Love

[contemplative]

From Simply Sane by Gerald May

Love

We think of loving someone. As if love were something one could create, give or receive. Often we even feel that love is something one “should” do. And then one may begin to wonder if one is capable of loving.

Who does the loving? Consider that loving cannot be “done” by anyone. When love is recognized, it is already there. Happening. It can be discovered, its presence can be recognized, but it can never be manufactured. And though love may be buried from awareness, it cannot be killed. So there really is no question as to whether one is capable of loving. The only question is whether one is capable of seeing the love which is already there.

We tend to think of love as attachment, binding, bonding and committing. But love is only free. Love accepts and allows totally. Because there is oneness in love, there is no giving and no taking. There is not even relationship. What does it really mean to be in love? Not that I have love for you, but that you and I are in love? We exist, as one, immersed in love, more deeply than in the air we breathe.

And this “self” which creeps in upon freely being time and time again. Can it be loved? It certainly need not be hated. Only love will free it to be what it will be, while hatred can but force it into more and more rigid, frozen postures. Discover then, the love that is there for your self and for your predicament.

Searching beneath anxiety, one will find fear. And beneath fear hurt will be discovered. Beneath the hurt will be guilt. Beneath the guilt lie rage and hatred. But do not stop with this, for beneath the rage lies frustrated desire. Finally, beneath and beyond desire, is love. In every feeling, look deeply. Explore without ceasing. At bottom, love is. Realizing this, need one do anything about the anxiety one feels?

…a little different perspective…

 

[buzzcut]

These are interesting ideas. I’m not sure I agree with all the details in the last paragraph you quote. Does he expand on these steps, or are they simply stated without explanation?

 

[contemplative]

buzzcut:

These are interesting ideas. I’m not sure I agree with all the details in the last paragraph you quote. Does he expand on these steps, or are they simply stated without explanation?

I bought a couple of Christian/mental health books for my daughter who is studying psychology. I happened to pick this one to flip through and I stopped at the word love and was greatly impressed by this passage on love.

The chapter this passage comes from is titled The Lessons of Sanity. It starts out like this.

And starting fresh as from a s second birth,
Man in the sunshine of the world’s new spring
Shall walk transparant like some holy thing!
Thomas Moore

If the delusion of separation and thingness and fixing dies, and if sanity is finally allowed to be free, what will sanity tell us about growing and healing and living?

It is in this way that I have compiled the material which follows. Listening to teachers and looking into quietness, these ideas have resonated with me. Keeping in mind that I claim no special authority here it would be well for you to ask your own intuition about these ideas. If they fail to “connect” with you let them pass.

The following topics are included in this chapter.

1. 
   *]Attitude toward mind
   *]Consciousness
   *]Paying attention
   *]Being aware
   *]Desire
   *]Neurosis
   *]Psychosis
   *]Acceptance
   *]Responsibility
   *]Love
   *]Work
   *]Suffering
   *]Living
   
   
   buzzcut:
   

   I’m not sure I agree with all the details in the last paragraph you quote.

   All of this passage about love connected with me. IIf it did not all connect with you then let it pass.

 

[contemplative]

I found this…I hope it sheds light on the last paragraph in the OP.

Moses and Cain each hid his face from God. Moses hid his face because he could not bear to look upon such goodness; Cain hid his face because he could not bear to have Divine Goodness look at him. The sinner cannot bear to have the eyes of God upon him, for he does not want to know how wicked he is. But God cannot change his nature to make up for our perversity; it is the ego that must change its ways.

If an egotist really understood the psychology of the human mind, he would never be heard to say that God is wrathful—for such a statement publishes his sinfulness. As a brown-colored glass can make the water in it seem brown, although it is not, so the Love that waits for us, passing through our sinful lives, may seem like wrath and anger. A change in our behavior removes all the unhealthy fear of God.

Bishop J. Sheen, Lift Up Your Heart