Chapter One: Knowing and Loving
I once read that to love anyone or anything we must first love our-Selves! We must have a great affection for our true Selves (as divine entities created by God) and be deeply in love with who we can be.
Accepting and be willing to explore and discover, paying attention to each experience as it takes place, leaving no stone unturned in our spiritual search, remembering what is discovered, going over those experiences later on to see whether there is a point that needs to be connected to something else, we are able to create a puzzle with a clear picture. Eventually, over time, we will know something new about our Selves and others, about life and existence, about everything that is important.
So, who are we? This should be our first question. Let’s begin our journey of exploration as to who we really are.
If we love our-selves—our appearances, the actors or actresses in a play, forgetful of Self—we fall into a trap, a cage made of an egoic-programing that knows no beginning, and as far as we can tell, has no known end. To break away from this pattern of egoic love, in the absence of the conscious awareness of the Love of God, is impossible. Human love unsupported by Divine Modulation is a physiologically-based condition that binds the lover and the loved one for a limited amount of time. Unless this condition roots itself, starts from deep within at its most Divinely inspired and purest Source, it is fraught with disaster.
Dimensionally speaking, as a condition of being conscious, yet unaware of who we really are, the love we feel towards each other is a function of our sense-perceived activities, a mental construct whose adornments feed what our egoic-selves want to feel—a chemistry of hormones that bind and build what we feel, and think of, as love.
This physiologically-based love is neither profound nor transcendent; yet for all practical purposes, it feels different and is unlike anything we have ever experienced before.
Through our attention, each of us distinguishes someone from a number of others who have come and gone. This someone becomes special. His or her being-ness, as an entity, is embedded and stored within, associated with those feelings that seem to make a difference in our lives. We feel alive and full of passion. Our feelings grow, taking more and more of our conscious time.
Becoming self-conscious, we pay attention to details that enhance our appearance, to call the attention of that someone special, the one that brought about all those changes and feelings, the transformation that appears to give us life and the new interests that have begun to govern our time.
Changed into a state or condition best described as a hypnotic trance, we are attracted and held by the love interest as if by a spell. Activities shared with the loved one mesmerize, full of moments held outside time and space. Imprisoned, we are alone in our contemplation and admiration, living and feeling what seems to give us much more than what we could have expected, seems to take us further than what the keenest imagination could concoct.
Is that the love referred to in the title of this narrative? No, it is not. The heart cannot be restored through the temporal love we, as travelers, encounter here and there, once in a lifetime, perhaps more than once. We cannot be made whole through a love based on sense-perceived and physiologically-based responses, accrued, uploaded, and sprinkled with the chemistry that adorns those special moments, no matter how hard the effort put into holding on to, and repeating, the enchantment.
Since, for most of us, temporal love is all we know and have experienced, the lover and the loved one never experience the heights an Eternal flow of Love provides, an uplifting that brings with it a state of being closer and integrated with each other, further than the moment, embraced by the bliss of a Love that knows no end, with a clear Knowing of its influence and impact as its binds the couple eternally.
The difference between temporal love and Eternal Love is like the difference between a heart that is lifeless and a heart that beats forever to the song and rhythm of Paradise, fed by an endless current that flows full of love.
The Wonder
I woke up this morning from a dream,
Light everywhere:
Every particle a breath,
Bright within—without.
So this is ‘closer than the life’s vein’,
God holding me infinitely close.
Before I can thank Him, He knows.
It’s a miracle to wonder at,
How light holds us all
So close, like a young mother
Bringing her new-born
To her breast.
This Knowing and Loving can be severed, however, and if severed, can prevent us from accessing those higher domains of understanding that bring experiences that help us transcend the third- and fourth-dimensional states of being, the physiologically-based, limited consciousness of this Earth plane.
Just as our scientific exploration, that is continually expanding our understanding of this third-dimensional material universe, requires revision time and again, the process that helps us discover higher Realms of understanding and experiences that complement who we truly are as divine entities, requires vigilance. No stone can be left unturned, no road avoided, and no mountain should remain not climbed.
The seeker of Truth shall continually search for answers, and never be satisfied until the goal of his or her quest is achieved. Every question must be answered as it appears in the monitor of consciousness. The seeker of Truth must be willing to sacrifice everything in the path of discovery. Such passion will be rewarded, requiring as it does a freedom of mind and a heart detached from the many tempting desires not in alignment with true Love and wisdom. This attitude illumines each seeker’s intention to find the ultimate answer, that which offers the purpose and meaning of, and the direction for, his or her existence.
It is by persevering in this effort that, little by little, like in all quests after the truth, we come to grow in our understanding and love for the thing we search for. Each life gives us the opportunity to get closer, and each temporal and fractional existential experience represents a piece of a vast puzzle earmarked to be completed at some point in one’s journey.