The Awakening of a Selfless Love That Encompasses All
Most of us have probably come across, or at least heard mentioned in some way, the iconic idea that “perfect love casts out fear.”
These five words are ascribed to Saint John in the Gospels, but it is not this attribution that makes them ring true, or that allows us to understand their meaning without having to think too much about it.
There is in each of us a corresponding part to whatever is timelessly true. Something in our mind effortlessly resonates with these ideals. Some part of our heart is lifted in their presence. And while this book isn’t the right place to present them all, there are found in holy writings—east and west—many thoughts similar to this last idea that in the light of higher love, no dark fear may dwell. But, as I hoped to illustrate by telling you my personal story in the last chapter, casting out fear and its despair is only one of love’s powers.
We’re about to discover how this higher order of love can also help us cast off the pain, resentment, regret, or any other kind of suffering we may be going through with our partner. The simple teaching story that follows will help illustrate, clarify, and summarize the principles we’ve examined up to this point.
A middle-aged man had recently moved into a new city and, soon after, decided that he wanted to explore his immediate area, maybe meet some of his neighbors, as well as visit some of the interesting shops that lined the streets all around his apartment.
Less than half an hour later, not knowing the lay of the land, he accidentally walked into an adjacent neighborhood whose streets had been long since “claimed” by an infamous gang. As he realized his situation, and tried to find the fastest way back to relative safety, he made another mistake: looking for the quickest way home, he cut through an alley where a heartless band of thugs beat and robbed him. Summoning all his strength, he dragged himself out from behind a dumpster where they had left him, and crawled just to the entrance of the alleyway where his faint cries for help were all but drowned out by the roar of passing traffic.
Dozens of people walked by him as he lay there. Their eyes were open, but blind to anything other than where they were going and what had to be done when they got there. The first person to walk by the alleyway and take notice of this poor man lying there was the wife of a local city councilman.
She was dressed in the latest spandex workout gear, on her way to the nearby park to do her daily power walk. So involved was she in her own thoughts about a pending dinner party for some VIPs that she had almost walked past the alley before she realized someone was lying there—on the ground—and in obvious pain.
But no sooner did the impression of his misfortune pass through her mind then came this parallel thought: not only was his particular situation none of her business, but it might prove dangerous if she got involved. After all, who knew what might still be lurking there in the shadows. Besides, she was already behind schedule for that day. And so she kept walking ahead, troubled by her own decision until she stopped to chat with a friend she saw sitting in the window of her favorite coffee shop.
Several minutes more passed when came walking down the same street, only headed in the opposite direction, a man wearing new blue jeans that cost him extra money for their used, torn, and soiled look. His open leather sandals showed off a pedicure he’d just received from a nearby salon.
He was the owner-operator of the area’s largest franchised health food store, on his way to meet and greet a well-known spiritual author scheduled to appear there in less than thirty minutes. He knew he was late, and hoped that his store manager had seen to the comfort of both the author and the select group of individuals he’d invited to attend the special presentation.
Almost as soon as he saw the beaten man lying there he took a few steps toward him, but was soon stopped cold by one of his own thoughts: it wasn’t as if he didn’t want to help, but there was much to be considered. One mustn’t act too hastily when recent stories abounded of injured people who turned around and sued those who tried to help them. And so, looking around to ensure no one saw him leaving the scene, he decided better to be safe than sorry. As he headed toward his store he made a mental note to notify the authorities as he soon as he got there.
Less than five minutes later, another woman came walking by this man who was still lying there, slipping in and out of consciousness. Surmising his state in an instant, she immediately took off her jacket, folded it into a pillow, and slipped it under the man’s bruised head to lift it off the dirty asphalt. Several thoughts were running through her mind all at the same time. She could call 911 but knew, given the deteriorating conditions in resources and response time, it might be thirty minutes before someone got there to render aid; and he was wounded and looked like he needed immediate help.
What if trying to move him made things worse, not to mention possible litigation should things go wrong?
A moment later she ran to where she had parked her car, pulled it alongside the beaten man, and managed to pull him into the back seat. Less than five minutes later, paramedics at the local hospital had the man on a gurney, and she was standing before the receiving desk being asked a host of questions by the nurse on duty:
“Who’s responsible for this man? He has no wallet, no identification, let alone any kind of insurance card; who’s going to pay for the emergency services he needs?”
“Please, just look after him; attend to his needs. I will cover the expenses that have to be considered until he comes to, and then we can sort out the rest of these details, as needed.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so, you must be one very compassionate person to get him here, admitted, and receiving care … all the while not knowing if he’s covered, or if state programs will provide for his services.”
“Oh no, nothing like that, believe me. Truth be told, when I saw this man the thought came to me—more than once—to look the other way.”
“Then why, if you don’t mind telling me, go through all the trouble … knowing how much could go wrong for you trying to do what was right?”
“Seeing him lying there, knowing he wasn’t able to help himself, stirred a part of me I didn’t even know I had; it’s hard to explain, really, but in that moment, not only did I see the pain he was in but, for some reason, I felt it as if it were my own. And that was it; I could no more ignore his suffering in that moment than I would be able to ignore my own.
She paused for a moment to see if the nurse understood what she was trying to convey. And when the nurse nodded her head, she finished her thought:
“So, are we all good to go here? Is everything in place as needs to be to make sure he’s cared for?”
“Yes, ma’am, everything is fine. And may I say what a pleasure it is to meet someone like you.”
“The same to you … and I’ll check back with you in a little while, to see how he’s doing.”
Learn to Open the “Eyes” of Your Heart
and Let the Real Healing Start
We will now reveal, psychologically speaking, the somewhat shocking “true identity” of this unfortunate man who had been beaten, robbed, and left in pain: this person is me; he is you; and much to the point of the story, “he” is everyone we know … including our partner.
I know this idea comes as a surprise to most of us, but the wise ones who have gone before us in search of unconditional love have long understood this truth. Here’s how the great American Poet Laureate, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, conveys this same precious lesson:
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” 10
In other words, and intimately related to the subject at hand: if we could be aware of the pain that our partner—our temporary “foe” in a heated moment—carries in their heart, then all attempts to prove them wrong—let alone want to punish them for it—would end on the spot.
For now, please “prove” the following three insights true by looking at them through the eyes of your own past experience. Each and all help make it clear why, at some point in time, you, me, and everyone we know—including our partner—has been the “unfortunate man” in our story.
1. One way or another, all of us have felt ourselves take a “beating” upon finding out that we’d been betrayed, lied to, or cheated by someone we had given our trust.
2. We know what it’s like to feel “robbed” any time our partner fails to fulfill one or more of our expectations, or “steals” our joy with an uncaring word or deed.
3. Ninety-nine percent of us have had our heart broken, more than once. This kind of pain, the fear of it—with all of its “baggage”—seeps in and colors every relationship that follows, whether we’re aware of its presence or not.
We also know that even though we may have found ways to mask the major portion of this pain, that doesn’t mean we don’t carry it with us. It may be “out of sight,” but we know it’s never left our mind any time our partner pushes whatever may be our “button” in that particular moment.
These last few insights, and the lessons taken from my personal account as illustrated in the parable that followed, lead us to a story far greater than the sum of its parts. Taken all together, they point to a singular revelation with the power to start a healing process not just with our partner, but also with everyone we know. Let’s review these important findings.
Whenever we’re filled with blame, unable to see anything but one side, “our side,” of the story …
… Anytime all we can hear is some part of ourselves “telling” us why our partner must pay for our pain …
… In these, and in any moment where we find ourselves set against the one we love, we have been rendered effectively blind to a bigger story that we can’t see, even though it’s right before our eyes: the pain in these moments isn’t just mine, and neither is it just yours; it exists as it does because—one way or another—we’re (in it) together; which means … it is ours.
If we could become conscious of this invisible similarity, be aware of how our partner suffers just as we do—even though their suffering may name itself differently than does ours in that moment—then we could no longer be played against one another.
We’d be unable to say hurtful, heartless things, or take some unkind, thoughtless stand. In this awareness of our secret similarity not only is it given to us to know some measure of our partner’s pain but, because of this higher relationship, we could no more wish them more of that suffering than we would wish it upon ourselves.
I know that these last ideas are a lot to take in, especially given what is likely, for many of us, a history with partners past or present replete with unresolved bitterness. So, it’s more than possible at this point that you may be thinking something like:
“You’ve got to be kidding! I can barely deal with the pain I’m already in, especially in the throes of some familiar argument with my partner. So, why on earth would I want to realize, let alone share, a measure of their suffering?”
The answer is as beautifully simple as it is remarkable for its compassion: anytime we know someone else is suffering, and have some awareness of that pain as being the same as our own—we cannot add to it.
Love won’t let us.
This power of being unconditionally kind toward those who unconsciously hurt us is just one of the gifts of higher love. In a way, it gives our heart “eyes” that can see what they were blind to before.
For example, by its light we’re able to see that the needs of our partner are really the same as our own, an insight that makes it impossible to mistake their pain as being somehow less important than our own. So that now when our partner dumps on us a pain they don’t know what to do with—demanding we pay for a suffering they only know to blame on us—we’re able to do what before would have been impossible:
Without any outward announcement to mark this moment, instead of being dragged into some too-familiar fight, we say, silently, to our partner the healing words we learned earlier: “This one is on me.”
We agree to make this sacrifice because we’ve seen that our partner can’t yet understand, let alone know, how to use this pain that only exists between us. So, for the sake of a love that’s greater than the both of us, we consciously refuse to say or to do a single thing to make their pain worse. It’s not because we’re somehow better, superior to our partner. We know better than that now. It’s because there is a higher power at work here—an order of love that is incapable of being unkind, even to someone who may have hurt us. And it makes possible a kind of sacrifice of one’s self that ego can’t conceive, let alone find the will to enact.
This is an act of unconditional love. It is true relationship magic.
Three New Intentions
That Give Birth to a Perfect Action of Love
We are learning about a kind of divine, celestial design directed by a conscious order of love that not only underpins all of our relationships, but whose purpose it is to help us perfect them. We’ve also looked at some of the ways our awareness of this power can open the door to exploring new possibilities with our partner beyond anything we may have imagined before.
Yet, as honorable as it may be to appreciate, or even outwardly profess the reality of this timeless compassionate intelligence, it’s not enough by itself. To acknowledge the existence of this higher order of love—without taking the steps to act on that knowledge—is like thinking of ourselves as being a daring explorer simply because we read every issue of National Geographic!
There is a great law: to whatever extent we’re able to see—and to some extent understand—the truth of these principles, so are we “charged” with a responsibility to act as their instrument. Scripture east and west spells out this “duty,” as briefly quoted in this short passage from the New Testament: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” 11
In other words, much is asked of those given “eyes to see” that our individual relationships are part of a much bigger picture; that love has a grand “plan” in place, being played out on innumerable stages, where each of us seems “magically” drawn to another who becomes our partner for as long as that dance of energies allows. And all for a single purpose: to help each other learn how to love one another … perfectly.
There can be no doubt as to the beauty and the promise inherent in these timeless ideas. But, of themselves, beauty and promise are not enough. Yes, they are a reflection of love, but not the same as its “hands on” power—an all-encompassing compassion born of realizing that our partner’s pain is the same as our own.
Before we can know this new kind of healing—born of seeing it’s impossible to make our partner “sorry” for whatever they did without increasing the measure of our own sorrow—there is something we must do.
Nelson Mandela, the self-sacrificing activist who helped end apartheid in South Africa, tells us why it’s time to put away “childish things” such as simply hoping that “tomorrow” will change the pain we repeat with our partner today: “Action without vision is only passing time, vision without action is merely daydreaming, but vision with action can change the world.”12
All of that is to say, whether our dream is to share unconditional love with our partner or to be a more kind and compassionate human being, we must begin to act on that wish … unconditionally. So, with this idea in mind, let’s gather the higher self-knowledge we’ve gained to date, and turn it into a set of three higher intentions that serve a single purpose: to help us learn how to love our partner as we wish to be loved by them.
New Intention #1
The moment you feel yourself getting all “heated” up—whether a thought has come along to remind you of some unresolved problem with your partner, or because your partner actually does something that causes you to feel upset … stop right there. Give no further thought to any part of yourself that wants to justify your right to feel wrong. Do this instead: stop “thinking” and start seeing that something (negative) has been stirred in you that demands you make your partner pay for your distress.
New Intention #2
Remaining present to the heightened self-awareness that your conscious pause helps create, see the truth of the following: the more you identify with these unconscious negative states—and all of the reasons they give you to resent, or otherwise oppose, some characteristic in your partner—the easier it is to set yourself against the one you love.
New Intention #3
Rather than allow unconscious parts of yourself to remember negative reasons why you have the right to be resentful—or how much your partner “owes” you for all you’ve endured on their account—do this: the moment you sense yourself being set against the one you love, ask yourself this one simple question, however you wish to frame it at the time:
Is it possible to really love someone and want to hurt them at the same time? And along these same lines: Can I ever hope to understand the pain that moves my partner to act against me, if all I want to do in these same moments is inflict a similar pain on them?
We know the true answer to these questions; or, that is, we should: real love and resentment, compassion and unkindness, can’t occupy the same place at the same time.
What this means is that you and I must decide which of these characteristics will occupy our heart in the moment of question. It is a choice that only we can—and must—make even if our partner never knows the kind of sacrifice it entails.
Please note that the following calls for a completely new kind of action on our part. More importantly, that it calls for a work to be carried out in our heart anytime we feel hurt and want to blame our partner for that pain.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, I’ll restate this third intention in the form of an affirmation, as if addressed to our partner. And while these words and what they express are not something we would ever choose to speak out loud, the responsibility to enact their intention is ours alone.
“My partner: I know you can’t see what you’re like right now, let alone how your actions are hurting me. And while you may have no awareness of my pain, it has brought me into an acute awareness of yours. So even though I can hear and feel a hundred different ‘voices’ within me, each demanding ‘an eye for an eye’—love will not allow me to add a single measure of more pain to your life than I know you are already in.”
How to Invoke Love’s Divine Magic
Let’s examine one last “real-time” example—an up-close-and-personal look at how this new intention could play itself out as we might practice it—in real time—with our partner.
Imagine that we’re out to dinner, driving in a car somewhere, or maybe just lying in bed moments before it’s time to turn out the lights. All is well. Everything seems quiet. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, our partner tosses a “grenade” into our lap.
Suddenly, but too late, it’s obvious: we didn’t see any of the familiar signs that usually indicate a conflict is about to erupt. Perhaps they say something overtly cruel, or make some passive aggressive comment to remind us where we went wrong earlier that evening, or maybe even five years ago.
Almost instantly, from out of our mouth comes pouring a host of tried and true things we tend to say in similar situations; words with edges to cut, some smooth enough to defuse the situation, others more forceful, and all designed to turn the tide of battle and push our partner back onto their heels.
But then, a shift; something within us remembers that we’ve been where this fight is about to take us at least a hundred times, and that there’s nothing new or good about getting there; just more of the same.
In that same revelation, in fact as a part of its remembrance, we now see what we couldn’t before: we’re about to wade into a “war” with our partner that can’t be won no matter which of us seems to come out on top! And so, given what this new level of higher awareness shows us as being true, there’s the only logical, and ultimately loving, action left for us to do: we refuse the call to combat.
Instead of going ballistic, we go inwardly quiet.
But let us tread this new path carefully: we are not surrendering ourselves to the misguided will or whims of our partner. We’ve seen how that path leads only to resentment when, as it must happen, we can no longer bear the brunt of being in such an inequitable relationship. The real question before us, given we can see the truth of our situation, is this: what difference does it really make which of us seems to be “steering” our canoe when we’re both headed for the falls! One of us has to wake up and change course, even if our partner is unable, or even unwilling, to see the wisdom of that choice at the time we make it. And that’s why we don’t engage as an “enemy” someone that we loved only moments before.
Instead, we deliberately drop the false assumption that coercing our partner to pay for our pain can do anything other than increase whatever resentment may be growing between us.
Neither do we allow this bitterness to “think” for us, so that not only do we detect and reject its conclusions as our own, but we also refuse to lend it use of our voice to speak its demands, without which there is no fight.
In short, we give ourselves up.
We surrender … but not to our partner.
Instead we take the one path that remains open to us, given what our new understanding about higher love has shown us is true. Having seen that we remain powerless to drop our own unconscious demands, and how—much in the same way—our partner is equally unable to do anything other than insist we make the “payment due” for their pain, we are left with no other option:
We agree to “die” to any parts of ourself we can feel trying to push us, in any way, to identify with and then enact their old solutions. Rather than uselessly suffer some well-worn pain that our lower nature usually blames on our partner, we choose to drop not only it, but also any familiar sense of ourselves that may be connected to it as well.
In other words, we agree to voluntarily suffer the death of this false self that love has shown us knows not what it does to us, let alone to those we want least to hurt.
Making this intention—and striving to enact it, as a life-long practice with our partner—is doing our part in realizing unconditional love. In truth, it’s really the only thing that is in our power to do. Which brings us to this closing promise:
If we will do our part, love will do the rest; but we must put it to the test.
Embrace these new ideas. Enact them. Let them prove love’s power to heal and perfect all who will dare invoke its divine magic.
Helpful Questions and Answers
Question: It’s not like he means it, but somehow my partner knows how to push the wrong button in me, and always at exactly the wrong time. It’s as if he waits for me to say yes, to something, so that then he can say no. So, while I’d really like to learn how to be more patient with him than I am, I don’t have a clue where to begin. Any hints are greatly appreciated!
Answer: No doubt it’s challenging to deal with anyone, let alone a loved one, who contradicts us at every turn. But becoming impatient with his unconscious actions—and then blaming him for them—is like yelling at a toaster to stop burning your bread! The real solution to this, and to all similar situations, rests within you, not with your partner. We can only bear some negative characteristic in someone else that we have learned to consciously bear in ourselves … which means none of us can be truly compassionate until we know what it means to suffer for the sake of something greater than ourselves: unconditional love.
Question: I like many of the ideas in this book; most of them resonate with me as true. But honestly … it feels like you’re asking for more than I’m able to give when it comes to letting go and letting love lead me through the trials that I face almost every day with my partner. I want to believe in higher love—to be able to act with the kind of compassion you’ve called out here as not just our possibility, but our responsibility, as well. Please tell me how I can begin to see this power, so that I might build a greater trust in it.
Answer: We must not just “believe” in the power of love; billions profess this belief, and yet … billions still hurt one another in the name of love. We must learn to see—with our “new eyes”—that love is within and around us at all times. For instance, here’s an example of something that’s always been right before us, as a fact of life, but that has remained just out of sight (until today)! The love we have for anything holy, beautiful, or true is present in our heart before we can think of any reason for the love that we feel. The breathtaking light at sunset, that strain of delicate music, or watching a mother tenderly embrace her child: these moments don’t create the love we feel for what we see before us; these moments reveal the presence, and the power, of a love that already lives within us! Do take a moment to consider all that this insight implies, including one of the main themes of this whole book: it isn’t we who find things to love, but rather that Love finds—through us—a way to reach us, and to teach us that She lives in and through all things … including us.
key lessons
1. The reason it’s pointless to ask, or otherwise demand, that anyone in our life explain themselves to us—for what amounts to our troubled feelings over their words or actions—is because no one in the world can explain away a pain that we’re creating for ourselves!
2. For real love to survive and thrive between you and your partner in life, you’re going to have to discover another kind of love that isn’t divided up into who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s that simple, because as long as you have someone, anyone, to be against, you cannot be for love.
3. While it may feel, at times, as if fighting with your partner is in your best interests because it seems certain that such suffering is in love’s best interest, nothing is further from the truth. It isn’t for the sake of love that you fight. It can’t be … that is, unless you believe that the way to build a house is to tear down its walls. And now, more to the point at hand: it’s not really “you” who wants to start, let alone stoke the flames that give rise to these fights. It is this false sense of self—born of identifying with one side or the other of the unconscious opposing forces that make it feel real—that must be surrendered.