On the level of love, we are heartfelt, generous, nurturing, affectionate, steadfast, and forgiving. Love is protective, collaborative, uplifting, holistic, and gracious. It is characterized by warmth, gratitude, appreciation, humility, completion, vision, purity of motive, and sweetness.
Love is a way of being. It is the energy that radiates when the blocks to it have been surrendered. It is more than an emotion or a thought—it is a state of being. Love is what we have become through the pathway of surrender. It is a way of being in the world that says: “How can I be of help to you? How can I comfort you? How can I loan you money when you’re broke? How can I help you find a job? How can I console you when you’ve suffered a major loss in your family?” Lovingness is a way through which we light up the world.
Everyone has the opportunity to contribute to the beauty and harmony of the world by showing kindness to all living things and, thereby, supporting the human spirit. That which we freely give to life flows back to us because we are equally part of that life. Like ripples on the water, every gift returns to the giver. What we affirm in others, we actually affirm in ourselves.
Once we become willing to give love, the discovery quickly follows that we are surrounded by love and merely didn’t know how to access it. Love is actually present everywhere; its presence only needs to be realized.
Love expresses itself in many ways. The little boy memorizes a ditty taught to him by his father, and he is still able to say it eighty years later. The Navy sailor steers the ship through a terrible typhoon for three days, nonstop, without food and drink, when all of his shipmates are seasick. The doctor loves and prays for every patient without their knowing about it. The mother cleans up the messy pants of a young child with diarrhea, saying, “Honey, it’s not your fault; you couldn’t help it.” The wife gets up early to make coffee every morning just the way her husband likes it. The doggie waits by the door for the owner to return and wags her tail when he comes through the door. The kitty purrs. The songbird sings.
Typically, people think of love as “romantic” love, as in “Honey” and “Sweetheart.” But romantic love is only a minor part of a human lifetime. There are many types of love other than personal, romantic love, and they infuse our everyday experience: love of pets, love of family and friends, love of freedom, love of purpose, love of country, love of attributes, love of creation, love as virtue, love as enthusiasm, love as forgiveness, love as acceptance, love as motivator, love as appreciation, love as kindness, love as essence of relationship, love as group energy (for example: Alcoholics Anonymous), love as admiration, love as respect, love as valor, love as fraternal bonds of unity (buddies, classmates, shipmates, teammates), love as friendship, love as loyalty, love as affection, love as cherishing, love as self-sacrificing maternal love, love as devotion.
“Love is a many splendored thing,” as the popular song goes. Experientially, this statement is true. When we have surrendered all of the resistances to love and let go of the negative feelings that block love, then the world is radiant with the splendor of love. On the level of love, this radiance is no longer hidden from us.
Love facilitates healing. It transforms life. We see this in the true story about a duck hunter who was suddenly changed by witnessing an act of love. One day, he was out duck hunting, which he often did for recreation. As per his usual experience, he saw a duck flying, shot it, and watched it fall to the ground, badly injured. To his sudden amazement, he watched as the female mate of the injured duck immediately flew down on top of her companion and spread her wings over him, to shelter him. Seeing her love, the heart of a hunter was changed; he never hunted again.
Once you become loving, there are certain things you can never do again. And there are certain things you can do in the energy field of love that are impossible otherwise. Moreover, people do things for you that they would not do for others. Love makes possible the miraculous without labeling it “miraculous.” Love has a transfiguring effect.
Sometimes, it is best not to tell people that you love them because they’ll get scared and think that you have designs on them or you want something from them. Frankly, some people are afraid and suspicious of love; therefore, you love such people without telling them. Lovingness is a way of being that transforms everything around you because of the radiation of that energy. It happens of its own. We don’t have to “do” anything, and we don’t have to call it anything. Love is the energy that silently transfigures every situation.
This means that people who are hateful will, in our presence, suddenly become willing to forgive others. We can see the person transform right in front of us. Letting go of anger, they might say, “Well, there’s no reason to be so mad at him … he’s too young to know better.” They will find an excuse to defend the person, instead of attacking him. Love empowers us, and the people around us, to do things that we would not be capable of otherwise.
Forgiveness is an aspect of love that allows us to see life events from the viewpoint of grace. We forgive ourselves for the errors we made when we were less evolved. It is helpful to see the ego or small part of ourselves as a cute little teddy bear. The teddy bear is not “bad”; we don’t hate or scold the little bear. We love it and accept it for what it is: a cute little animal who doesn’t know any better. We transcend the smaller aspects of ourselves by accepting and loving them. We see the ego as “limited,” not “bad.”
In the energy field of love, we are surrounded with love, and that brings gratitude. We are thankful for our life and for all the miracles of life. We are thankful for the doggies and the kitties, because they represent love. We are grateful for every act of kindness from others, their affection, caringness, and thoughtfulness.
Eventually, we just become love. Everything we do and say, every movement we make, is energized by the lovingness that we have owned within ourselves. Whether speaking to a large audience or petting the dog, the energy of love is felt to be pouring out. We want to share what we hold in the heart as an experiential knowingness, and we hold it in the heart for everyone and everything, that they would be feeling it, too. We pray for that inner experience of infinite love for everyone around us, including the animals. Our life is a blessing to everything around us. We acknowledge to others and to our animals the gift that they are to us.
Love emanates from the heart. When we are in the presence of people who love each other, we pick up that energy. The love of our loved ones, pets, and friends is the love of Divinity for us. When we go to bed at night, we give thanks that we were surrounded with love all day. Each moment is possible only because of love. The writing of this book is possible only because of love.
In the state of love, we wake up every morning and give thanks for another day of life, and we seek to make life better for everyone around us. Because of the presence of love, things go better; the eggs get fried better; the ducky gets saved; the kitty gets fed; and the doggie is adopted from the pound and brought home. We share our love with everything around us, all forms of life: kitties, doggies, other people, all living things. Yes, even the villains. If it is our job to watch over the captured villain, we seek to make his life tolerable. We say, “I’m sorry that I have to hold a gun to your head, but that’s my job.” We try to be as gracious and generous as we can be, without exception.
The more we love, the more we can love. Love is limitless. Love begats love. This is why psychiatrists recommend having a pet. A dog, for example, brings love and expands love in the heart of the owner. Love prolongs life. In fact, research documents that having a dog extends the owner’s life by ten years! Just think of all the bizarre exercises, diets, and other regimens that people go through to add relatively small amounts of time on to their life, when they can simply get a dog and add ten years! Love has a powerful anabolic effect. Love increases endorphins, which are life-enhancing hormones. You live ten years longer with a dog in your life because a pet dog catalyzes the energy of love, and that energy of love heals and prolongs life.
The energy of love has the capacity to heal our bodies when conditions are appropriate. On the physical level, because of the prevailing positive mental state, physical illnesses often resolve themselves. Some diseases automatically heal without any particular attention being paid to them, and those that still remain usually respond to consciousness techniques. Persistent illnesses that are unresponsive to treatment are viewed as karmically, symbolically, or spiritually significant. Overall, there is a decreasing awareness of the body, which now goes about its business and seems to take care of itself on its own. We are no longer identified as a body. There is a loss of interest in dealing with health matters on a purely physical level, and there are times when awareness of the body disappears altogether, unless we focus on it for some particular reason.
Intuitive understanding progressively replaces “thinkingness,” which begins to disappear. Over time, “thinkingness” and its mental processes are replaced by spontaneous, intuitive “knowingness.” Logic is bypassed. This occurs because, at the highest level of vibration, everything in the universe is connected with everything else. Our understanding unfolds as “revelation” from this inter-connected field. The knowing is holistic rather than limited.
Because of the inner quiet, we have the ability to perceive the thoughts and feelings of others on a nonverbal level. Nonverbal communication with others becomes possible and commonplace. Negative emotions are no longer experienced because the small self has been transcended, absorbed into the greater Self. Emotional phenomena are thereby transformed. Loss, for example, is experienced as transitory disappointment or regret, rather than as grief.
By continual surrender, we experience the state of unconditional love (calibrates at 540), which is rare and occurs in only .04% of the population. This energy is miraculous, inclusive, nonselective, transformative, unlimited, effortless, radiant, devotional, saintly, diffuse, merciful, and selfless. It is characterized by inner joy, faith, ecstasy, patience, compassion, persistence, essence, beauty, synchronicity, perfection, surrender, rapture, vision, and openness. We relinquish seeing the personal self as a causal agent. Everything happens effortlessly by synchronicity.
Joy emanates from the inner subjective experience of our own existence. The power of the joy is subjective, not stemming from any source outside of oneself. Thus, the energy of motor performance is inexhaustible. We may dance with ecstasy all night in a candlelit chapel, as if being danced by the Source of Life Itself. In that state, the innate perfection and stunning beauty of all that exists shine forth like a luminous radiance, as the infusion of spiritual energy facilitates the transfiguration from perception to vision, from the linear to the nonlinear, and from the limited to the unlimited. While functioning in the world is still possible at the higher vibrations of love (high 500s), we may end up leaving the ordinary arena of commerce and abandoning our prior social milieu and occupation.
In such states, the “miraculous” is common. What is termed “supernatural” is seen to occur all of the time, inexplicable by reason, logic, or cause and effect. It is clear that no “person” performs miracles. They occur spontaneously on their own when conditions are appropriate. The development of a spiritual ego is avoided by the realization that the phenomena are a gift from beyond our personal self; we are only the channels of Love, not its origin. Spiritual progress is known to be the result of Grace, not the result of our personal endeavors. Gratitude for the state replaces pride of accomplishment. The process of surrender continues ever more deeply, as we let go of all doubt, all belief systems, all perceptions, all positions, all opinions, and all attachments. We become willing to surrender all attachments, even attachment to the exquisite state of Ecstasy, which is beyond description.
Out of humility, all opinions about others are surrendered. In a certain way, nobody can help being other than what they are. Love knows this truth and takes no position. Love augments the positive about others rather than their defects. It focuses on life’s goodness in all of its expressions. Unconditional love is a love that doesn’t expect anything from others. When we have become loving, we have no limitations or demands on others that they should be a certain way in order to be loved. We love them no matter how they are. Even if they are obnoxious! We feel sorry for the criminals that they saw a life of crime as their best option.
When love is unconditional, there’s no attachment, expectation, hidden agenda, or bookkeeping of who gives what to whom. Our love is unconditional for whatever we are and whatever they are. It is given without requirements. No strings are attached. We don’t expect anything back when giving. We have surrendered all conscious and unconscious expectations of the other person.
Love illuminates the essence of and, therefore, the lovability of others. This is because love opens the heart. Instead of perception, which perceives, the heart knows. The mind thinks and argues, but the heart knows and continues. So even when people make mistakes, we love them. Thoughts tell us one thing, but the heart tells us something else. The mind can be critical and disagree, but the heart is loving no matter what. The heart does not put any conditions on what’s out there. Only the mind does that. Love makes no demands.
A key to making Love unconditional is the willingness to forgive. With forgiveness, events and people are re-contextualized as simply “limited”—not “bad” or “unlovable.” With humility, we are willing to relinquish our perception of a past event. We pray for a miracle to see the truth about the situation or person, and we surrender all of our opinions about the matter. We look at the payoffs we’re getting from keeping our perception of what occurred, and we let go of each little payoff: the pleasure of self-pity, of “being right,” of being “wronged,” and of our resentments.
Eventually, we surrender the very idea of forgiveness. To forgive someone implies that we’re still seeing the person or situation as “wrong” and, therefore, in need of being forgiven. True surrender means letting go completely of seeing it in such a way. When we surrender our perception completely, letting go of all judgment, then the whole situation is transfigured and we see the person as lovable. Since all judgment is really self-judgment, we have liberated ourselves in the process.
On the level of unconditional love, we love everybody and everything—even Adolf Hitler. We look at him as a person who was taken over by negative energies, and we’re willing to forgive Hitler, who couldn’t help what happened to him. He was overcome by evil. Instead of hating evil, we feel sorrow and compassion that people have become overwhelmed by such negativity. Hitler did what he thought he was required to do by honor. That was his contextualization at the time. He was captured by certain ideals and beliefs current in his time. Even with Hitler, then, we can see that he was dedicated, and he thought he was being of service in what he did. In WWII, the kamikaze pilots were doing what they thought they should be doing for their country. And even though they were trying to bomb and kill us, it isn’t necessary to hate them. We can respect their willingness to give up their life for their country. We can see that everybody who violates the law of Love is really a victim of some societal belief system or the pressures of the time.
As the state progresses, all of existence takes on a different meaning, and we become aware of the inner beingness and essence of everything, rather than just its form. Because of this change of perception, the perfection of all things stands revealed. This experience is outside of time; there is no past or future. In its highest vibration, love sees no separation between the individual and the rest of the universe. We experience total at-oneness with all things. In this state, the total oneness of all things has a greater sense of Reality than the ordinary perceptions of the self in the world, and it can only be described as profound.
As the inner shifts occur, our lifestyle may or may not show a change to the external observer. However, habits and behavior, although they may appear to be the same, are no longer compulsive or driven. They can often be dropped, altered, or changed without undue discomfort. On the other hand, there may indeed be sudden changes in lifestyle, including major shifts in vocation, because of the change of inner values and expansion of interests and vision. Now that we are connected to a greater dimension, there may be an immersion in it through contemplation, meditation, art, music, movement, reading, writing, teaching, and participation in spiritual groups with similar objectives.
Letting go now becomes more automatic and continuous. Periods of inner stillness and beauty begin to occur with greater frequency and duration. These may occur at a very profound level. Oddly, they may follow episodes of great inner turmoil and struggle. These periods of intense inner work occur because we can no longer tolerate negativity. Now that we have greater power of consciousness, we are able to reach down and handle problems at the deepest levels of consciousness. These may be such problems as those concerning the source of our identity or concept of self.
Breakthroughs of great serenity and peace may also occur after prolonged periods of continual surrender, as seen in the following example. At one point, being in a state of constant joy, an event occurred which brought to awareness a conflict that stemmed from the deepest way in which we can relate to others. It was difficult to look at and experience out, but because the prevailing state had so much high energy to it, it was possible to let the inner conflict come up and let it run its course, to be resolved once and for all. It ran for ten solid days, unceasingly, and for that period of time, the approach was to surrender constantly the conflict and let it go without trying to alter it in any way. For a while, the inner conflict seemed as if it would be unending; however, previous experience with the surrender process had confirmed that every feeling sooner or later runs out, if we just keep letting it go.
Moving temporarily to a small cabin in the middle of the woods intensified the process because there were no other distractions. Then the source of the conflict deepened and even more painful feelings came up in full force. There was a great deal of inner turmoil, at times almost agony and despair. Determined not to give up or allow a block in the flow of the process, finally, the bottom of the pit was reached and up came black despair of overwhelming intensity. In spite of this, there was the knowing that everything would be okay, because the primary identification was not with the despair but with the surrendering itself.
Finally, all of the resistance to the despair was totally and completely let go. Instantly it vanished. The despair, which had been overwhelming and nearly unbearable, vanished in an instant! In its place, there was profound peace beyond description. It was infinite in its dimension, curiously powerful and totally unassailable. There was a profound inner stillness, and all perception of time stopped. Instead of “time,” there was only the motion of the phenomena of the world occurring. The next day the experience continued and, in fact, was even stronger.
Then, out of curiosity, there was a re-entry into the world to see what it would be like to experience ordinary life from this state of consciousness. Even while walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City, the same profound stillness, harmony, and peace prevailed. This pervasive peace and stillness seemed to underlie all of the superficial chaos, noise, and confusion of the city. It was as though the power and strength of that dimension of stillness was the power that enabled it all to happen and held it all together in one continuous unity. Within the essence of that stillness was unlimited power, and it was clear that it was this very power that counteracted and balanced the collective negativity of the city. As without, so within. Similarly, it was clear that this same cohesive power is that which also counterbalances the negativity of the personality. If unopposed, that negativity would destroy the person and the body with it.
We said in previous sections that the lower emotions are associated with an accumulation of energy in the lower energy centers of the body called “chakras.” As our consciousness rises, due to the letting go of negativity, this energy tends to rise to higher centers so that, at the level of love, the energy has moved up to the heart chakra. As love becomes unconditional and ever-joyous, the personal dimension of love gives way to universal love. In general, we say of a person who has reached the level of love that they are “big-hearted” or “all heart.” This phrase expresses the shift of interest and focus of the person’s life to that which is loving. This upward shift of focus is accompanied by an overall change of perception, a different point of view than that which characterizes the focus of attention of a person who is involved in the negative emotions.
For example, when a person is in a lower state of mind, an old gentleman carelessly dressed standing on a corner would be perceived as a “bum.” With that characterization goes other negative thoughts such as: “He might be dangerous—let’s avoid him”; “He’s costing us taxpayers—he’s probably on welfare”; “The police ought to clear the streets of such derelicts”; “He should be in jail or in a mental hospital.”
By contrast, the person who is in a loving state might well see him as an interesting person whose face reflects a lot of life experience, character, and wisdom. He might appear as a liberated soul who has pretty much finished with the world and has evolved into beingness, beyond doingness and havingness.
There was an encounter with just such a man on Fifth Avenue, while in that state of total inner stillness described above. While walking down the sidewalk, the old gentleman perceived that state of inner stillness with one glance and, in return, he became totally open. The eyes gazed widely such that nothing was hidden, and the soul became completely open to be read. It was apparent that he was a man who had realized his own true inner Self and was totally at peace. He was, in fact, part and parcel of that powerful, positive, loving energy that was holding the city together.
With that glance we shared our oneness—our timeless oneness. Though strangers, our souls were united and resounded with each other. The one Self radiated forth. That oneness was the energy counteracting the total negativity of New York City at that moment. In our open gaze, there was a cosmic oneness (calibrates as true). There was an all-silent knowingness that the oneness reflected an infinite energy that was counterbalancing the total negativity of New York City at the time, because the power that was shared was Infinite. Without a counterbalance, the city would self-destruct. It was a silent, prevailing, infinite state of consciousness. It was a profound moment in which one of the laws of consciousness was experientially verified: Love is the Ultimate Law of the Universe (statement calibrates at 750).