LOVE BRINGS SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
By Wes Annac, Editor, Openhearted Rebel
JANUARY 7, 2017
I wrote the following for the 230th issue of the Weekly Awareness Guide, a written document distributed weekly via email that I offer for $11.11 a month.
Income from the guide helps me get by and ensures I can continue to offer free content, and every subscription is appreciated. The option to subscribe is given at the bottom of this post (learn about subscribing with cash/check here).
To love is to liberate, and with true love comes peace, compassion, and a calm mind. These qualities come to the surface naturally with an open heart, but you might feel like you need to strive for them if the heart’s closed.
Ironically, in ceasing the quest for knowledge or evolution, we discover wisdom and make an effortless transformation in mind and heart.
We make connections we never noticed before, and we grow and evolve without realizing or striving for it. We stop getting stressed when things go wrong, because the mind and its whirlwind of emotions no longer influence us.
As we’ll learn, true love brings an absence of the mind-centered judgment that removes our awareness from the present moment. This moment holds precious gifts we should not only be aware of, but cherish.
Nature Is Amazing; Stop and Have a Look
The problem is that we’re too caught up in what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow to notice this moment’s gifts.
We rush through life, unaware that if we could just stop and calm the mind for a moment, we’d realize the world is a beautiful place. We have everything to be thankful for, but we often let the stresses of the past, present, or future prevent us from seeing the miracles everywhere.
In my opinion, “miraculous” is a fitting word to describe the earth. Just look around. Look beyond humanity’s ugliness and at the earth itself.
Nature is an amazing phenomenon. It’s a miracle partially explainable by modern science but mostly unexplainable for the most advanced scientific or spiritual minds.
No amount of scientific or spiritual knowhow can explain the absolute miracle that is nature. It’s an incredible example of the creative power of love, and it gives us something to appreciate in a world plagued by war and devastation.
What Do Spiritual Teachers Say?
Although I highly encourage independent spirituality free from the need for a teacher or guru, I enjoy researching spiritual texts on topics such as love.
A lot has been said and written about the power of love to bring about transformation, and personally, I discovered this power before I discovered the texts on it. The texts confirm what I’ve already learned, and the teachers often speak in wise and poetic ways that entertain and educate the reader.
I recommend researching spiritual texts for fun, while again, walking your own path independent of the need for a guru.
Below, I’ve summarized some of the wisest spiritual guidance concerning the creative force known as love. The mind is mentioned often in the texts below, as the thought stream and its associated emotions present obstacles to true love.
As you’ll see, the most common theme in this information is that love is the key to transformation and, on a smaller yet equally important level, a life worth living.
Love = Oneness with God
According to Julian of Norwich, “we were made for love”. (1)
St. John of the Cross tells us “perfect union with God” is achieved through love. (2)
In the absence of love, Krishnamurti tells us, man remains unaware of the plentiful ways in which he can save himself from unhappiness. (3)
White Eagle tells us loving is giving; you flow outwards to help and serve others when you give love. You cannot give love without receiving, just as you cannot breathe out without breathing in. For this reason, White Eagle describes love as “an outbreathing and inbreathing”. (4)
As he says in the passage below, love is a light burning in the darkness.
“It is a light that burns deep within; a warmth, a certainty, an inner knowing…” (5)
God Is Love
This verse from I John 4:7-8 in the Bible confirms that love and God are the same.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (6)
As does this verse:
God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (7)
If the Bible makes you uncomfortable, it’s understandable. If you’re anything like me, you probably groan when you see a passage from it. But I find that in some ways, the Bible can be accurate.
I wouldn’t go searching it for clues or answers like some do, but many verses contain genuine spiritual guidance. Thus, I sometimes include passages from it if they’re helpful or relevant to the topic.
Without Love, God “Remains a Mystery”
White Eagle agrees that love is God. God is discovered only in the heart, he tells us, and thus, you cannot understand the meaning of God if love is absent. In this case, God “remains a mystery”. (8)
I couldn’t agree more. In everything I do – writing, maintaining a blog, having a family – I sink if I don’t approach it with love.
For me, love is the spark that ignites inspiration and boundless creativity. Even if the mind is tired, the heart can keep on at any pace. I can keep writing, creating in other ways, and being there for family regardless of how the mind or body feel. But without love, it all falls apart.
A wise woman named Mary encourages us to question if we know what love really is. If we understand that love is God, then our only task is to “accept and express love” so we can touch upon all true wisdom and “express all there is to express”. She encourages us to be open to love to the extent that we love everything about life. This kind of love, she tells us, can’t be faked. (9)
Love Without Demand
Mary tells us the mind may not understand our motives for being here right now, but we know on a deeper level that the motive comes from pure love. Only love can grant happiness, and we can only find what we seek spiritually by learning to express the Allness inherent in this powerful creative force. (10)
Love is here, Mary tells us, and we need only claim it. She encourages us to show real, authentic love to everyone we encounter. She also encourages us to reject the “surface attitude” that assumes a person’s actions come purely from love no matter how hateful they are. Instead, you can see their actions as a “distorted reflection” of love that will eventually be changed and the person eventually transformed. (11)
Mary encourages us to “love constantly” and “love without demand”, as this love is instrumental in achieving your dreams and becoming the person you know you can be. If you embrace them in life, then when your time comes, you’ll leave the world with love and acceptance. You’ll enter the next plane of existence to find “complete love”, which you’ll know is the embodiment of your true nature. (12)
Julian of Norwich reminds us that peace and love never leave us, but we often leave them. (13)
This is a good reminder regardless of your beliefs or lack thereof. Just as you can connect with love in any moment, you can be peaceful whenever you choose. Most prefer to abandon peace and love when life gets difficult, but these qualities remain, waiting for us to embrace them again. One day, we all will.
The Only Thing Left
Adyashanti tells us our true nature is the only thing left when personal ego-driven motivations leave us. It expresses itself as pure love and compassion in the human dimension. This is not hollow compassion cultivated out of a sense of spiritual responsibility, but authentic compassion that “arises spontaneously from our undivided state”. (14)
Striving to be a good or compassionate person, he tells us, gets in the way of spiritual awakening if done only for the sake of looking good. (15)
In a profound quote, Adyashanti tells us that “Freedom and love arise when you die into the unknown mystery of being.” (16)
By this, he means love and liberation are attainable by calming the mind to the extent that the ego becomes a silent voice; a speck in the universe of true awareness. This is one reason spiritual teachers and texts discuss the “death” of the individual; they’re referring to the “death” of the ego.
Death is admittedly too strong of a word, as the ego doesn’t die. As I mentioned, it remains in the background as a small figure in the big picture. By dying into the unknown, as Adyashanti put it, you “sacrifice” the overactive ego and discover pure awareness.
You Are the Whole
Adyashanti describes love as a “tremendous caring” that arises with the transcendence of the personal or ego-driven self. Something “amazing” comes from this transcendence: a “deep love and caring” that arise from within the emptiness. This authentic love seeks only truth. (17)
Personal or mind-driven love, he tells us, doesn’t hold a candle to true love. True love is a “non-personal miracle”. It is also the nature of reality and the undistorted Self’s natural expression. (18)
True love, he tells us, helps you see the nature of reality and the reason we’re here: to live a human life with a human personality for the sake of evolution. True love helps you see that, unlike the ego in a state of pure awareness, you are not a speck in the whole of creation. You are the whole. (19)
Adyashanti tells us our personal problems won’t matter in the face of love. Self-concern leaves the awareness of he who realizes true love. Enlightenment, he tells us, isn’t just about transcending the sense of “me”. It’s also about seeing that the “me” is no longer important. Everyone will eventually see this, but not instantly. In the end, we’ll either accept or reject true non-personal love. (20)
“Only If We Give It Away…”
The best thing I can recommend for those who struggle is to be open to love.
How can you do this? By showing love to others. By being there for others when they need you. By having compassion for those who have it much worse than you; not artificial, but the genuine compassion that comes from true love.
Don’t let the world douse your spark, and don’t let negative situations keep you from the inspiration that’s rightly yours.
The world will drain your love and positive energy if you let it, so instead, remain calm, open, and aware that you can connect with love in any moment.
Don’t forget about it or take it for granted, because if you aren’t careful, you could forget about it for another thousand lifetimes.
Now is the best time to wake up, so stay close to love and let it transform you. You won’t be disappointed.
Sources:
(1) Brendan Doyle, ed., Meditations with Julian of Norwich. Santa Fe: Bear, 1983, 74.
(2) Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trans. Complete Works of St. John of the Cross. Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1973, 69.
(3) J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Livinq. Third Series. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1970; c1960, 82.
(4) White Eagle, Wisdom from White Eagle. Liss: White Eagle Publishing Trust, 1983, 85.
(5) Loc. Cit.
(6) I John 4:7-8.
(7) I John 4:16.
(8) White Eagle, Wisdom from White Eagle. Ibid., 85.
(9) “Mary,” Love. Marina del Rey: De Vorss, n.d., 10.
(10) Loc. Cit.
(11) “Mary,” Love. Ibid., 8 and 25-6.
(12) Loc. Cit.
(13) Brendan Doyle, ed., Meditations with Julian of Norwich. Santa Fe: Bear, 1983, 66.
(14) Stephen Bodian, “Adyashanti Interview: The Taboo of Enlightenment.” From http://nonduality.com/hl1892.htm, downloaded 11 March 2006.
(15) Loc. Cit.
(16) Adyashanti, Downloaded fromhttp://charityfocus.org/insp/clubs/tow/?pg=26#page315, delivered 12 January 2004, 16 May 2004.
(17) Adyashanti, The Impact of Awkenening. Los Gatos: Open Gate Publishing, 2000.
(18) Loc. Cit.
(19) Adyashanti, Downloaded fromhttp://charityfocus.org/insp/clubs/tow/?pg=26#page315, delivered 12 January 2004, 16 May 2004.
(20) Loc. Cit.
About the author:
I’m a twenty-something writer & blogger with an interest in spirituality, revolution, music and the transformative creative force known as love. I run Openhearted Rebel, a daily news blog dedicated to igniting a revolution of love by raising social and spiritual awareness.
I also have a personal blog, Wes Annac’s Personal Blog, in which I share writings related to spiritual philosophy, creativity, heart consciousness and revolution (among other topics).
I write from the heart and try to share informative and enlightening reading material with the rest of the conscious community. When I’m not writing or exploring nature, I’m usually making music.
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