or surrender. The polarities manifest in a more benign and gentle way. The more unconscious you are, the more you are identified with form. The essence of unconsciousness is this : identification with form, whether it is an external form (a situation, place, event or experience), a thought form or an emotion. The more attached to form, the more unsurrendered you are, and the more extreme, violent or harsh your experience of the polarities becomes. There are people on this planet who live virtually in hell and on the same planet there are others who live a relatively peaceful life. The ones who are at peace inside will still experience the polarities, but in a much more benign way, not the extreme way in which many humans still experience them. So, the way in which the polarities are experienced does change. The polarities themselves cannot be removed, but one could say, the whole universe becomes somewhat more benevolent. It's no longer so threatening. The world is no longer perceived as hostile, which is how the ego perceives it. When you live in surrender, something comes through you into the world of duality that is not of this world. Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world. Even if you find yourself in a conflict situation, there is an outflow of peace into the polarities. So then, something does change. There are some teachers or teachings that say, nothing changes. That is not the case. Something very important does change. That which is beyond form shines through the form, the eternal shines through the form into this world of form.

Space in Relationships - Osho Question : In my relationship I often lose my self and start feeling closed in. What can I do ? Osho : This is one of the fundamental problems of love. Every lover has to learn it, nobody knows it by birth. It only comes slowly slowly and through much pain, but the sooner it comes, the better - that each person needs his or her own space, that we should not interfere in that space. To interfere is very natural for lovers, because they start taking the other for granted. They start thinking that they are no more separate. They don't think of 'I' and 'thou'; they start thinking of 'we'. You are that too, but only once in a while. 'We' is a rare phenomenon. Once, for a few moments, lovers come to that point where the word is meaningful, where you can say 'we', when 'I' and 'thou' disappear into each other, where boundaries overlap. But these are rare moments; they should not be taken for granted. You cannot remain 'we' twenty-four hours a day, but that's what every lover demands - and that creates unnecessary misery. When you come close once in a while you become one, but those are rare moments, precious, to be cherished, and you cannot make them a twenty-four-hour thing. If you try, you will destroy them; then the whole beauty will be lost. When that moment is gone, it is gone; you are again 'I' and 'thou'. You have your space, she has her space. And one has to be respectful now, that the other's space should not be in any way interfered with; it should not be trespassed. If you trespass it, you hurt the other; you start destroying the other's individuality. And because the other loves you, she or he will go on tolerating it. But toleration is one thing; it is not something very beautiful. If the other is only tolerating it, then sooner or later the other will take revenge. The other cannot forgive you and it goes on accumulating - one day, another day, another day... You have interfered with a thousand and one things, then they all pile up, and then one day they explode. That's why lovers go on fighting. That fight is because of this constant interference. And when you interfere in her being, she tries to interfere in your being, and nobody feels good about it. For example, she is feeling happy and you will feel left alone because you are not feeling happy. You will feel as if you have been cheated. 'Why is she feeling happy ?' You should both feel happy - that is your idea. That happens once in a while. But sometimes it happens that she is happy, you are not happy or you are happy and she is not happy. We have to understand it, that the other has every right to be happy without one... even though it hurts. You would like to participate but you are not in the mood. If you insist, all that you can do is : you can destroy her happiness... and you are both losers in that way, because if you destroy her happiness, when you are happy alone she will destroy your happiness. Slowly slowly, rather than becoming friends, we turn into enemies. The basic requirement is : the other has to be given absolute freedom to be herself. If she is happy, feel good - she is happy; if you can be happy and participate in her happiness, good. If you cannot, leave her alone. If she is sad, if you can participate in her sadness, good. If you cannot participate and you want to sing a song and you are feeling happy, leave her alone. Don't drag her according to you; leave her to herself. Then slowly slowly a great respect arises for each other. That respect becomes the foundation of the temple of love.

On Critisism - Byron Katie I've come to see that there is no such thing as criticism, there are only observations. And there is no observation that does not enlighten me, if my mind is opened to it. What could anyone say to me that I couldn't honestly agree with ? If someone tells me I'm a terrible person, I am kind enough to silently ask myself : "Are they right, could they possibly be right ?" and in two seconds - I have practice - I can find where, in that moment or somewhere in my life, I've been a terrible person in my own opinion; it doesn't take much searching to see in the moment how someone might see me that way through their minds as well as my own mind's reference. And if someone says I'm a wonderful person, I can easily find that too. "Could they be right ?" This is about self-realization, not about someone else being right or wrong. It's about my freedom, and it is the truth that sets me free from doing war with a friend, and all humans are my friend (and I don't expect them to know that they are). Being my friend is not a condition that I must deal with. "Am I your friend ?" - that is what my life is about. When someone tells me that I lied, for example, the place to look for the truth is inside me, so I just go inside to see where they're right. If I can't find it in the situation they've mentioned, I can find it in some other situation, maybe decades ago I lied to them, maybe yesterday, and we can discuss it. I am a seeker and I seek the truth, not just their truth, but my own. I'm not compelled to say such things out loud, but inside me, I can join, not become separate from a friend who would tell me the truth that I ultimately must hear to be free. I'm not separating from anyone holding an accusation apparently aimed at "me". I can say to myself, and if it is true I can admit to them, "I did lie. I see where you're right about me". Now we both agree on something that is true. It is my job, as a peace-loving human being, to admit my lie, find my motive and admit it (my favorite death of identification as a me) as soon as I realize it, and it could even be days later that I realize that I did, in fact, lie. If I, in my own experience, see that my lie has caused harm in any way, I ask my friend, "How I can make it right ?" and step into the joy (joy may come later) of doing that. This is how to start life over without a fearful past. How can guilt live if your life is always uncreating it ? It can't ! Realization, until it is lived, holds no power. That person, if I am not in fact lying to them about the moment they speak of, is realizing now, in the moment they perceive me as a liar, who I used to be, the very thing that I began realizing twenty years ago. This makes us the same, and nothing has changed except that time has ceased to be an element. This is how the ability to love people who are angry at me was created and allowed to recreate in every moment. People who defend and justify what isn't true are like people suffering with cancer, diabetes, arthritis, people suffering as though on their deathbeds: we don't kick them and say, "Get up, stop that, stupid !" It's the same when someone is angry and attacking you. This is a confused mind, a confused human being. And if I'm clear, where is it that I couldn't meet him or her with the understanding that heals both of us and changes and delightfully shifts the world of pain, heartache, and the need to be right ? That's when we are our most genuine, when we're giving our honest selves without defense, justification, or condition to the other. I have a good deal of practice at this. Paul, my ex-husband, comes to mind. He used to yell at me a lot, and after I had developed a little clarity, he wasn't happy with the change that took place, it frightened him. He would cry and wail through the house, yelling, "Who are you, God damn it ? What did you do with her ? Where's Katie ? You're not the woman I married ! What's going on here ? What did you do with her ? You're not her, you don't love me. You say you love me but don't you love everybody else as much as you love me ? Who are you ?" And of course he was right, from his point of view. He equated my loving him with doing what he wanted me to do, saying what he wanted me to say, and believing what he wanted me to believe, and this is not possible for any human being, and his story overrode reality every time. When he yelled at me, his chest and face would expand, he'd blow up, get very large, get very red, and very loud and volatile. There was nothing I could do but love him, listen very closely, honor what he was saying, truly, and when he asked a question to tell him the truth, and that is that I loved him, and also I would offer to help him in any way that I could, and he was very sad and lonely. The ways that he gave me to help him were not something that I could give because they required me to playact who he wanted me to be and I wasn't, and he perceived my inability to pretend to be who I am not as "not love". All I could see was a dear man who was frightened of losing the me he wanted, which no longer existed, and really never did other than as a pretend human being Katie prior to clarity. Paul was doing the best he could do, living with the woman in his house who wasn't matching his thoughts and beliefs of who she was supposed to be and how she was supposed to see him and life. He was hurting himself, thinking it was me hurting him, when it was the me who loved him and was no longer pretending. My job was, is, and always will be to love him and appreciate him and listen to the music of his reality as his reality. We each have our own. As his imagination moved farther and farther away from the reality of who I am, he continued to create the wife who didn't love him, didn't care, and didn't exist. The one he created had traveled so far that the distance seemed unbridgeable. Finally, in his hurt and anger, he began to turn away from me as if I (the unacceptable one to his mind) didn't exist. The one I saw him to be was frightened, confused, lovable, loving, dear, rejecting, and unreachable, and I saw myself through him, yet again, and again, and again. If a criticism hurts you, that means that you are defending against what you believe to be true and are in denial about. It doesn't mean that you have to realize they are right yet, it just means that you will argue with them, justify, defend, and sometimes even see your friends and family as an enemy, until you do realize that they could be right. Your body will let you know very clearly, through feelings, when you are defending against your own truth coming at you from someone else's mouth and your own mind. If you don't pay attention, the mind that created the feelings through its defenses and/or justifications must continue to do so through mental and eventually physical attack, isolation, self-hatred, depression. It's not right or wrong; it just is how the unenlightened mind and body works until it doesn't and it isn't intelligent. War with the self or anyone else is not intelligent. It doesn't work. If you're really interested in your own peace of mind, you'll become more and more aware of that sense of wanting to defend yourself against a criticism, you'll simply observe it. And eventually you'll be fascinated to find the missing pieces of yourself that your critic is helpfully pointing out, and you'll ask him to tell you more, so that you can be enlightened even further. That critic is always a friend if you're looking for an honest one. There is an exercise in the nine-day School that is helpful. If someone tells you that you are stupid, for example, are they right ? Can you find three things in life that you are pretty stupid about ? Now, can you complete the opposite list, the one that admits where you are pretty smart about some matters ? The list has to be genuine or it doesn't count. It has to be genuine or the mind cannot rest in it, and when the mind rests in it, it is forever. It is only the truth that mind seeks, truth is the nature of mind, the kindness of its nature that sets it free to stop seeking. Criticism is an immense gift for those who are interested in self-realization. For those who aren't, welcome to the hell of war, welcome to hating (or in its milder form, resenting) your neighbors, your partner, your children, your boss, yourself, your life, and the job of the relentless I-know mind. When you open your arms to criticism, you can become your own direct path to freedom, because you can't change us or what we think about you. You are your only way to stand with a friend as a friend, even when she perceives you as an enemy. And until you can be intimate with us, whatever we think of you, your Work isn't done, and you must continue in your life to resist what is true. After you've done inquiry for a while, you can listen delightedly, openly, to any criticism, without defense or justification. It's the end of trying to control what can't ever be controlled: another person's thoughts and perception. The mind rests, and life becomes kinder, and then totally kind, even in the midst of apparent turmoil. When you're aware of being a student, everyone in the world becomes your teacher, including you. In the absence of defensiveness, gratitude is all that's left. If someone says that I lied and I didn't, I wait. I watch my mind and eventually it will think, "They lied about my lying". If someone says that I am cruel and I am not, I watch my mind and smile as it thinks something cruel, like, "How cruel of them to see me as cruel". If I wait and watch after any "untrue" accusation, I can find easily, in time, in the moment, where they are right, and I can smile. I love the mind and how it is always mirrored out of original mind: mine. I am always what I see you to be in the moment that I see you as that. That is mental, and the mental is what life is created and reflected out of and mirrored back to the creator of all of life, and that would be you. Who created life ? You did ! And I love that uncreating it is much easier than creating it. After uncreating life, mind begins to live as part creation itself, and in that becomes the constant celebration of what it sees, and what it sees is absolutely good.

Embracing The Ego With Love - Leonard Jacobson As you become fully present, thoughts stop. But the ego exists within a framework of thought. If thoughts stop, the ego feels like it is disappearing. It feels like death to the ego. Do you think the ego is going to stand by and let you kill it off ? Not likely ! And even if you reassure the ego that it is not being annihilated, it will still not allow you to be present. The ego does not exist in the present moment, and so it is not in control when you are present. It is not in control until you think your way back into the world of the mind. And the ego has no intention of relinquishing control. After all, it has been in control since you were just a small child. A part of this process of awakening and becoming permanently established in presence is to come into right relationship with the ego, and with every aspect of whom you have become at the level of mind ego. No longer trying to change or fix yourself or get rid of anything, you enter into a deep and ongoing process of accepting, acknowledging, expressing and confessing every aspect of who you have become. This is only possible when you are awake in Presence. It is as if the Godly dimension of you, which is a silent and awakened Presence of love, acceptance and compassion, encounters and embraces the human dimension of you, which has been journeying through time and has had to endure all the pain of separation that is an inherent part of that journey through time. If you continue to condemn the human dimension of yourself, which is less than perfect, then who is the one condemning ? It is not the awakened Presence, for that dimension of you is completely without judgment. It is just a part of the ego, splitting off to condemn itself. It might sound somewhat self defeating, but actually, it is exactly what the ego wants. The energy of judgment keeps you bound within the world of the mind, where the ego is in control. The ego thrives on judgment, condemnation and rejection. It gets stronger in the face of such negative energy. But if the ego is embraced with love, acceptance and compassion, it has no defense to that. It does not know what to do. Eventually it will simply relax and surrender. There is no greater power than the power of love, which arises from Presence. It overcomes all resistance and aggression. Being present is ultimately quite ordinary. Occasionally it opens up and reveals the extraordinary, but that only occurs through grace. We must be willing to accept the present moment as ordinary, before the present moment will reveal its hidden treasures. And you must be willing to allow those extraordinary moments to pass, without trying to hold onto them, if you want to remain present and in the truth of life. This approach will allow you to become more and more grounded in presence. You will keep deepening into presence.

Conscious Relating - Ramana Spencer How is it that men and woman seem to have become so polarized ? It can mean a veritable mine-field for both sexes. Everyone is seeking a real connection, but what is a "real connection" ? It is obvious that there is a tendency for many men to objectify woman, wanting to experience them, perhaps not wanting any commitment at all, maybe in part due to a vicious circle of feeling that the woman is trying to posses and cage him. Many people have a harder time wrapping their minds around how many women objectify men: projecting their idealized fantasy onto them, trying to 'land their man". "But this is totally different", one might say. "Long-term relationships are so romantic, beautiful and noble". But she is not really seeing him for who he is. She is not wanting him to be happy by really honoring himself. She wants something from him and is determined to get it even if it not what he is authentically comfortable with. There is often not a chance for anything organic to evolve. She has an agenda. Man and woman are very rarely in a position to be truly honest with themselves and each other. There is almost always a greediness at play. They are not seeing each other. They see the person in their fantasy. Yes, this is easy to glaze over in the honeymoon stages, but sooner or later the shiny newness will be lost. Sooner or later we are faced again with ourselves. Often there is a disappointment and a resentment that the other is not who we imagined they were. People use relationships to try and fill a void inside, just like the way many people use drugs and alcohol. People also have children for the same reasons. It is an escape. It is for them, a desperate attempt to satisfy themselves. There is not really a ripeness. A ripeness is an overflowing, there is so much to give, to share that it cannot be contained. There is no grasping. There is not putting on a appealing show to get anything. Life has so completely fulfilled you that there is only gratitude and an overwhelming urge to give, love simply loving. This can only come from truly knowing your Self ! Until there is truly a ripeness relationship may not feel truly fulfilling, but its job is not to fulfill you. It is to make you conscious. To shine light onto our shadows, so that we can really see ourselves and free what has been frozen inside. There is no perfect "soul-mate" outside of you that can fulfill you ! It is a fairytale ! When you are full from inside, when you are ripe and happy for no external reason whatsoever, then you are ready to be a lover, a mother, a father a true friend. Then naturally Life will mirror you and the relationships in your life becomes a reflection of your ripeness. It is an overflow not a neediness, there is no greediness in it. My wish is for us all to become authentic in our relating, neither clinging nor avoiding intimacy on behalf of each being truly happy; loving without creating a prison or building a house in the transit lounge at the airport. We are all awaiting our flights home to our Beloved who hasn't any form, where two cannot enter. Where there is only this beloved One !

The Mystery of Relationship - Stephan Bodian Any relationship between two separate selves is destined to be unfulfilling, because it's based on a lie. I perceive you to be out there, apart from me, and I'm struggling to bridge the imaginary gap and connect with you--or perhaps to withdraw and disconnect. I want to know what you think, where you come from, where you've been, what you identify with so I can learn how to manipulate and control the relationship - but I never make real, vital contact with who you (and I) really are. In fact, most relationships take place between two false selves, two life histories, two conglomerations of beliefs, identities, biases, and expectations. They're based on negotiation, on getting my needs met, on comparing and contrasting what I have with what I want, and on trying to mitigate the pain of separation by creating brief moments of intimacy. But the basic premise of such relationships is mistaken. We're already one, and true relationship occurs in the recognition and joy of this shared oneness, which is genuine intimacy. When I know myself to be nothing/everything and experience you too as nothing/everything, all apparent separation drops away, and we dance together in the mystery of the One at play in the multiplicity of forms. Love is who we are, we can't possibly find it out there. At the same time, true relationship offers the opportunity to share the love that we are with another person, to resonate together in the love, which allows the experience of the love to deepen and grow. Encountering the other who is also our very own self is one of the most precious experiences available to us as human beings. For many people, this only occurs for a short period of time, at the beginning of a relationship, when they're "in love", then gradually or quickly fades. But it's possible to live in love in every encounter - which just means to live as this timeless moment and share it knowingly with "another". The ultimate truth is quite simple : the separate self is an illusion, and love (consciousness, emptiness, true nature) is all there is. Every apparent arising is an embodiment and expression of this love and points directly back to its source. But when we seek love in the arising - the object, the other - rather than in its source, the love eludes our grasp. Instead, we can see beyond the form to the love that it embodies - or, in other words, allow the emptiness behind the eyes to recognize itself in the empty fullness before the eyes. This nondual recognition is the ultimate fulfillment, the end of all seeking, and naturally gives rise to love and delight. At the same time, for some mysterious reason, certain forms appeal to us more than others, certain voices evoke a deeper, more harmonious resonance, certain faces touch and delight us in ways that others do not. No doubt early life experiences, stored in primal areas of the brain, come into play. At the absolute level, everyone and everything is an equal expression of truth; at the human level, we have particular preferences and predilections, impulses and desires, that can't be denied or rejected in our attachment to the absolute. "Nondual" means nothing left out. This is one of the core paradoxes of the awakened life - one that is often ignored or glossed over in our emphasis on the clarity and simplicity of the absolute perspective. As long as we live through this human form, we're bound to partake of the karmic bundle that accompanies it - the feelings and thoughts, likes and dislikes, desires and, yes, fears. Once we know ourselves to be the emptiness that can't be grasped or defined, we no longer identify with this bundle, no longer take it to be who we are, no longer get caught by it, at least not for long - yet it continues to arise here, and we continue to express it in our interactions with others. The difference lies not in the content - though that does gradually change and unravel - but in our relationship to it. Are the feelings, passions, and preferences taken seriously, held on to tightly, defended, acted out unconsciously, and allowed to hide our true nature as heavy cloud cover hides the sun ? Or are they held lightly, like a garment that's worn in daily life but known to be just an outer layer of personality over the limitless freedom of who we really are ? When we recognize that the personality, the humanness, with all its quirks and idiosyncrasies, is not who we really are, it becomes just a beautiful vehicle for the truth of who we are to "sound through" (the root meaning of "persona"). There's no need to change it in any way. We can play with other personalities in the mysterious dance of relationship, allowing our humanness to express itself fully, while remaining firmly rooted in the freedom that underlies and is undisturbed by the dance. Meeting in this freedom, beyond the personality, makes genuine intimacy possible.

Real Intimacy - Natalie Gray There's something happening lately that just totally blows me away. I'm beginning to experience what true intimacy feels like, and it's NOTHING like what was ever experienced within this organism before. In fact, what was experienced before is so far different from what is being experienced now that it seems ludicrous to use the same word for such disparate states. I remember striving and striving to have intimate moments with people. To experience the connectedness that so many of us desire and long for. I'd heard how it was possible. I'd gone to workshops looking for it. I'd tried so many things to feel connected to and intimate with my friends, my family, my boyfriends, my husband and most importantly myself. I tried physical contact - sex, hugging, massages, touching, holding hands. I tried mental contact - exchanging ideas, listening, trying to understand another's point of view. I tried emotional contact - opening up, sharing secrets, baring my soul, total emotional honesty. But even in the most intensely emotional or physically orgasmic moments, it still felt like something was missing. The barrier to intimacy wasn't that something was missing, though. It's that something was present that needed to go. The "thing" that needed to go was the belief that "I" could experience intimacy. Identity needed to disappear. What needed to leave was the sense of "me-ness," me experiencing intimacy. Because, that's not possible. It was not possible for "me" to experience true intimacy, because when I believed there was a "me" there was automatically separation. "Me" implies "you" and once that happens, there's no way for true intimacy to occur. Without "me" however, there is absolutely no barrier to intimacy. Can you imagine it ? Imagine not having any sense that "you" are involved, that there is a "you." There is just All That Is/the Absolute/God, and the Absolute is experiencing Itself through the multitude of forms that It appears as. So now, intimacy is more like this : a woman named Natalie - which is the Absolute, experiencing Itself hold Itself - in the form of coffee in a cup, converse with Itself - in the form of a friend, listen to Itself - in the form of music, breathing Itself through the form of lungs and air, think Itself through the form of thoughts, feel Itself through the form of emotions, and on and on and on. It appears now that intimacy is all that's happening here; the Absolute exploring and experiencing every aspect of Itself. No separation. True intimacy.

Surrendering To Love - Gangaji Many people have trouble with the word love. Love, as most of us have known it, can be sentimental, potentially messy, and most definitely out of control. And yet, love is what we crave. There is often a love/hate relationship with the idea of love, most likely stemming from our experiences as children where we loved helplessly. We projected love out onto our loved ones - our mothers, fathers, brothers, or sisters - and at some point found our loved ones to be unreliable. We confused their actions with love and concluded that love was not trustworthy. People are definitely not trustworthy, because in general, they are very busy protecting their story of who they think they are. Since they are mostly involved in their story, they can only give a certain amount of love before they start wondering, "Well, when do I get mine ?" And since love has been identified as being connected with another person, this sets up a whole continuation of distrust around love. But love is not a person. Love is the individual, collective, and universal soul. Love is God. Love is truth. Love is beauty. Love is peace. Love is self. To know yourself, to surrender to the truth of yourself, is to surrender to love. Many people are aware of their resistance, and they want to surrender, but they don't know how. The only actual barrier to surrender is in not seeing the underlying story you are telling yourself about the danger of surrendering everything to love. And the degree to which you hold back surrendering everything to love is the degree to which you suffer. The degree to which you try to maintain the story about who you think you are is the degree to which you feel isolated from love. Until you realize "I want truth, which is love, more than anything", you will experience yourself as separate from love. Love is the constant. Love is not an aspect of truth. Truth, God, and self are aspects of love. What is the worst that could happen if you surrender to love ? What we seem to fear the most is the broken heart. Yet the very unwillingness for the heart to be broken is the broken heart. The tragedy and the irony is that in order to avoid a broken heart, people live in a state of broken-heartedness. In the willingness to have the heart be broken a million, trillion, zillion times, true love is revealed. Let the whole world break your heart every instant of the remainder of your life. Then this life can be lived in service to love. It does not mean you stay in abusive relationships. It means only to stay true to that which is always true to you, and that is love. Anything else is a story. If the story is never investigated, your whole life is lived on the assumption that the story is real, and that your heart, your soul, and your love need to be protected. But that assumption is actually a denial of your heart, your soul, your love. It is a denial of self-love. The great good news is that love is free and it has not gone anywhere. In all of these aeons that you have been hiding from love, love is still here, it is still open, it is still waiting for your commitment, still waiting for you to say, "Yes, I give my life to the truth of love. I vow to let love live this life as it will, for better or worse, for richer or poorer". Through honest self-investigation, it is possible to see why you may not be surrendering to love, and to see that you actually have the choice to surrender. It is a way to let the unconscious storylines become conscious, the unknown become known. Ask yourself this question : Why is it dangerous to surrender to love ? Not why is it right to surrender to love, or why is it good to surrender to love, but why is it dangerous to surrender to love ? Let your individual consciousness drop down into the source of consciousness, into the space where all of the reasons and justifications for resisting surrender are seen simply as stories, as something made up that you can very easily let go of. Allow all of the stories, all of the defenses, to be seen for what they are. Are any of these stories worth keeping ? What is the cost to your life ? The love that you search for everywhere is already present within you. It may be evoked by any number of people or events. A mountain can evoke this love. A sunset can evoke this love. But finally, you must realize you are this love. The source of all love is within you.

What Is True Love ? - Ramesh Balsekar For the average person, love is a manifestation of the violent, possessive doership of the ego. Whereas for the spiritual person, it is not a sentiment at all, but a state of mind in which love exists to the degree in which the selfish element is transcended. According to the average person, the desire for possession is the criterion, the touchstone of sincerity or reality by which love is to be judged. Even the mother is accused of not loving her child if she is not particularly possessive towards her baby. Love - the sentiment, and love - the non-affective state of mind, where a subject-object relationship does not exist, are infused by the same force. Though basically not different, one is steeped in egoistic involvement, the other unaffected and pure. The former is exemplified by the love of a man for a woman, the latter, sometimes called divine love or caritas, is a luminous pool of light and not a beam focused on one object at a time. All-embracing, bathing all alike in its radiance. It must, however, be recognized that the discrimination between spiritual and romantic love is illusory because both are aspects of the same reality. Physical expression of love cannot be excluded because the relationship is on the plane of phenomenality. In a few rare cases, even the sense of doership and possession will not exist. Recently, I came across an instance where the personal element was not excluded from true love. A nurse recounted : "While taking care of my patient's wound, we began talking, and he told me that he needed to visit the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. She had been there for a while, a victim of Alzheimer's disease. I asked him if his wife would be worried if he was a bit late, whereupon he replied that due to her loss of memory she no longer knew who he was, nor had she recognized him in five years. I was surprised and asked him : 'And you still go every morning ?' I had to hold back tears when he smiled, patted my hand and said : 'She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is'. I realized that true love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, that has been, that will or even will not be.

Love Is Life - Vivality All we need is love. Love is all we need. So said the Beatles. Bryan Ferry said : Love is the drug. I wanna know what love is - implored Foreigner. Seal opines that Love is divine. And on and on and on. How many songs are written about love ? What does love mean ? What is love ? Does it mean we enjoy something or someone ? Does it mean that we accept them without question ? Does it mean we care about what happens to them ? Does it mean that we want them to be happy ? Does it mean being cruel at times in order to help them ? Is it the urge to be accepted, included, to matter ? Is it a feeling, a state, an idea ? How do you know that you love someone ? How can you determine between loving one person and not loving another ? Is hating love ? If you hate someone, then there is an intensity of feeling there, you certainly aren't indifferent - you care about what they think about you; which must mean that their opinion matters to you. So if you give someone so much focus and attention, then isn't that love by another name - that's probably too facile an explanation and deserves its own blog at some other time ! If you say you love someone and then at another time you don't, then how can that be love ? Isn't that just preference ? Are there different kinds of love ? Romantic, familial, platonic. Aren't most instances of love actually the opposite : wanting something from someone under your own terms and conditions, putting restrictions on people - i.e. if they don't fulfill our idea of what we think we want from them, then the love turns into hate. Does that mean that love is self-hate. Because we want them to give us what we don't have, we love them. When they don't give us what we think we need, we don't love them anymore. Their best interests conflict with yours. That's selfishness. Selfness. Is it a bond ? How long does the bond last ? For some; a moment - it's a fleeting obsession. For others, the bond lasts for literally a lifetime. Is it expectation ? Do we expect others to fulfill our expectations of what we want them to be ? That's projection and limitation. But we label it love. In every relationship there's at least 6 personas : the person you are and the person they are at that moment. The person you want them to be and the person they want you to be. And the person you want to project and the person they want to project. What an impossibility then to say 'I Love You'. Which persona is loving which other persona ? I know that I've asked a lot of questions relating to what love is, but it's taken so much for granted and used as such a cliche, but rarely do we actually stop to wonder what it is ? I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and the closest that I can come to an explanation is that love is a process; or more accurately - a movement. It's not a 'thing'. It's not a state. It's not a definite. When you say to someone 'I Love You', you're not saying 'I will love you always'. You're saying 'In this instant, there is a feeling that is labelled love that is being associated with you'. Hmmm. Sounds a bit cold and clinical doesn't it ? Takes away the warm, fuzzy stuff associated with love. But that's reality. No-one can ever say 'I Love You' and mean it for more than the moment it takes to say it. And it's not cold. It's not clinical. It's the opposite. It's real. Not promising something that is impossible to deliver. Which makes marriage vows ridiculous. How can anyone know what they're going to do in the next moment, let alone for a lifetime ? Wouldn't it be much more honest to say 'At this moment it feels like I love you. I'm not going to promise you something that I have no idea whether I can deliver. All I can give you is this feeling in this moment'. I don't think many people would take up that offer ! But it would be more honest. And realistic. It seems that people want assurances and certainty. They want to know where they stand; to try and stand in a definite position in a certain state. They don't like change. So they make vows that are empty and meaningless in an attempt to pin down life; to say "There - it's sure, it's certain; I love A and A loves me". A desperate clinging, a frantic attempt to fix the moment and, of course, it fails. Always. You can't fix the moment : you can't be certain about anything, except change, Ok, so that's one thing you can be certain about. And taxes. Ok again, so two things. And death; So that's three things you can be certain about. But apart from those three things you can't be certain about anything else. It's emotional blackmail to ask someone to pledge even the next moment, let alone a lifetime, or to think that you can pledge that TO someone or something. The evidence of the failure of intent to love eternally, or for any specified amount of time, is pretty much abundant AND it's the balance that is necessary - the contrast that defines the feeling that we label 'love'. One of my children asked me "would you love me if I was a paedophile' (hope he wasn't trying to tell me something !). I replied : "Of course I would. I wouldn't like you, but I'd still love you". And do you know, when I said it, I did really feel that I would love him no matter what. That no matter what acts he'd done, how violently or atrociously he'd behaved, I would see past that (whilst abhorring his behaviour) and still love that core, that flavour, that I think of when I think of him. But that's my projection. That there is 'something' there that is unchanging; that I can assert I will always love, that I will be able to see past the actions and the behaviour. The honest answer would have been, "at the moment I think that I would still love him, but were you to tell me that you are a paedophile, I can't honestly say how I would feel. Just don't test me on it, Darling !" See, because there are many people who are indifferent to their family members. Who feel absolutely nothing for them. Have no bond. But conversely there can be a feeling of identification with anyone; whether they be family members, close friends or strangers. Love is a dynamic, lawless movement, with no rules, that can last a second or a century. It can be there despite every test and disgusting behaviour, or it can disappear in a second due to one throwaway word or gesture. It's as ephemeral and insubstantial as everything and anything. It's built on shifting sand, so it can never be defended or defined. It's only real as it emerges. As it exists. Love, like everything else that we talk or think about, is a concept. But it's the most seductive, pervasive and persuasive concept. So much has been written, talked and eulogised about it; but rarely do we stop to think what it is, and whether it actually exists. Ultimately, is it just our need to prove that we exist and that we are necessary ? That we are wanted, in fact, needed, by at least one other person. Because it validates our existence. So is it that urge that moves us to identify as being 'a part of', to be in community, in communion, because we can't exist as a solitary thing ? We know that what we are is always dependent on what everything else is; that we are inseparable, but because we've been told that we are something separate and autonomous, we try to dissolve that illusion of separation by asserting love. When we try to impose a state of love it may be that in our ignorance we are trying to regain our sense of wholeness , or perhaps love is experiencing and recognising the flow of life. So you could say (and I'm going to) that love is life. And there. Damn. I've gone and done it. I've hippiefied love. But I'll also add that if love is life, then so is hate. And indifference. It's all unconditional. Or, is love, like oxygen ?

Love Is The Unknowable - Jiddu Krishnamurti Jiddu Krishnamurti : Love alone can transform insanity , confusion. Questioner: What do you mean by love ? Jiddu Krishnamurti : Love is the unknowable. It can be realized only when the known is understood and transcended. Only when the mind is free of the known, then only there will be love. So, we must approach love negatively and not positively. What is love to most of us ? With us, when we love, in it there is possessiveness, dominance, or subservience. From this possession arises jealousy and fear of loss, and we legalize this possessive instinct. From possessiveness there arises jealousy and the innumerable conflicts with which each one is familiar. Possessiveness, then, is not love. Nor is it sentimental. To be sentimental, to be emotional, excludes love. Sensitivity and emotions are merely sensations. A so-called religious person, who weeps over the object of his adoration, is indulging in sensation. Sensation and emotion are the process of thought, and thought is not love. Sentimentality as emotion is a form of self-expansion. Emotions are cruel; in them are like and dislike. An emotional person can be stirred to hatred and to war. Mercy and pity, forgiveness and respect are not emotions. There is love when sentimentality and emotion and devotion cease. Devotion is not love; devotion is a form of self-expansion. Respect is not for the few, but for man, whether he is low or high. Generosity and mercy have no reward. Love alone can transform insanity, confusion, and strife. No system, no theory of the left or of the right can bring peace and happiness to man. Where there is love, there is no possessiveness, no envy; there is mercy and compassion, not in theory, but actually to your wife and to your children, to your neighbor and to your servant. When you are respectful to your servant as well as to your guru, then you will know love. Love alone can transform the world. Love alone can bring about mercy and beauty, order and peace. There is love with its blessing when 'you' cease to be.

Le fond et la Forme - Denis Marie Question : Pourriez-vous me parler, si ces mots éveillent une réponse, de la relation amoureuse entre deux "chercheurs de vérité" ? Ou pour le dire autrement, me parler de la quête de vérité et de la réalisation de ce qui est, au sein d'une relation amoureuse ? Réponse : Cela concerne la relation entre "forme" et "fond". Dans la relation amoureuse "l'autre" en tant que "forme", ou vérité extérieure, touche et inspire "notre fond". C'est un peu comme pour le domaine de l'art, où telle oeuvre, telle musique font résonner la vérité en nous. Lorsque nous ne sommes pas très à l'écoute, nous pensons que c'est la "forme" qui produit cet enchantement. Aussi, nous développons de l'attachement, de la fascination pour celle-ci. Lorsque je parle d'attachement, c'est dans le sens d'une valeur particulière que nous accordons. Cela peut se traduire par le fait de repousser ces "formes". Se protéger des "formes", c'est toujours les considérer comme "autre", c'est les mettre en opposition avec le "fond". La relation amoureuse peut nous apprendre à découvrir, à "apprivoiser" la non-dualité fond-forme. J'entends plus particulièrement "l'amour-amitié". Je pense que la relation amoureuse est à la fois magnifique et ridicule. Elle magnifique dans le sens où elle vivifie, et ridicule parce qu'il s'agit d'un jeu de la Nature en elle-même. C'est, entre autre, pour cela que bien souvent les idylles virent au cauchemar et que les amoureux finissent par s'entre-déchirer. En réalité, nous ne sommes pas amoureux d'un "autre", mais en contact (en actualisation) avec la Nature. Certaines situations, certaines personnes ont le "pouvoir" de nous inspirer, de nous "ramener" "chez-nous". Il est important de comprendre que l'amour (toutes formes d'amour) est le don de la vie qui nous anime. C'est ce qui nous révèlera son caractère inconditionnel et impersonnel. C'est la Vie qui aime, qui vit. Certains mystiques chrétiens arrivent à déclarer : "Ce n'est pas moi qui aime, c'est le Christ qui aime en moi".

L'Aventure Intérieure (extraits) - Darpan S'engager dans un mariage de vérité nous conduit à faire de l'amour et de ce qui lui fait obstacle une priorité. Quand nous passons plus de temps avec nos copains, au travail, avec nos passions ou nos dépendances, notre amour n'est clairement pas là où il devrait être. Tant de pièges doivent être déjoués qu'il n'est pas possible de faire de compromis ou d'observer de façon superficielle ce qui mérite d'être examiné attentivement. Nos addictions sont profondes, nos stratégies d'évitement ancrées dans notre instinct de survie, notre obstination à rester inchangés chevillée à notre ego. L'ennemi est redoutable, rusé et aussi intelligent que nous. Il use de tout son pouvoir pour nous détourner de la tâche. Dans la mesure de nos moyens, nous aplanissons le terrain, exprimons notre vérité, usons de toute notre intelligence pour ne plus être sous le joug de nos émotions ou de celles de l'autre, en veillant à ne pas accuser qui que ce soit mais plutôt à mettre en évidence les manipulations qui nous empêchent d'aimer et d'être aimés. Parfois, la masse émotionnelle nous possède, d'autres fois, elle s'empare de notre partenaire. La vigilance est de mise à chaque instant, car nous ne voulons être vulnérables que face à l'amour, et à lui seul. Nous connaissons bien la virulence des résistances qui nous animent et savons jusqu'où elles peuvent nous emporter. Le fait de composer avec elles sans y céder, tout en restant ouverts et vigilants dans la colère, l'énervement, la peine, le doute ou la peur exige un savant mélange d'intelligence et d'attention que seule une discipline quotidienne permet de développer. Faire ce travail à deux est l'aventure la plus extraordinaire dans laquelle une femme et un homme puissent s'embarquer. Elle développe une solidarité sans complaisance au service d'une vérité que nous n'avons de cesse de découvrir en nous-mêmes et de révéler en l'autre. Elle nous ouvre à ce que nous n'aurions jamais osé explorer sans le réconfort, l'amour et la patience de notre compagnon de voyage. Elle nous encourage à nous épauler l'un l'autre en jouant tour à tour le rôle de l'accompagnant et de l'accompagné, du soignant et du soigné, du maître et du disciple. La clarté et la vérité de l'un deviennent alors le miroir de l'autre et l'aident à identifier ce qu'il peine à voir, à comprendre et à formuler. Se libérer des couches de peine, des contentieux et des schémas négatifs que nous entretenons à l'égard de nos parents, ainsi que de l'ensemble des croyances que nous avons adoptées sans jamais les remettre en question, fait du quotidien un terrain d'exercice plutôt intense ! Notre aspiration à découvrir plus de nous-mêmes brise toute stagnation et réduit le risque de voir la familiarité se refermer sur la fraîcheur de l'amour. Au travail "thérapeutique" (ou de nettoyage des premières années du processus) se succèdent l'exploration de notre vide intérieur et l'écroulement des notions les plus profondes et les plus anciennes que nous entretenons au sujet de l'amour. Ce dernier semble changer de texture et perdre la "chaleur" que lui conférait l'émotion ; un paradoxe à vivre qui nous grandit d'une compréhension toujours plus vaste de sa nature et des mécanismes intérieurs. Le couple est le lieu idéal pour ce travail, car l'amour met en évidence tout ce qui ne lui ressemble pas et traque dans les moindres recoins les peines et les douleurs qui nous habitent. Selon les nécessités du moment, le conjoint endosse spontanément le rôle d'ange gardien, de confident, de mentor ou même celui d'un adjudant-chef, car il perçoit souvent plus clairement les manipulations de notre ego. Tant qu'il n'est pas lui-même envahi par l'émotion ou pris au piège de ses difficultés, il peut dévoiler nos angles morts, démontrer nos façons de nous soustraire à un examen honnête de ce que nous nous obstinons à ne pas voir en nous. Chacun peut ainsi reconnaître dans son expérience la pertinence de ce qui est exposé et exprimé, même après une réaction de rejet temporaire, car le but n'est pas de blâmer notre conjoint mais de l'aider à prendre conscience de ce qui lui échappe. "Faire l'amour" est l'acte par lequel il est possible de créer et de manifester plus d'amour entre l'homme et la femme ; un événement rare et précieux à une époque où la différence entre le sexe et l'amour tend à s'estomper et à disparaître. La formule décrit aujourd'hui tout aussi bien la relation sexuelle ordinaire, basée sur l'excitation et la gratification personnelle, que l'acte charnel, lieu d'une puissante alchimie et creuset de notre potentiel d'amour. N'en déplaise aux sexologues et aux scientifiques, faire l'amour n'a rien à voir avec la recherche de l'orgasme, l'excitation en graphiques ou l'étude de la courbe du plaisir, mais relève d'une démarche consciente pour grandir dans la connaissance de l'amour à travers l'acte sexuel. La méconnaissance du but véritable de cette union physique nous conduit généralement à ne rechercher que l'exutoire du plaisir pour pallier nos tensions et nos frustrations. Dans ce domaine comme dans bien d'autres, le soi émotionnel et l'ego s'invitent à notre table, trop heureux de pouvoir se nourrir à bon compte d'émotions et d'excitation, nous faisant passer à côté de la formidable possibilité de libérer les énergies subtiles de l'amour. Si les zones réflexes du pied correspondent aux différents organes du corps physique, la topographie de l'acte sexuel reflète, de façon similaire, les aspects du soi émotionnel que nous mettons en avant pour dissimuler ce que nous voulons ignorer de nous-mêmes ou soustraire à la vue de notre partenaire. Observer la personne au coeur de nos moments les plus intimes fait partie intégrante du processus de transformation intérieure et conduit à revisiter nos routines sexuelles, à délaisser nos automatismes et à découvrir ce qu'aucune situation n'est à même de dévoiler aussi directement. L'idée n'est pas ici d'imposer un nouvel idéal, d'exercer une contrainte sur nos pulsions de désir, de nous culpabiliser ou de renforcer les multiples répressions et condamnations qui imprègnent notre sexualité, mais de faciliter la dissolution du soi émotionnel et l'expansion de l'amour. Faire l'amour est l'objet d'une rencontre qui engage notre totalité, mais la perception et l'expression de cette totalité sont constamment empêchées par le soi émotionnel. Il se plaît à croire que le désir et l'attraction sexuelle relèvent de l'amour, dont il ignore tout, alors qu'ils ne sont en fait que l'expression de notre biologie reproductive. L'acte sexuel ne représente pour lui qu'une occasion de se réaffirmer, de se rassurer, de se valoriser et de s'engrosser aux dépens de l'amour que nous sommes. Sa seule préoccupation est de se nourrir d'excitation et de se rassurer émotionnellement à travers le sexe, dans un acte prédateur qu'il s'emploie à farder sous des façades séduisantes, mais combien trompeuses...

Une réflexion sur l'amour - Mandi Solk En réponse à des emails exprimant un sentiment de solitude éprouvé le jour de la Saint Valentin : Toute chose qui est faite de besoin, de peur, d'attente et d'insécurité n'a rien à voir avec la véritable nature d'une "relation", de l'amour. La "relation" n'est pas une chose exclusive et nous ne pouvons donc pas y placer d'attentes personnelles. L'amour est inclusif - c'est ce que nous sommes - l'Être est Amour. La meilleure chose que vous pouvez donc faire à la Saint Valentin et chaque jour de l'année, c'est aimer sans compter. Reposez vous dans l'immensité de l'Être et appréciez votre relation avec votre véritable Soi, avec Dieu. C'est la véritable complétude. Si vous ressentez un manque d'amour, aimez davantage, et sachez qu'il n'existe aucun manque d'aucune sorte dans l'Être. Peu importe l'apparence, il n'y a aucune vérité dans l'histoire du manque. Par exemple, si vous voyez un couple dans la rue, marchant main dans la main, donc "s'aimant", c'est en réalité l'Être ou Dieu, marchant main dans la main avec lui-même. Être témoin du couple fait partie de votre conscience, votre rêve, vous ne pouvez pas être exclu de cet Amour. Vous êtes en lui et ne pouvez jamais être en dehors de lui, car vous ne pouvez jamais être en dehors de vous-même. Donc joyeuse Saint Valentin à vous-même de vous-même.

Parce qu'il y a l'amour - Rupert Spira Q: J'étais au meeting à Marin, où vous avez répondu à une question de l'audience par : "Parce qu'il y a l'amour". Il semble que le concept classique de "l'amour" échoue dans sa description. Pensez-vous que "l'amour" a quelque réalité en dehors du domaine conceptuel ? R: La réponse "Parce qu'il y a l'amour" a été donnée à la question "Comment savons-nous que la Conscience est impersonnelle ?" La compréhension implicite de cette réponse est que le mot "amour" est utilisé pour pointer vers la compréhension expérimentale qu'il n'existe qu'une Conscience. Si l'on demandait à une poignée de personnes, s'il savait ou ressentait que la Conscience avec laquelle ils entendent cette question même, était illimitée et impersonnelle, la plupart répondraient : "Non". Toutefois, si l'on demandait aux mêmes personnes, s'ils ressentent ou savent que l'amour existe, la plupart si ce n'est tous, répondraient : "Oui". Autrement dit, peu de gens doutent de l'expérience de l'amour, mais la plupart l'interprètent mal. Le mental en fait, ne connaît rien de l'amour, précisément parce-qu'il n'est pas présent pendant l'expérience. C'est pourquoi nous l'aimons tant ! On pourrait dire que l'amour est la dissolution des limites ou barrières qui semblent nous séparer les uns des autres. En d'autres mots, c'est la dissolution du mental dualiste. Lorsque le mental revient et essaie de décrire l'expérience non objective de l'amour, dans laquelle il n'était pas présent, et donc à propos de laquelle il ne sait rien, il interprète faussement l'expérience. Le mental revient saturé, en quelque sorte, par le goût de l'amour à partir duquel il est manifesté. Il garde pour ainsi dire le parfum de cette expérience non-objective. Ne sachant pas d'où vient ce parfum, le mental fabrique une histoire pour expliquer l'état nouveau et heureux dans lequel il se trouve. A partir de l'unité de l'expérience, il imagine deux entités, dans ce cas un sujet aimant "je" et un objet aimé l'autre "vous", qui sont supposés être reliés par une "activité" d'amour. Lorsque l'éclat s'efface du mental, il semble que l'expérience de l'amour est perdue. Déconcertée par la perte apparente de l'amour, l'entité séparée part de nouveau dans le monde à la recherche de la relation, qui lui permettra de retrouver l'expérience de l'amour, ne réalisant pas que sa propre présence, l'apparente présence de l'entité séparée et sa contrepartie l'autre, voile l'amour qu'elle recherche et qui est en réalité au coeur de toute expérience. Donc nous revoilà en route jusqu'à ce que nous rencontrions un visage, qui nous rappelle le véritable Bien Aimé, à ce moment-là le soi séparé plonge dans la non existence et l'amour se goûte de nouveau. Donc, en réponse à votre question "Pensez-vous que "l'amour" a quelque réalité en dehors du domaine conceptuel ?" je dirais que la SEULE réalité de l'amour est en dehors du domaine conceptuel. Nos tentatives d'exprimer en mots l'amour (tel que je l'ai fait ici) sont peu convaincantes, ne parlons pas d'essayer de le définir. Si nous essayons de penser à l'amour, nous ne savons même pas par où commencer de regarder - il est plus proche que proche et pourtant dans une direction inconnue. Seul l'amour se connaît.

La résonance de l'Amour - Rupert Spira Vous donnez l'exemple : "lorsque notre perception d'une personne change, mais leur perception de nous semble ne pas changer". Mais l'observation que leur perception n'a pas changé est en fait notre perception. Nous n'avons en réalité, aucune connaissance de quiconque ou de quoi que ce soit en dehors de la perception. C'est précisément cette idée que l'autre existe en dehors et indépendamment de nous-même, la Conscience, qui est la responsable du conflit que nous essayons de résoudre. Le conflit ne peut être résolu avec le même outil de séparation (le mental dualiste) qui l'a créé pour commencer. Le conflit entre les personnes n'est pas résolu dans le mental, il est résolu dans la dissolution du mental avec toutes ses positions, opinions, attitudes et certitudes figées etc. Il est dissous dans l'écoute, l'ouverture, la sensibilité, l'amour. Si nous sommes frustrés parce que quelqu'un ne nous comprend pas, et que nous le blâmons ou le jugeons pour ne pas comprendre, nous ajoutons simplement notre propre frustration au problème et aggravons le conflit. Dans un tel cas, on peut essayer de le rencontrer dans la compréhension, d'une nouvelle façon. Au lieu d'imposer notre propre point de vue de la situation, nous pouvons prendre notre position dans l'ouverture, l'accueil et l'écoute. Si nos mots viennent de cet endroit, il y a de fortes chances qu'ils trouveront le chemin du coeur de l'autre, et leurs mots trouveront leur chemin vers le nôtre. Sinon, les deux parties ont fait de leur mieux et doivent attendre. Quoi qu'il en soit, le conflit n'est pas résolu dans le mental. Le mental est dissous en cet endroit où se passent toutes les résolutions. Même dans une situation professionnelle, comme celle que vous décrivez, c'est dans l'écoute profonde plus que par la parole que la guérison se situe. C'est la même chose avec un enseignant. L'enseignant apparent considère l'élève apparent comme son propre soi, c'est-à-dire la magnifique Présence qu'il ou elle se sait être. C'est l'ingrédient efficace dans la relation. Les mots sont simplement le contexte, pas la substance de la relation. Lorsque nous allons jouer au football avec un enfant, est-ce parce que nous aimons jouer au football ? Non, c'est parce que nous aimons l'enfant. Le football est simplement une façon d'être ensemble, de permettre que brille cette résonance de l'amour. C'est dans cette résonance de l'amour que tous les conflits psychologiques sont guéris.

La Liberté et l'Amour - Adyashanti L'Amour est une flamme qui brûle tout ce qui n'est pas elle-même. C'est la destruction de tout ce qui est faux et la réalisation de tout ce qui est vrai.Le véritable Amour est bien plus grand, que tout ce que l'on peut appeler personnel. Le véritable Amour est un miracle non personnel. C'est la nature de la Réalité elle-même. C'est l'expression spontanée et naturelle du Soi indivisé. L'intuition de ce degré d'Amour attire magnétiquement l'individu, tout en déclenchant également la peur. Cet Amour cherche la dissolution de toute séparation, de tout ce qui est personnel. L'Amour ne s'intéresse pas au moi, mais seulement à ce qui est vrai, non divisé et entier. Lorsque le moi se dissout, lorsqu'il se soumet à une unité bien plus grande que tout ce que le mental peut concevoir, c'est l'Amour. L'Amour non personnel n'est pas un sentiment, pourtant en lui il peut y avoir et il y a un sentiment et une émotion. Mais le sentiment et l'émotion ne sont pas issus d'un moi personnel. Ils naissent de l'absence d'un moi personnel. Q : Cela semble être une énorme responsabilté que d'être Amour. Adya : Oui, plus que le mental ne pourra jamais l'imaginer. Si la plupart des êtres humains réalisaient réellement l'impact qu'ils ont sur le tout, ils seraient anéantis par cette réalisation. Mais ce dont je vous parle ici, c'est de vous réjouir, tout ce que vous avez à faire c'est dire "oui" ! N'en faites pas un projet ou une grande affaire. Dites "oui" tout simplement. Vous ne savez même pas ce que cela veut dire que dire "oui", mais vous le dites quand même. Vous ne saurez jamais ce que cela veut dire, mais faites le. La Liberté et l'Amour apparaissent lorsque vous mourrez dans le mystère inconnu de l'être.

Là où l'autre n'existe pas - Andrew Cohen Lorsque deux individus ou plus, éveillés à ce que j'appelle l'impulsion évolutive ou le Soi Authentique, dialoguent en profondeur dans une conversation très focalisée, c'est comme s'ils pensaient à haute voix ensemble comme une seule personne. Pourquoi ? Parce qu'il n'y a qu'un seul Soi Authentique. L'ego ne peut avoir de relation qu'avec d'autres individus séparés ; le Soi Authentique lui, ne peut être en relation qu'avec lui-même. Si nous nous éveillons au Soi Authentique et qu'une autre personne est illuminée par ce même Soi, nous ferons tous deux l'expérience d'un fort appel à nous rencontrer, mais ce qui nous attirera l'un vers l'autre n'est pas la personnalité singulière de l'autre. Le Soi Authentique n'est pas intéressé par les individus. Il ne fait toujours que se chercher lui-même dans les autres. Quand des personnes qui n'ont absolument aucune histoire personnelle partagée, se rencontrent dans ce niveau de conscience plus élevé, elles font l'expérience d'une intimité extatique, qui transcende d'une façon infinie, toute relation ou connexion qui peut exister dans un contexte plus familier ou personnel. Portés sur les ailes du Soi Authentique, notre conscience de nous-même se dissipe, et une douceur enivrante nous enveloppe. Là, où l'autre n'existe pas, nous nous éveillons tous à une transparence radieuse, nourrie de la passion sans ego. Là, le conflit et la compétition disparaissent. Nous ne sommes pas des individus séparés qui nous unissons ; nous sommes un seul Soi empli du délice absolu d'être avec lui-même.

Sexe, amour romantique et évolution consciente - Andrew Cohen Le domaine de la sexualité et de l'amour romantique est celui où il est le plus facile de se perdre et d'être confus. Pour ceux qui s'intéressent sérieusement au développement spirituel plus élevé et qui sont personnellement engagés à faire évoluer la conscience et la culture, il est de la plus haute importance de le comprendre. Ceci étant dit, c'est aussi une partie de l'expérience humaine potentiellement joyeuse et libératrice. Et c'est clairement un aspect de la vie que nous ne voulons pas éviter ou réprimer, car comme nous le savons déjà, cela crée d'énormes problèmes. J'ai toujours essayé de créer les circonstances dans lesquelles les individus seraient tellement éveillés spirituellement et auraient une telle intégrité, qu'ils seraient capables d'accomplir l'exploit quasi miraculeux d'embrasser ce domaine délicat de la vie, sans créer de conséquences karmiques. Ce qui signifie tout simplement que l'intimité, sexuelle et personnelle, ne serait pas une source de peine, de confusion, de souffrance ou une distraction fondamentale de nos aspirations les plus élevées. En général, nos relations sexuelles et amoureuses font partie du domaine du statu quo. Pourquoi ? Parce que c'est là que nous sommes conditionnés biologiquement et culturellement à créer un lieu sûr, une zone de confort et de sécurité. Pour ceux parmi nous qui sont des évolutionnaires conscients, dont l'aspiration la plus grande est de créer le futur, le but dans ce domaine de la vie devrait être que nos relations amoureuses ne deviennent jamais un endroit où le statu quo personnel et culturel, que nous voulons transcender, soit protégé. Cela ne devrait jamais devenir un refuge pour ce qui est ancien. Et ça, c'est un changement très radical.

Texts from Osho on Love - Osho What is Love ?
What does Love mean ?
Difficulty in relating with people, Relationship is not relating
Before you can love yourself you have to know yourself
Christian dictum is : love thy neighbour as thyself. Can I love others if I don't love myself ?
If love becomes destroyed in marriage, how are we to live if we wish to share love ?
Osho on Marriage and Friendship
Am I in Love ?
Why do you ask people to get married ?
What is jealousy and why does it hurt so much ?
I very much doubt my wife. What should I do ?
Forget Relationships and learn how to Relate
On importance of Commitment in a Relationship
On Relationship between Living Partners and Growth
First come to terms with one's Loneliness before entering into Relationship
On hell of living with a woman and the hell of living without a woman
If love becomes destroyed in marriage, how are we to Live if we wish to share love
The Honeymoon that Never Ends