On a chilly November morning in 2012, I was sitting silently on the floor of a cozy attic. The rain rattled on the windows, offering a steady melodic backdrop to our self-awareness training. Mindfulness is all the hype now, but back then it was simply time spent in quiet inquiry.
‘What is love?’ The teacher broke our silence with a question.
Immediately I snorted and felt fourteen pairs of eyes turning towards me.
‘What isn’t?’ I replied, feeling embarrassed and surprised by my own reaction.
‘Yes,’ the teacher responded and I could tell she was smiling inside, ‘but that’s not the point right now. I’ll ask again. What is love for you?’
Umm… I blinked at her and drew a blank inside. I had no idea! For the next hour I listened intently, hoping she’ll share some secret definition, still convinced that my first response was correct and harbouring a small grudge for that dismissal.
For hours we spun in circles of personal experiences with no satisfactory definition nor conclusion. Walking home through the wind and rattling leaves, I felt confused and unsatisfied. What awareness had I gained that day?
What was love for me?
My hard-working perfectionist parents taught me that love was something one can feel for people, animals or for a job well done. While not publicly affectionate, I could see my parents appreciating help from each other and the satisfaction they had from work. One can earn love with deeds of service and only when that service meets some unfathomable criteria of perfection. Lesson learned.
That concept of love was later enriched by Jane Austen novels and Hollywood movies. Love became something desperately sought after, fought over. A goal to lie and die for. One could get the happily-ever-after being young, gorgeous, a little stubborn, a little naive and incredibly lucky. Everyone else had to get a cat or forever be miserable.
Lack of interpersonal love was the most shameful and awful thing to feel and one should go to all possible lengths to make sure to find that person who loves them.
In conclusion, I was doomed in the human love department. In each relationship, I lost myself with desperately serving my partner to ‘earn my affection’. If I didn’t feel like losing myself in service, I didn’t deserve their love. Later, when I discovered myself no longer young, pretty and naive nor perfect, I couldn’t even dream of it.
Had a cat for awhile and that was awesome. Interpersonal human love was just… hard.
What isn’t?
The answer burst out of my deep knowing. ‘What isn’t?’
Something inside me knew that absolutely every single thing we see around us is love.
Made with love and for love
By people who love
By the planet who loves
By whatever mystery that is also love
Inside my heart, I felt it to be unconditionally, irreversibly accurate. It felt like gravity. Undeniable, but also inexplainable. The capital Truth.
My teacher had agreed with my answer, then told me off. She didn’t want to go into metaphysics.
But I still did. Ever since that moment, I really wanted to know the nature of love.
I believe I have the answer now. I wish to share it.
Up the rabbit hole
Often the attempts of describing my experiences feels like plunging down a rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland. Seeking for the meaning of love took me up. Instead of subconscious explorations, I had to turn to the practise of extraterrestrial channeling, aiming for the best possible source.
Law of One: The Ra material, was first published in 1984 and contains five volumes of transcripts on the nature of reality and the purpose of life on Earth, one of which is supposedly to realise the nature of love.
By the time I landed on that book, the entire concept of channeling wasn’t too voodoo for me anymore. Many times I had felt as if someone was trying to send a message through me and I had learned to embrace that part my personal interpretation of our shared reality.
Encouraged by the claim that the collective purpose of life on Earth is to realise that everything contains love, I raced through the books for that definition of love.
Ra’s answer confused the hell and holy light out of me.
The term Love then may be seen as the focus, the choice of attack, the type of energy of an extremely, shall we say, high order which causes intelligent energy to be formed from the potential of intelligent infinity in such and such a way.
This then may be seen to be an object rather than an activity by some of your peoples, and the principle of this extremely strong energy focus being worshiped as the Creator instead of unity or oneness from which all Loves emanate
What sentences! All those words in English and one can almost grasp it…but not. This concept of love threw me flat on my face. Only words I understood were ‘extremely strong energy focus’.
After that, I became a detective looking between the words to try to make sense of the rest of the above.
Extremely strong energy focus
A bunch of transcripts later, I finally landed on solid ground when the questioning came on the nature of energy that humans use to survive and live out their experiences on Earth. Ra’s response made much more sense and finally lit that proverbial light bulb.
The origin of all energy is the action of free will upon love.
Slap my head! That’s what they meant by the ‘extremely strong energy focus’. Love must be paramount in creating vital energy.
With a dull scalpel of semantics, I attempted to dissect both sentences to reveal the true nature of love.
- No action can be taken unless there is energy to take it
- Free will is the ability to choose an action
- If I choose an action with love, my choice will generate energy
- Energy is needed for everything: creation, survival and happiness
- Love is a material substance (object) and a way of being (activity)
- Love acts a strong focus and a booster for energy creation
An object and an activity
Now I believe that love is a both a substance and a way of being. One can be in love or feel love. One act on love or from love. One can share it or sink further into it. We can do things while being in love that we can not do otherwise.
Imagine love to be like water. You can be in or you can feel it. You can let it carry and guide you and you can be overwhelmed by how little or much of it you can experience at one time. It can take many forms, but inherently it remains what it is – water. Or love.
I have begun to suspect that if the entire Universe – or Intelligent Infinity – creates energy through focusing upon Love, then perhaps our human condition is one way for the Intelligent Infinity to explore the concept of Love and its own nature.
If you are the ocean, you can not know what swimming in water feels like.
The booster for energy creation
Everything needs energy. I couldn’t lift a finger nor breathe unless I spend energy on it. Where does all this energy come from? Just food?
If the focus on love can amplify the quality of our energy, isn’t it inherently natural that we all get a little crazy-cuckoo about it?
I always – and sometimes desperately – need energy to do great stuff. Therefore I want to love and want to be loved.
Countless times have I craved for the love and attention of others. Manipulated, begged, wished or asked them to love me. Sometimes I’ve even sold pieces of my integrity and my inner truth just to feel chosen. Even pretend was better than nothing.
Looking at all those carefully built networks of people and pets around me. I need them because connecting with loving people is a paramount necessity to live an energetic, happy life.
No people around me? No problem! There are cats and dogs. There is myself. There is mother Earth. Somewhere, (maybe everywhere?), there is a loving God.
How else would I still be alive and filled with energy whenever I may think I am cut away from love?
The mystics keep saying that for each body, there is an inflow of energy originating from the center of the Earth and another one entering through the top of our heads. No matter what happens in this lifetime, something keeps energising, therefore loving us from above and below.
Isn’t that thought sweet, juicy and relaxing?
‘What is love for you?’
Today I’m suspecting that back in 2012, we were not supposed to arrive at the answer. The teacher simply invited us to open to the question.
Today, I believe that love is a substance that permeates all possible creation, acting as a powerful energy focus. Choosing my own path through my little heart, I generate energy for my journey on this Earth.
Today, I assume that the quality or the potency of the energy is concurrent with the amount of love I’m able to access with my heart.
Now I know why on my depressed periods I often have trouble performing even the most basic tasks. And why small acts of self-love are so important to keep the depression at bay.
Seems so simple. Why did it take almost 9 years to figure it out?
***
Note. I’ve learned it’s also possible to get energy while taking action upon fear. With this method, energy is exchanged rather than created and the quality isn’t half as potent as it is when using love.
Well of Peace 