5. That Mysterious and Most Often Misunderstood Thing We Call Love 2014 © – Matt Sharpe

 

   

Of all the various concepts and ideas that mankind uses to communicate, that of love is one of the most used and misunderstood. Love comes in a great many forms. From the personal, human type of love, to the much more expansive, all inclusive, unconditional sort that emanates from the Godhead, the SUGMAD. In Eckankar one of the spiritual maxims that we operate from states that Soul exists because God loves It. The reality is that when one can discover the totality of the meaning of this statement, he will have greatly increased his state of consciousness as well as his experience with love as this statement has a virtually unlimited number of degrees of meaning and interpretations that can be gleaned from it. This implies very clearly that there is much more to love than what is obvious and also that the true definition is bound to be much more than the one the average person has.

 

 

     Any dictionary definition is limited to the humanistic and emotional meaning. In the spiritual sense we find more enhanced definitions for the term that are often realized through direct experiences. Some of the other terms that are in fact aspects of love, include detachment, patience,  humility,  gratitude, understanding, forgiveness, and tolerance. Detachment is a form of freedom, but it is also a form of expression that grants freedom to others. A person that has no detachment can be overly concerned with things another does or might do, and in this way it is an absence of love or freedom extended to that other. But when one is exercising detachment they are willing to allow others to act and be as they wish, therefore it is love and a freeing action or trait, both for the self and others.  “He who can be detached enough to keep his eyes open to all those whom circumstances have placed about him, and see in what way he can be of help to them, he it is who becomes rich – he inherits the kingdom of God.” -Hazrat Inayat Khan

 

 

     Patience, they say, is a virtue. This is because it also is an aspect of love. This love allows one to be less concerned with the timing things can sometimes take and partake in a willingness to allow others a greater degree of freedom to unfold as they will, and in the time that they will. When one has patience for another, this is an active way of giving them love, even if that other does not realize this. It has been said that impatience is a relative of anger, as so often its root is in this anger, and this explanation of impatience shows by its dichotomy that patience itself is not only born of love but is love. Each possible application or usage of it is an expression of love.

 

  

     Humility is often explained as the opposite of hubris, and this is true, but it is also born of love, and therefore takes its place as another aspect of love. Only love allows for expression to exist in such a non-self-centric form, one that sacrifices its own self-importance to allow for the freedom of expression of others.

 

 

     Gratitude is yet another form of love, and one that expresses itself as an appreciation for things shared or received from others and from the Divine. The expression of gratitude has a positive effect in many ways. It demonstrates to others that you, as an individual, not only appreciate that which is given to you , but also that you are humble enough to recognize that it wasn’t born of yourself, but rather that it originated from the efforts and generosity of another. It can also appear as a measure of respect for a blessing or lesson given from the Divine. Gratitude is an absolute necessity when one receives a blessing from God, for if it is not there, that pathway will be closed off drying up any further blessings that might come to pass.

 

     Next is understanding. This is as simple as wrapping your conscious awareness around a concept and being able to see where and how it fits in with and relates to everything else within a given situation. This might seem to be nothing more than a mental state, but it truly is an expression of love not often recognized as such, as well as a way of not only seeing or perceiving the entirety of a thing but knowing also where each piece of it fits within the whole. This is connected with discernment, but is actually a step beyond simply discerning what a thing is, it is the ability to put it in its proper place within the greater whole of reality as related to all other aspects within the same. It also means loving a thing enough to be able to allow its place in a detached manner.

 

     Forgiveness follows understanding. This is one that is a bit easier to recognize as an aspect of love, especially if one has had at least one personal experience with giving it to another, and that would not be complete without the experience of being forgiven by another as well. This quality is actually a very important one, and this is borne out by the fact that is often the least able to be done, and is often avoided and put off until the point where it can no longer be avoided and one is made to face it directly. At times some individuals will make the claim that they have done this, but within their hearts this is not true, and in such cases this is nothing more than a self-deception, a lie that can become very easy to believe by one who is lazy. But of course, the Sugmad, the Absolute, sees ALL and it is literally impossible to deceive IT, and the same quality stands for the Lords of Karma, so in this way there is never a route of escaping into one’s self-created illusions in any meaningful way. The most direct route through a situation that requires forgiveness, is to do it, and to mean it, there just is no substitute.

 

      This brings up the final concept that is an aspect of love. That of tolerance. One who can tolerate another, regardless of what negativity they might think, say, or do, instantly rises above that other in state of consciousness. However, nothing is ever quite as simple as that. It is a sort of battle with the lower self, and one that must be re-won daily, otherwise it is very easy to slip backward into the habitual way of seeing that person or situation. This is the sort of thing (in a much more widespread way, concerning all aspects of love) that is considered by Sufis to be the personal Jihad, and i daresay, this is the meaning the Prophet Muhammad had in mind when this term was first used and disseminated to his early followers. The true import of tolerance is also an easy one to see, denoted by how hard it can be to do. Consider what it would be like to do this to the person you see as your greatest opposition or enemy. Likely not a very easy task for most people, but one that simply must be accomplished to any that are serious about wanting to earn the ability to live in the presence of the Creator, by whatever human name, anywhere in the multi-verse.

 

  

     Then we have a thing that is most often considered negative and therefore not love at all, a perception that often occurs to those who have no ability to discern motivations nor to look at potential future outcomes. Many times it is called “tough love.” Many who are being given a thing of this nature by another will exclaim “Where is the love?!” not realizing that this is a thing that will ultimately benefit them by changing the way in which they view things in life to a much more inclusive and understanding way. Many times, a person requires themselves to go through something of a hard time for the purpose of learning a lesson. Things learned this way are unlikely to be forgotten, however, the subject in many cases is completely unaware of the lesson because karma does not necessarily unfold within the same lifetime. This causes them to generally place the blame for their misunderstanding on some source outside of themselves but is ultimately an inaccurate expression of the ego.

 

     Love, having no ultimate definition to be limited by, is easily capable of being inclusive of any number of things, that some might never consider to possibly be included within any meaning of the word, but this is not true. In many cases this limited point of view is the doing of the personal ego, refusing to accept any wider definition for the word and keeping the heart tightly closed. One might use the example of a parent and a child to illustrate this point. A parent, upon discovering their child doing a thing that is not allowed, might seek to reinforce their point by spanking the child. While the child will feel pain at each spank and consider it a mean and hateful action according to their point of view, the parent may well not have any lack of love or forgiveness for their child, but teach the lesson because they love their child, and know that it is for that child’s own good in the long run. It is this very same principle at work.

 

     In the lower planes, the worlds of dualism, there is a general opposition between the desires of power and love. The two always oppose each other. The desire for power generally means over others, and this shows it to be born of the ego’s desires, whereas goals that fall more towards the loving end of the scale have service to others as their prime motivation. When one can arise beyond dualism and view reality with their true eye, it becomes obvious that the only power that exists is love. Then there is the ability to discern love in the spiritual sense for what it is, and in the ways, it can express itself, many of which the average human would find to be less than desirable, seeing only the duality that the mind perceives. Likewise, there are aspects of the Sugmad that are truly terrible to behold, requiring the need for the individual Soul to have enough strength and tenacity to witness and endure them in a completely detached manner. The individual perception often has trouble accomplishing this. It is anything but an easy task.

 

     Many times one finds everyone making this distinction or that, about the nature of love. One sort of love versus some other sort. The human state of love, as is found in a good marriage, as opposed to the love of the divine, which is set apart in another category. This brings to mind a quote made by Shams-i Tabriz:    

    ” A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, Divine or mundane, Eastern or Western. Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a Soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water. “

  

     Make no distinction between the love you have, and what you interpret that it should be, it is far better to use the love that already exists, however large or small, and to nurture it into growth that it become grander than anything the human imagination can conceive of. Love has the ability to allow room for an ever-greater amount of itself to be present. 

 

     Anything truly done in the true spirit of love, is done for its own sake, and for this reason is never done as a way of seeking fame or reward, even if it takes the form of appreciation. Therefore devotion is sometimes referred to as a fire that can purify the heart, which means to purify the motivations and intentions that one allows to urge them into action. There are better and worse motivations that aren’t always so easily perceived. Nothing works better to bring about degrees of realization of love than does pain and challenge, regardless of the situation. In the final stages one completely surrenders their own desires to instead serve those of love. This is synonymous with conquering the ego’s chains that bind the true Self.

 

     Love, when it controls the lower self, has the ability to so change the way one perceives things as to literally burn away all contempt for what we call evil, or negativity, thus changing the viewpoint to one that is able to perceive the whole of things. This is a step of growth for the awareness, a thing that allows the average, lower states of perception to climb the spiritual ladder to a higher point. Often the higher the awareness climbs, the harder and more relentlessly it is challenged in the attempt to drag it back down to its former state. That battle must be won and re-won daily before the new state is able to take root and grow forward and upward from that new place. This is how the state of consciousness grows and expands further than it had been able to earlier on, and this is the reason for the unpleasant experiences we have in life. Some might not understand why anything would destroy the contempt we often have for a negative thing. This is easily explained. Being opposed to a negative thought, words, actions, or situations is fine, but it is a limited state of being, and this is not the end goal. One must still continually develop further forward into an ever greater and more expanded state of being, that is love.

 

     Love is the sort of thing that when real and true, the heart can always hold more. Love can be expanded to include any number and does not shrink. If the love one has is of the sort that can be shrunken, it simply isn’t love. In such cases this is merely an illusion that one chose to believe was love, when in fact this was never true. It is more likely that it was mere attachment. Love is far beyond an emotion or a mental state, although it does have aspects on those levels. If it is limited to those, it is not yet in a development of full expression, nor is it a conscious way of being. On the other hand, those that have not yet learned the reality that is love, by whichever means, will eventually come into the realization of it. Perhaps not in this current lifetime, but in an eventual one which is one reason that tolerance should always be considered as an option in dealing with folks that we might not get along with at times.

 

     Each of the various forms of expression that are aspects of love, can be had, given, and experienced in a myriad of levels. It becomes very difficult to exclaim that “this” is love and that “that” is not. Love is not dual, nor is it conditional. It cannot be destroyed by one’s own frustration or anger. If you find that it can, this is your proof that it never was love at all, but just an illusion that you mistook to be love. Regardless of one’s current state of realization concerning love, there is always yet another further beyond that one. Humans, always perceiving through the tool of the mind, often see love within dualistic terms, but it truly transcends all these perceptions, and is quite able to remain despite them. It literally is the only power. Those who seek powers of various sorts, by virtue of the fact that what they desire is control over a person or thing, can never manifest anything stronger than that of love, all forms of magic and witchcraft will fail each time in a contest against the true power of love. He whose heart is awakened enters a state where demands and desires fade, and only giving service remains, and it is this that leads Soul into a state of constant happiness, which is synonymous with contentment and fulfillment. What once were barriers having only one apparent option to deal with, now become broad avenues with numerous options available. The entire view of life is transformed when the heart awakens, creating a fertile bed for grace, a gift that can only be bestowed by God, to take residence and grow. And by doing so this expands the chambers of the true heart to be ever able to encompass more, and to likewise emanate a greater and ever finer degree of love, on an ever-larger scale.

 

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