The Mystery Of Love

Here we are talking about divine love – unconditional, ultimate love. This, of course, is Buddhahood – or God Consciousness. In devotional practice, we can get a hint of this, but it’s not an everyday occurrence. Devotional practice is all about supplicating the enlightened ones, receiving blessings of love in the form of light, and sending this out to all sentient beings. To start with, this is just imagination, but the more we remember, this affects our attitude in daily life which, in turn, increases our capacity.

We first notice that we lack love, or we even hate. That very moment of recognition is love itself, for without that we wouldn’t know that something is lacking! We have an innate conscience that knows right and wrong, and which governs our integrity.

There is much in the world that just isn’t right. How do we address this? How do we love this? This comes back to neither accepting nor rejecting, but just being open to the state of affairs as they are now. What we can do will depend on our capacity and wisdom.

If wisdom is a mystery,
then love is a mystery.

We become too suspicious: not being able to show love may mean it’s difficult to accept love. These two blockages of not being able to give or to receive, means that love is still an abstract state, a mystery. But we all have the same innate longing to love and be loved…it’s natural.

In the Kali Yuga we are surrounded by sticky love: “I love you,” “I love this” and “I love that” – “I…” “I…” Whatever we do, we’re stuck with a “me me”! As long as there is a me, love is a mystery.

Deep within is love
for which every creature longs.
Love is our true nature.

We are like love entities who, through ignorance, fail to recognise this inner love: we then enter an avatar (just like in the movie) but this avatar has limitations with which love identifies, and so believes it is here for itself, just to survive.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
“I slept and dreamt that life was Joy.
I woke and saw that life was Duty.
I acted, and behold,
Duty was Joy.

And joy is an expression of love.

Love will remain a mystery as long as we do not recognise our true nature, which is love itself. It is beyond all concepts. When we go beyond all concepts, there is no mystery.

How do we start?
First, we recognise our own faults.
Then we recognise that those faults do not truly exist.
Then we look at the faults of others,
and realise that they too do not truly exist.
Then we realise there is no ‘self’ and there are no ‘others’.
There is just pure space.

Is there just one space?
At the moment, that remains a mystery!