Blessed Tuesday to You!
I had a lovely, productive day yesterday. It was nice to come in to my office and write my blog, and get into the gym for a nice deadlifting session.
I went home in the afternoon and enjoyed some beautiful music by Sai Baba; he has two CD’s under the title, The Embodiment Of Love 1 & 2, which are beautiful!
The music isn’t easy to come by, but if you’d like to hear the amazing voice and healing music of Sai Baba, you can’t go wrong with these CDs. Lovely!
After listening to his music and sharing it with a friend, I was inspired to draw this little mandala about how I felt:
I finished my day with a great tai-chi session and some quiet time with Penny before heading to bed.
Tonight is the grand opening of Danny Way’s life movie “Waiting On Lightening“.
Vidya, Penny and I are excited to go and see the movie and catch up with some of our friends we don’t often get to see.
This is the first actual movie to be shown in theaters I’ve actually acted a role in so it should be really fun! I will share more of our experiences tomorrow!
Today, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts and feelings about the process we all go through as we learn to love:
LEARNING TO LOVE I ~ WE ~ ALL
The first step in learning to love is to understand what love is.
The highest form of love is Unconditional Love (UCL). Though some may refer to UCL as “Divine Love”, or Perfect Love, UCL may be easiest to understand as Pure Giving.
UCL is The Giver Of Life. UCL is the Ground Substance of All Existence, All Creation, and therefore, creativity. UCL is the basis of all relationships to self, and/or other.
UCL cannot be “known” as this, or as that, for what can be known as, or labeled as this or that can only be perceived through the conditioning parameters we impose.
To impose conditions or labels on UCL is the natural function of the individual ego-mind; it cannot know or idealize any experience without applying some form of defining parameters.
At the most basic level of the ego we find a subject-object relationship; even when you feel your own love of yourself, you are aware (subject) of what you deem to be yourself (object).
Though it is very important—essential—to love ourselves, eventually we come to realize that what we are loving is often our bodies, our choices, the things we’ve acquired in life, or our life circumstances.
These are all expressions of UCL in, and as conditions; that you are human, that you are here, that you are reading this message!these are all conditions.
To truly come to love your Authentic Self requires adequate life experience and motive to seek a deeper relationship than can be acquired through any form of conditional love, for all conditions are temporary.
As much as you may love your body, your friends and lovers, your work, your home, your car or your money, they will all change their shape, form, value and meaning in your life as you change within.
When we are truly ready to experience the depth of the gift of self-love as Self-Love, we tend to stop asking questions like:
– Who loves me?
– Am I lovable?
– Who will take care of me if something happens to me?
– Do I look good enough today?
– Am I fit and/or healthy enough?
– Can I get what I want?
– Will God forgive me for my sins?…
Such questions, in time, give way to a much more meaningful question, which is, “Who am I?”
The very nature of the question, “Who am I?” opens the door of introspection.
Soon we find that we can’t answer the question with our mind, for the mind itself operates on the principle of exclusion; for example, if your mind decides “I am God!”, you are left with a paradox.
“If I am God, then who is asking the question, and who is answering it?”
The paradox also brings forth many other paradoxes that keep the honest seeker’s mind in a perpetual tap-dance!such as, “If I am God, then am I responsible for all the pain and destruction in the world?”
Once the introspective period reaches its natural end in a stalemate (or Check Mate), introspection transforms into meditation for the true seeker. Meditation can, and eventually will result in the answer.
My personal experience of the answer to the “Who am I?” question in meditation can’t be effectively stated with the use of language because language, like the ego, is divisional.
What I can share in language with you of my own experience of meditating deeply on the “Who am I?” question is this:
– I have no needs, wants or desires.
– I have no body.
– I am beyond mind.
– I am beyond time.
– I have no name, for there is no other to name me.
– I have infinite energy and creativity.
– I am safe in and as my Self.
– I am not time, but I “have all the time in the world”
When I allow myself to be fully present with my Self, I am aware that what looks out of my eyes and sees “my hand” is the same sentience or consciousness that looks out of my eyes and sees the world, sees you.
THE LOVE OF WE
Once we practice meditating on who we really are long enough, it shows in our thoughts, words and deeds because the inevitable result of coming into contact with the Higher-Self (Soul-Self) is the realization that:
– All is “I”
– I am All
Grounded in that experience and having had enough time to process the ego’s struggles with Truth, we naturally begin to have empathy and compassion for all the judgments we’ve made along the way to Self-Realization.
Instead of “Bob’s such an asshole”, we become brave enough to honor that “Bob is the asshole of me”.
I may feel glad that Bob is acting out that role for me today so I can be reminded of the ways I can be more loving to my self.
Knowing that Bob is offering me such a beautiful gift of “awareness”, I can now have empathy and compassion for Bob.
Now, where I once would have probably entered into conflict with Bob and tried to get him to feel differently about his opinions or actions, I can love the Bob of me the best and most safe way I can.
Now I am loving effectively at the “WE” level of Love’s expression.
LOVE OF ALL
As we progress in our practice of Self-Realization, we naturally begin to see that everyone is loving the best they can with the conditions they’ve created and attracted to themselves for their life journey.
We begin to see the grand harmony of things and have the confidence of knowing from a first person perspective that “what I am is:”
– Having no needs, wants or desires.
– Having no body.
– “Being” — beyond mind.
– “Being” — beyond time.
– Nameless, for there is no other to name me.
– Infinite energy and creativity.
– Safe in and as my Self.
– All the time in the world, or any world(s) I desire to create.
Through the same meditative awareness that brought me the reassurance of what I am, I realize that ALL that can be expressed, known or experienced are expressions of the Unconditional Love that IS.
I now feel safe to talk to plants, to listen to the stones, to console the lost and confused, to love all the animals and respect Mother Nature.
When I learn to love my “Self”, I have created the foundation for an honest and stable loving relationship with any other in and as “WE”.
When we love each other, we naturally rise in love, progressively expanding our awareness to a healthy love of all. In this process, the ego loses its constraints.
Thought this process, the ego-mind evolves from a process of exclusion to one of inclusion.
Once the ego-mind operates on the principle of inclusion, there is no need for fear, for one doe not fear themselves when they know and love themselves.
I hope you have a beautiful day today!
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
