“When you seek love in your Heart, you will Find that it Echoes throughout the Universe”  Rumi

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AGAPE LOVE

The Greek language uses three words for love. It talks about eros. Eros is a sort of aesthetic love. It has come to us to be a sort of romantic love and it stands with all of its beauty. But when we speak of loving those who oppose us we’re not talking about eros. The Greek language talks about philia and this is a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends.

This is a vital, valuable love. But when we talk of loving those who oppose you and those who seek to defeat you we are not talking about eros or philia. The Greek language comes out with another word and it is agape. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men. Biblical theologians would say it is the love of God working in the minds of men.

It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. And when you come to love on this level you begin to love men not because they are likeable, not because they do things that attract us, but because God loves them and here we love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. It is the type of love that stands at the center of the movement that we are trying to carry on in the Southland—agape.  MLK

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A Diamond is associated with pure love. It is the hardest most pure light refracting mineral on Earth.  It is created from coal like carbon, flammable and black. To achieve its diamondhood it must be hardened under intense heat and tension in the bowels of the Earth over long, vast periods of time.

We are all carbon beings with diamond-like potentiality yet to reach our highest potential all must first endure the intense heat and pressure.  Never forgetting whence we came yet consciously knowing that which our highest selves are capable of achieving in this lifetime.

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“There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures. There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is love beyond reason. This is the love of God.”
― John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason

Love Without Expectation

Once we let go of our expectations, we stop trying to force people into boxes, smash them into take-out containers that cannot contain even their fractional vastness, as representative of the Whole, we start to experience the world as it more truly exists.

It also means we don’t have to be frustrated or angry anymore. We can just allow. This doesn’t mean that we become spineless, but it does mean that we don’t consent to the actions of others – which are really just our own projections anyhow – disturbing the equanimity of our minds.

We can notice when we start to wish things were different – when we start to fantasize about some outcome. Instead, we can do good things, be kind to people, and have no expectation for any particular outcome. The Dalai Lama once said, “I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.” 

“A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect.” ~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie 

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Lovers Transcending the Duality Void

Going about our daily lives, we try to correct that imbalance by interacting with our so-called counterpole. Men will go courting women, and women will go courting men, faintly knowing that who they are courting is themselves… deep within the hidden realms of their soul. So basically, when we look into the mirror reflection of the other, we see our own image on one level, and recognition on another. That seems to be the key to finding ourselves through love.

We can talk about sex, but sex is very uninteresting. Sensuality is everything. And sensuality can only exist when equals meet and surrender. Trust is the key… trust and non-competition. Equals don’t compete… they accept. The rhythm is: conquering, surrendering, conquering, surrendering.

 

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Love and Our Higher Potentiality

NR: What does love mean to you?

Love means to accept the gifts of the universe as they are given, and not look into the mouth of a gift horse. In our modern rational scientific way of thinking we analyse; we should accept the gifts of the universe as they come, and see it as a blessing. Love is when you suspend your judgement. Even when you are in love with somebody, you suspend your judgement. You don’t say I love you because you are young, because you are wealthy and educated, because you have high status—you love unconditionally. The moment your mind interferes, and decides judgmentally and dualistically between good and bad or unacceptable and acceptable, love is lost.

NR: You have some interesting ideas about education. How can we try to inculcate the spirit of self-sacrifice and unconditional love in children?

Children are not empty vessels in which you pour information and knowledge. The word educare means to bring out, rather than put in. So all the knowledge, all the wisdom and all the insights which are required are already in every child, because every child is divine. The presence of the divine is there. It is like the acorn—an oak tree is already in that acorn. The work of a gardener is to find fertile soil where that acorn can be planted. The work of a forestor or gardener is to build a little fence to protect that little seedling so that cows or pigs don’t destroy it, and perhaps to give it a bit of water in dry weather. But otherwise the acorn has the capacity to become an oak tree.

In the same way every child is a potential Buddha or enlightened being—and the work of a guru, a master, a teacher or parent is to provide that fertile soil, to provide support and protection, so that the child can become who it is. The work of education is to help the child become self-realised—not to become a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant, someone that they are not, just to earn money. Education is a spiritual activity.

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