Welcome to Day 30 of our 40 Day Retreat.
Yesterday we spoke about the emotional centre located in the chest area. That is another centre of expression of the ego. We spoke about management of the emotions and we ended the talk with the power of love, love being the most powerful emotion in the landscape of emotion.
Path of love and path of intellect
Today I want to continue on this path of love. I call it a path of love as it can lead you to freedom, in the same way that there is the intellectual path where you can just choose analysis, mental contemplation to get to a place of freedom. Love can also take you there.
Those who are involved in the intellectual path sometimes do not display emotion. Ultimately when they reach that state of freedom, emotions flow in a very pure and profound way. They become mellower, so to speak. They become more appreciative of the Universe when they touch the final centre. On the path itself they tend to be more detached, more aloof from the world, or elevated. They tend to be detached in the way of even letting go of the physical and relationships around them. But the path of love is different. It seeks to embrace that which is around. It seeks to energize the world around it. It seeks to use the world itself as a way of going deeper. The path of love is not an easy path. That’s why intellectuals may seem to move away from it. It can be painful because it carries the lessons of conditional love.
Conditional love
When you choose the path of love, the love begins in a conditional way. You become attached to some object of love. And of course, any form of attachment is going to bring pain. So, when you get into the conditional love that has attachment and possession, pain is going to come and then those who are intellectual will say, “I don’t want this pain; let me detach myself and let me go deeper to find myself.”
However, there are those who say, “Let me feel the pain because I believe in the love”, and pursue in a selfless way, wanting to give more than receive, wanting to feel the pain of love and be purified by it, to learn the lessons. They are going to come to a space of what we’ll call “unconditional love.” Love itself will become the teacher. Love itself will become the guide and it will also take them to that state of perfection.
Love your physical body
This path brings a wonderful energy to the space around it. It does not seek to neglect; rather it seeks to embrace. So, for example, love allows you to build a relationship with your physical body. If you begin to think of your body as a community of tiny cells, and think of them as entities that serve you, when you begin to embrace them as a part of you, you want to take care of them. You want to be kind to them. You don’t want them to feel pain. So your love begins to allow you to embrace the body and to create harmony, balance or well-being in the body. And apart from that, if you become detached, then you allow your body to suffer whatever it is, and say, “Well, the body is the body, it is material; it’s going to perish. It’s not worth the feeling of being attached to it.”
But embracing the body and embracing the cells, you learn more about them and you are able to create harmony with them. Your conditional love may grow into unconditional love as you really extend love to them. When you extend love then you are not afraid of growing older. As the cells begin to grow older you tend to love them more, and when the body is about to die even if it has to or when it must, there is so much more love for the physical.
Love is healing
Love allows you to really appreciate and embrace your world. That’s why love is such a powerful force in healing, because it seeks to embrace, to hold, to support, and to want the best. So the path of love is also a healing path, a path of balance, and a path of embracing the other, and the Universe around you.
Love is forgiving and purifying
The path of love also allows you to forgive. When you love something more than you even love yourself, as we say, when you love in a selfless way you tend to be kinder. You tend to let go. You tend to want the best. So even if someone says, “You know, I don’t love you anymore, I am going to move away from you, it’s too difficult to love you,” then because you love this person, or this object of love so much, you are able to say, no matter how painful it is, “Ok, I just want the best for you.” You are able to let go, however painful it may be.
When you do, that’s when you really experience the profound nature of love. And love can take you the next step to unconditional love, because when you really do, you begin to feel a greater power of love surging through you. Love itself purifies the instrument of true love. Love takes you the next step when you allow yourself to bear the pain and learn the lessons.
Love, therefore, is a very powerful path in the human experience. It is especially so for those who want to serve and help the community, and to see the uplift of the world. You need to be able to embrace love.
Path of love and path of intellect in unity
It is possible to also combine the intellectual path with the path of love. This is perhaps the most powerful combination we can have – when intellect and heart are in unity. Put simply, “when head and heart work together.” Not one trying to dominate the other, but when they work so magically or skillfully together that it is not one dominating the other but both moving together as powerful forces. It’s like two good friends discussing the path along the way and ensuring that they stay together.
The heart gives passion and the head is able to manage the passion, and they both work together. It’s like in a boat there is the rudder, and there is the engine. Without the rudder, the engine will have great difficulty in pushing the boat, and without the engine, it can go nowhere. So they work in harmony. When reason and passion work together in harmony, many great things can be accomplished.
The awakening of love – a personal experience
It has been a great joy for me to embrace the path of love. I remember my very first awakening in India was the centre of love. I went with a loveless heart to India, seeking to find those beings who could help me out of this. Then I remember experiencing the magical awakening of the heart and feeling a wonderful gush of love flowing from my inner being. I never realized that love was within me, but it was such a beautiful feeling. It allowed me to want to embrace my world. It brought laughter back to me.
I remember wanting to hug the trees, or being so much in love with my physical seva in the garden, carrying the droppings and the urine of the cow for composting. It was just so nice. Cleaning the toilets and everything just seemed to be magically beautiful. And it didn’t matter where I worked; everybody seemed to be such beautiful people.
Everything changed for me, just with the awakening of my own love. I remembered that I left Trinidad so loveless; I didn’t care for my family to see me off at the airport. I said, “No one is going to see me.” I was just so detached from everything. After this awakening in India, after weeks of not writing, I immediately bought a card and wrote a beautiful letter back to Trinidad. My heart was open. My whole being became different, and that was a journey never to stop. The love grew within me as I nurtured it. I became a disciple of love, and ultimately I found that the Guru or the teacher was really love.
Love is all embracing
I found out that love is able to take you to that supreme state inside if you follow it deeply. Love allows you to embrace the world in such a powerful way that it creates balance and healing to every part of you. It is because of love that I can nurture my body and want to keep it healthy. It is because of love that I can hold my emotional being in this magnificent state that creates healing within me and outside of me. It is because of love that I have a desire to serve the world and the desire seems to know no bounds. No challenge is too much in this desire. It is because of love.
I don’t know how to express this love. It exudes in everything that I do. For me, it’s a hallmark of my own existence in this world to love. So I want to tell you how powerful this path is and how healing it is; how much we need to embrace this today for the healing of our world.
This is where I’ll stop today to allow you the joy of contemplation.
