Loving the All and the Everything…
The Big Love Day encourages us to love, but to only have love for one… How about using the day to LOVE ALL? How about just emerging all the love in our hearts and sharing it with all the people in the world, to the Earth, the animal kingdom, yourself and God. Why not let us be unlimited in our love? When we put all our eggs in one basket we can become disappointed. But, when we create for ourselves a love garden, the scent is very fragrant, it spreads all around and gives happiness to everyone.
There is no point you waiting for that exclusive Valentine to come riding along! You know because even when he/she does turn up, they will be expecting the same from you! That you should make them happy! In fact, when we are feeling full from inside, we do not wait for anyone… to make us complete and happy. Sure enough, it’s nice to have company and friends come our way, but let it not be a co-dependent relationship where we are needy love.
“…people are so happy to be with you when
you don’t want anything from them.”
From my own experience, people are so happy to be with you when you don’t want anything from them. The moment you show you want or need something, they run a mile! It is the clinginess that kills our relationships, that forever wanting, we know not what we seek ourselves, and yet we trap others with our expectations to deliver the ‘unknown something’ to us to make us happy! Then what does the other party feel? They feel trapped, guilty and probably used too! What does that tell us about our relationships? That when the going gets tough, then the people get going out of our lives too!
We are complete in ourselves and within ourselves. The intimacy we seek with another is the separation with our half-forgotten self. We dare not look inside, because we have become accustomed to seeing only darkness and ugliness. Perhaps there are so many things about us that we do not like, but somehow our focus is only on those things. Like the story of the teacher who put up a maths table on the board with one wrong answer at the end… All the children’s focus was on that one error and not all the other right answers! How quick we are to judge and find fault in in ourselves… and others.
“The intimacy we seek with another is
the separation with our half-forgotten self.”
We make the same mistake of looking at our flaws, when there is so much beauty inside of us and other souls. Because we do not look there, inside, we have become distant from our beautiful self. Hence many of us don’t like our own company, we prefer someone else to tell us all day how wonderful we are… Or how much they love us… even if we may not love our own selves! So when they stop telling us, we move onto another soul, who we think can see our beauty and will tell us the words we want to hear… and so the cycle of this notion of romantic love repeats.
Loving all… firstly begins with loving the self. We do not mean the vanity of self-love of the ego, but having love for the true unchanging self, love of the spirit and love of the heart. In meditation we focus on all our inner beauty and as we do so, we are giving the attention of water and sunlight to emerge those qualities, and we watch them grow like hidden treasures from within us. This is very powerful, because in a way we are cultivating our own ‘garden of virtues’ from which we will feed ourselves, we become self-sufficient. Of course we also see our own flaws, like the weeds in the garden, but our focus, our vision and attention must be on our virtues. Our objective is to cultivate those flowers of virtue.
“Imagine, loving something in someone
else, but you can’t love it in yourself?”
Then comes loving others… we can only truly love others, if we love our self. Imagine, loving something in someone else, but you can’t love it in yourself? If you cannot embrace your weaknesses like intolerance, or impatience then how can you accommodate that in others? There will always be a reaction or a spark, a feeling of disgust. So we must work to transform our own weaknesses. Today, everyone is under the influence of the vices. We don’t choose to be, but unknowingly we are. So we have to separate the vices, the negativity from the soul.
When someone is physically wounded it’s easy to be kind and compassionate; yet when one is weak in the mind or has a closed heart; or we see many defects in them; then we find it hard to be merciful. But is that not the same as being wounded… inside? We accept weak bodies easily, yet we expect everyone to be strong in the mind. When we too are not able to manage our frustration… greed… anger or ego… in the mind, then this is adding salt to the already formed wound. Let us be gentle and treat others as we would like to be treated when we are injured.
“When we say we love a flower, we do not pick it selfishly for our living room,
but we leave it living and growing in the soil. We leave it for others to appreciate and enjoy.”
Loving Nature… love also means to respect. When we say we love a flower, we do not pick it selfishly for our living room, but we leave it living and growing in the soil. We leave it for others to appreciate and enjoy. So let us learn to take from Nature only that which we need and no more… this means to love Nature. Let us not suffocate our world with plastic and all manner of rubbish as we trash our beautiful planet. Let us stop now. We know that man is the only creature who destroys his own habitat!
Love for God… let us have that love and appreciation for the Divine. Our eternal Spiritual Parent, the One who is forever giving unconditionally to each and every one of us. Even if, as is so often the case, we are not ready to receive because our mind is in some other place, being trapped in some small grievance or limitation.
Love the drama of life… everything is perfect and everything is there to teach us, to help us to learn and grow… and to learn to love life. We are all living in one gigantic school that we call Earth. There are many lessons to learn in life, and as we pass each grade, so we move higher up the ladder of knowledge, understanding and experience of life, and then ultimately we reach that place of natural wisdom.
It is we who create the dramas with our own thoughts. When we are in a good space, we love everything… and when we are not, nothing seems to be going right or seems perfect. We also speak of there being that ‘love in the air’ feeling, but who creates that love in the air spirit? Does it just pop up from nowhere? No. We are the creators of our thoughts and feelings, and whatever thoughts we create they vibrate and go out into the world. Maybe we all need to start once again that love affair with our true self, not the fake image in the mirror, because the mirror can only reflect the physical image back to us. Let us look into the mirror of our heart, let us heal our hearts and we will see only true and full love there.
When I am loving all, then what are the kinds of thoughts running through my mind? They would be thoughts that are simply of love. When I connect to my original and eternal nature, then I do not have to think about giving love, I know that… I am love… I am peace… I am joy… The beautiful world in which we live is the perfect reflection of the inner world of our minds. If we do not like what we see, then perhaps it is time to change something inside of ourselves…
It’s Time… to love all without hesitation… that is where my healing lies.
© ‘It’s Time…’ by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK