Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
~ The Sutta Nipata
This is one of the most painful things I can admit. I don’t know if I have ever known Love. Lust, yes. Attachment, Passion, yes. Compassion – perhaps. And the most hurtful thing I can say is – how many have?
What is Love? Who has ever known Love? Love is where the ego is not. Love is the opposite of self-centeredness; it is what lies underneath the little “me”. When the ego completely disappears, all that remains is love. And how many people have lost themselves, how many have had glimpses of this freedom? Only a handful of people – the mystics and the saints.
Love is perhaps one of the most corrupted words. It has been so defiled that nobody knows what it means any more. “I love chocolate.” “I love this song.” “I love you.” “I love my son.” “I love my friends”. “I love you, my prince charming!” Yet all these statements are far from what is real. Some of them – a mother’s love for her children, perhaps – come tantalizingly close, but so often they are merely egoic games parading as sorry substitutes.
All these false loves are nothing more than clinging, attachment, duty, a weapon. They’ve been straitjacketed by rules and structures and conditions and games. And at the core, they are all about the self.
Love is the opposite. It has no clinging. It doesn’t get attached. It gives and thinks nothing of getting. A romantic thinks of herself, a lover thinks of the other.
I think back to all the broken hearts I’ve tried to console. “What was so great about them anyway?” I would ask. “He’s the only one who told me I was special.” “He drove me everywhere” “He made me feel sexy.” “She gave me good sex.” “She cooked for me.” “She was prettier than all the others I’ve had.” There was nothing about the person who left them – it all came back, ultimately, to them.
The feeling we call romantic love is nothing more than a biological, selfish urge – no different from our hunger for food or air – given a set of rules to form the dating game. And that is what romance is about – simply fulfilling each other’s egos. You make me feel special, I make you feel loved.
And when that happens, love becomes a duty, a knife held at their throat. “I love you!” you say to the other, and that really means – “Son, you have to make me proud with your grades”, “Father, you have to provide for me”, “Mother, you have to forgive me for crashing your car”, “Mary, now you have to sleep with me”, “John, now you cannot sleep with her, for you belong to me.”
Duty comes with conditions. Love is unconditional. Duty obliges the other, Love obliges you. As Osho said – they have accepted your love but they could have turned it down!
Between true Love and false love would be cultivated love – love that is a performance, practiced, and trained. Perhaps a better name would be compassion, for the word has not been polluted as much.
This love is commendable and beautiful – but it is still not Love. This love grows your consciousness, preparing your entire being as soil for the flower. And as the soil grows more fertile, the seed that is inside naturally begins to blossom.
Love is the opposite of the ego, the exaggerated sense of self. Where love is, the self cannot exist. The self is built on separation, fragmentation and exclusion, love is built on inclusion. The root of the ego is selfish – it sees you as alone in an alien world, and it wants to protect you. It twists Love into the false love, the weapon, the duty, the clinging. And yet this Love is ever present, a sun covered by the clouds of your ego, waiting to shine through when the winds are right.
Practice love, then. And let it slowly become Love. Give and share unconditionally and selflessly – “self”-lessly. It gives you a taste – for some, the first in years – of not thinking selfishly. And for that brief moment the ego is not present. Smile, simply for the sake of brightening her day, not because you want something from her. Caress him, simply because you want to ease his pain, not out of duty. Let that act slowly remove the illusion of separation.
And when the self completely falls away, Love is all that remains. It is no longer cultivated; no longer something you have to remind yourself to do. When you practice love so deeply the lover disappears, the act of loving disappears, when the loved disappears, and when it all melts into one. Love becomes who you are.
And I feel like a fraud just for writing about it, for I don’t know if I have ever tasted it. All I would have had are glimpses. One such event sticks out in my mind because it came so suddenly and provided such sharp contrast – it turned hell into a heaven in a flash.
It was during a nasty argument with an ex-girlfriend. I was striding angrily in the streets, trying to out-shout her on the phone. Both our petty little egos were running rampant – Attack! Attack! Defend! Defend! You liar! You backstabber!
And I suddenly realised that none of it mattered. Within a moment, there was nothing to defend, nothing to attack. Everything just seemed so beautiful. I had no idea what happened – and I have no description for it. All her verbal attacks continued pouring into my ear, but instead of the anger I felt before all I felt was love. All I wanted was to stop her pain. It felt different from cultivated compassion – I didn’t have to tell myself to be kind and loving. I simply didn’t have a choice – compassion was all I could do.
The argument soon changed because I didn’t react. I just kept quiet and listened, and she calmed down. We hung up on good terms, and I went home to bed. When I awoke the feeling was gone, and all the things that didn’t matter began making me angry again – we soon degenerated into petty, meaningless argument once more.
Was that night the flowering of Love, or was it just a trick of the mind? I don’t know. But it brought shame to my previous ideas of what love was. I had talked so much about giving without wanting anything in return; loving the other without any thought of the self – but until that night, I have never lived it.
How do we find Love, then? Start by loving ourselves. Does that sound shocking? This goes against everything we have been taught! From the moment I was old enough to listen, I’ve been hearing – love your country, love your planet, love your parents, your religion, your enemies, and your friends. And yet, how many of them ever say – love yourself? I was in my twenties when I first heard it!
But it makes so much sense! How do we go out and give what we don’t have? If you are filled with sadness and anxiety, how do you give out love? If you reach deep into your being and find only anger, what will be in your palms as you open your hands?
“Love your neighbour as you love yourself”, said the Bible. Strange, because everyone focuses on the first part only and forgets the second. You only love your neighbour to the extent you love yourself. Without Love in your being, your actions and actions have no root; they’re empty and superficial, like a plastic flower.
“Love yourself and watch – Today, tomorrow, always”, said the Buddha. This time it is the opposite. Everyone focuses on the second part, and forgets the first. I have been immersed in Buddhist teachings for many months, and until recently all I’ve heard about are the miracles of watching, of mindfulness. Watch your emotions and thoughts. Let them be, and they will lose their grip on you. Be the watcher, and let your life transform.
Watching, watching – always the watching. Everyone seems to have forgotten the first part of the teaching. And that’s why meditation is so hard to many beginners. “Isn’t meditation supposed to make me feel better?” they cry.
When I decided I had enough of being depressed, I wanted to fight my way out of it. Off I went on my quest, consuming books upon books on spirituality, psychology, and meditation. Your thoughts cause your emotions, said the psychologists. Change your thoughts and watch your depression fade. And so I fought my thoughts, I countered them, I tried to change them, and I tried to silence them.
And already the blade of self-violence began cutting deeper. What is there to fight? I’m depressed because I fight myself, I hate myself, I struggle against myself. Fighting the urge to fight myself. Doesn’t that sound insane? It’s like preparing for peace by going to war; preserving virginity by having sex.
In the end, I began watching my thoughts. And watching my depressed mind wasn’t much better. My mind was going wild, cutting me with a dull blade, and now I had to sit back and watch it happen. And I kept at it for months, thinking that it would help. But it didn’t. And all because the books missed the first part of the Buddha’s teaching. If you don’t love yourself, and you watch – you watch as the dark dungeons of your psyche open and the contents spill out – you might go insane!
So, love yourself. Does it sound simple? “Of course I love myself!” I hear you cry. Do you really? Loving yourself is a major achievement. There is so much poison to undo, and it takes than just affirmations, endlessly playing in your mind. The very people we’ve been told to love – those are often the ones who have condemned us and judged us.
Please, stop condemning yourself – everyone else has done it for us. Again and again, far more than we need. Isn’t it necessary, you might think? “What about the murderers and the rapists – if we don’t judge them, what will happen to us?” They need care more than they need judgement. The more you judge, the worse they become.
Where does self-condemnation come from? Our parents, our society, our peers, our colleagues, our bosses, religions, teachers, country. Since the day we were born, we were thrust into a world of shoulds and should-nots. They’ve told us what was lovable and what was not. They tried to mould us in their image, tried to get us to live out their fantasies. They told us to walk and talk one moment and sit down and shut up the next.
Sometimes they mean well. Sometimes they don’t. But it doesn’t matter – we are being judged, again and again and again, and each time we don’t fail we suffer condemnation.
Sometimes the people who took care of us were openly abusive. And in our child-like innocence we saw them as all-mighty, capable of doing no wrong. When we were abused, we thought we somehow deserved it. If they were Godlike, they could do no wrong – and it must be something wrong with us, if we were treated like this.
And so we carry around a strong sense – “not good enough”. The most common sign of this is the voice in our heads. The psychologist Eugene Sagan, in the fantastic volume Self Esteem
How many times have I replayed memories in my head of prior insults, or worried about my finances, about my future, about where I am in life? What were these really about? Were others really insulting me in my own head? Was I really concerned about the future? No. It was disguised self-condemnation.
The antidote? Radical, unconditional love. Loving yourself for everything. Suck the poison out, end the judgement, right now!
You might think – what if I am a hurtful, hateful person? Does loving myself for these actions mean that I allow myself to go out and do more? How can you? You sow hate and pain because that’s all you have inside you. When you transform that hate into love, what is going to happen? What’s going to overflow from your being, from your soul? Don’t you want to find out?
And when you love so strongly, how can you ever be hurt? Love yourself as you are; love whatever is happening outside you; love the moment as it is. You love the time you spend with your lover, you love the moment that they leave you – how can your heart ever break? You love the castle you dine in, you love the little cardboard box you sleep in – how can you ever be upset? You love the trees and the rocks as you take a bus, you love the wind and the clouds as you drive your fancy car – what can you ever lack?
And the key to transformation is not to be something else. You can never be anything other than what you are, right now. Love is not a result of perfection; perfection is the result of love. Stop, just for a moment, your seeking and searching, for that sort of perfection is neurotic and impossible. Your real perfection is to relax into yourself – into being yourself completely; accepting your “flaws” and humanity exactly as they are.
I remember an old girlfriend; every time we became intimate, she would cover a part of her ribs with her hand, refusing to let me see it. It took me weeks to find out she carried a deep scar there, but I never did ask what caused it. One day she allowed me to see it, but her face showed fear – perhaps expecting judgement or rejection. I was young – I did and said a lot of stupid things with her, but that day I managed to do something right. I spent a minute looking at the scar, not knowing how to react. Then, without thinking, I leaned over and kissed it. We remained silent for a few minutes, and she began crying. I asked her why, afraid I might have hurt her, but she said no-one had ever accepted her that way before. No one – not even herself.
Go in front of a mirror, a full-length one if available. Strip naked. Do it after a shower, or when you wake up in the morning, before you paint your face, or put your power suit or your cool leather jacket on. Leave nothing uncovered. Look at yourself in the mirror, and don’t avert your gaze. Don’t grimace, or flinch, or judge any part of your body.
Wear a smile on your face, and one in your heart. Can you do it? It’s so simple – smile with your heart. Imagine your heart smiling. Then broaden it until you smile with your whole being. And just accept yourself. Look at every part of your body; direct your smile at each part – the scars, the injuries, the illnesses, the features you find attractive, the features you hate, the fat, the skinniness, the cellulite.
Take all the time you need. Touch your pain, your flaws, and your scars the way you would touch a lover. Accept them so much, direct a loving energy towards them, think loving thoughts, and smile at them so much that you begin loving them. Loving yourself, not despite of these flaws, but because of them. Do it everyday, as much as you can. Undo the condemnation and the judgement that has been piled on you since birth.
Look into the mirror solidly; look at your body, perfect as it is. Why is it not perfect? It is only imperfect in your thoughts, the little voice in your head that runs the “shoulds” and “should nots”. Your thighs should be slimmer; your biceps should be bigger; you should not have cancer. What if you allowed yourself to think that it was perfect as it is?
Move from your body, and look deep into your heart, and look at the anxiety, the depression, the self-rejection, the hatred, the anger, the fear, the loneliness. Smile at them, embrace them, and love them. Relax into them. Create a loving emotion and feeling around them; say yes to them with your whole being.
Look carefully into your head; look at the obsessive thoughts, the memories, the movies, the sounds, the negative self-talk, the self-condemnation. And do the same. Analyse your thoughts – each painful thought or memory can be traced back to a core self-hatred, for all hatred is self-hatred and all rejection is self-rejection.
What you can’t love, accept. What you can’t accept, forgive. And if you can’t forgive them, forgive yourself for not being able to forgive. Don’t force yourself into doing anything – you’ll just tense up again. Relax into it. Isn’t that the message of the entire emotional mastery series? There – nearly ten articles and you don’t have to read them any more – it was just summed up for you.
Love yourself for everything. There is nothing to run away from, nothing to hide. The entire blog so far has been about radical acceptance and love. Love your emotions without having to act on them, and watch them turn into peace. Love your mind, and watch it work for you instead of against you. Love your body and watch it slowly begin to glow.
And carry this around you for the rest of the day. Create a loving energy around and in yourself whenever you can. Think loving thoughts, talk to yourself well. Pause. Just pause. Stop, whenever you remember to, look at yourself, and accept. Have you fallen out of acceptance? It’s such a deeply ingrained habit that we fall back into self-criticism so easily.
One day you’ll be able to look at your flaws and begin laughing. “What flaws?” you might ask. What flaws, indeed? There is no such thing.
That is real perfection. Not the perfection of the neurotics – who hold impossible standards for themselves and others, but the perfection of the holy men. I have heard: Enlightenment is not about becoming divine or transcending humanity – it’s about becoming fully human. Realising that you are perfect as you are – celebrating who you are and where you are.
Then soon you’ll be able to accept everything else as it is. This is meditation – the relaxation into yourself, and from there, into the world. Accept the world as it is around you. If the divine is everywhere, then why reject him? What do you hear now? The birds chirping? That’s the divine coming to you. A dog barking, a car honking, the neighbours fighting? Don’t reject it! Relax into it.
Sometimes, seekers on a spiritual or religious path have it the hardest of all. “I should be compassionate. I should be blissful. I shouldn’t be stressed. I should be kind.” Even stranger, after reading this article: “I should love myself more”. A very subtle, cleverly disguised form of perfectionism and self-violence.
And how do you know that you have loved yourself? Can you be alone, without the need for distraction, music, entertainment? Can you simply sit and be alone; enjoying your own company the same way you would enjoy the company of a perfect lover?
Even if you have blocked out the external world, what then? Is that peace? No, for the world still arises inside you. And so people run and hide from themselves. Whenever they are alone, they read a book, get drunk, or call a friend. Before, it was TV addiction – spending hours a day in front of the tube. Now it’s the Internet, people are getting addicted to the email, to the instant messengers. Or they will go out with people they dislike, people who bore them, anything and anyone simply to avoid being in their own company.
And when does Love come? If self-love is cultivated love, when does it become Love?
When your being glows with ecstasy, when your eyes begin to dance, when every cell in your body glows with joy. When you have transformed yourself, when you can totally and truly love yourself for all your so-called failings and blemishes, when your love becomes so strong, so deep, and so overwhelming that you feel the urge to out and share it. When you can’t resist sharing, when you give and give without telling yourself to – indeed, when you can’t stop yourself – that is Love.
And you can’t force it. Nor can you find it. When it comes, it comes naturally. Love and compassion no longer becomes something you cultivate, but becomes who you are.
Imagine a circle. That’s what Love is. A circle is not a circle if it is not perfect. A small dent, a small defect, and it’s no longer a circle. And that’s what practice love is for. With practice love, we begin drawing the line, slowly curving it until the two ends meet in a perfect shape and then Love blossoms.
Finally, the start of the promised love and compassion series! Hope you enjoyed it, because it’s going to be a big one!
Great thanks here to Osho for inspiring this series with his fantastic books. Controversial he might be, but he is still one of the finest teachers of Love I’ve ever come across.
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THIS IS VERY BEAUTIFUL AND VERY REAL – I KNOW LOVE AND I WANT IT TO GROW AND SHARE IT AND FOR IT TO BE SHARED – I LOVE
Thanks Karen, and I’m really happy to hear that you know love. Isn’t it the greatest feeling? And naturally you want to go out and grow it and share it some more, just like you said.
This is very well written. If we could put it into real life, I believe it would make SO BIG difference in our lives! It will sure keep me thinking about it for some time… hopefully forever.
Glad you like it Klemen. Definitely, even if the ego doesn’t disappear / become enlightened / whatever, it’s still going to be one of the best things we can do for ourselves.
Excellent article again Albert.
Love is all that matters – if only we all learn that in our lifetime rather than on our death bed.
Arvind, really appreciate all the support you’ve been giving me, thanks a lot. Always good to see you here.
Yet another awesome post, brother Al! You know whereof you speak – nobody could write that without having had some experience of true love. Thanks for all you do. Gratitude and love to you.
Brilliant..
Here’s to Love then. Loves your circle example .
May we all Love
God bless
Gratitude and Love back to you two, Carolyn and Nur!
I can sense your happiness through reading your posts, A. Cheers mate!
Thank you mate, always good to see you around!
Hi Albert
What a lovely post and a powerful start to my Monday morning! You are right, the word love does get thrown about willy nilly as an “excuse” for a lot of things but from the putside looking in it seems as far away from love as possible. The key is self-love and acceptance indeed. Thanks for a well though out post.
In love light and abundance x x x
Thanks for the comment Lola. Love light and abundance right back at you!
Hi Albert,
Just wanted to let you know that this post really resonated with me – I’m at a stage in my life where I’m just starting to “relax into myself”, and it is really starting to make a positive difference. As a musician, this is really important to my music as well; if I’m not relaxed and fully Loving the music, then that has a negative effect on the sound and feel that comes out through my fingers (i.e. I get self-conscious/neurotic about my playing and tense up!). I think this is probably true of any creative act – there has to be a kind of letting go in order for Truth to emerge.
I have heard virtuoso guitarist Jamie Andreas define Love simply as “to be with” (in the truest sense of the words). Makes sense when you really think about it.
Thanks for a beautiful post,
Jacob
Thanks for that inspiriting story mate! I totally agree – I think many texts state that all truly creative efforts come from beyond us, when we are in the “zone” or something similar. This is regardless of our chosen field, whether it be sports, design, martial arts, or music. Good to hear how it’s working in your life, and thanks for sharing.
FANTASTIC. I LOVE it.
Here via the Carnival of Australia but also because I chose to be.
M
Thanks a lot Megan
Albert, this has got to be the very best article that you have written. I intend to read it every day and absorb every word. It is my current lesson all written down in one convenient package. I always enjoy your words of wisdom. This is the best. You do know what love is or you could not have written this. You do feel it somewhere inside of you or the words would not have come together so beautifully. You may not have applied them to your life but you do “know” love. Applying them is the hard part and where so many of us do fall short.
When I was in India, I was blessed to meet the most loving Austrian couple named Hans and Margarite. Margarite has a disease that has temporarily left her completely paralysed. I think I was told that she has been in this condition for about 4 months. Hans is her spouse and caretaker. He has found massage therapists to come in to work on her body to keep it from atrophying. I was blessed to meet them because a friend of mine who has been living in India for a few months does accupressure on Margarite’s feet about 4-5 times a week. This friend invited my friend Sherryl and I to participate in the healing sessions. My friend Sherryl who is my traveling companion is a Reiki Master and my Reiki teacher and also a massage therapist and does Cranio-Sacral healing as well. My job, which my guides had given me about a year ago, was to send Reiki energy but the most important thing that I do is to set up a space of protection and hold that space while the other healers do the main healing work. The first 3 days that my friends went to do the healing work, I set up the healing space from our room in the ashram because I was too sick with a sinus infection and coughing to leave our room. On the fourth day, I was able to go with them and meet Hans and Margarite and participate there in the room with them. Margarite is young and pretty and totally helpless and dependant upon Hans and others to take care of her. Her attitude was wonderfully uplifting. Despite some pain, which she is beginning to feel, she was smiling. The pain is a very good sign. That means that feeling is beginning to come back into her body. My friend Sherryl has seen this disease before and a full recovery is possible. I can’t remember the name of the disease. I will have to ask Sherryl and write it down. Because Sherryl has seen several people with this disease, she was able to encourage Hans and Margarite.
My point in sharing this story is to give you a glimpse of the beautiful love that I saw in these 2 people despite the circumstances. When Margarite would cry out in pain, or she would ask a question or make a comment, Hans would gently reach out and lovingly pat her hand to comfort her. That simple act of patting her hand told me all about their relationship. There was no show because we were there. It was a simple act of compassion, which I think is love at its best. There was no sense of obligation from Hans. It was one of the most beautiful acts of love that I have ever seen.
Thank you very much Patricia, good to have you back from your holiday as well. And that’s a fantastic story – I really think that its increasingly rare for people to give out warmth and care without expecting anything in return – at the same time it’s getting more popular to talk about it. Strange, huh? So that story is fantastic – thanks for sharing.
This is indeed a wonderful article. Great personal examples. Love is a state of being, not of sacrificing. It is inseparable with love of Self.
I recently wrote about the topic of Love (with a capital L) on my blog : The unity in Love.
Matthew, an absolutely brilliant article you have there. I can’t agree enough. Man, I’m going back there now to see what else you’ve written. Thanks for stopping by!
I love how you weave your own experiences through your teaching, which shows how accessible this information really is. Often by witnessing someone else’s journey we awaken to our own. Well done!
Thank you very much Karen, I was on Springing Light, and I am just as happy to find it as I was to find Loving Awareness. Brilliant stuff!
Wow. This one is very much on point. For a long time, I have become very down on myself. I couldn’t see anything about myself to like let alone love. This puts a different perspective on things. Its a long, long, long tough journey but one I need to take.
Thanks Albert. I am glad I found your blog.
Hey 1+1… thank you for your comments. Glad you like it, and I hope that it helps. I do believe once you’ve found Love for yourself, everything else will fall into place.
I am grateful for how your words reach out and touch so many people. You have a way of presenting simple ideas that many of us are aware of inside, but glance over or disregard. The way you bring things up and put them in context is like a gentle nudge that encourages people to explore their own sense of self. After all, isn’t that the crux of why we all exist?
Thank you Liara, your praise is really appreciated and makes it very worthwhile to continue blogging.
Thank you so much for this wonderful post. It is like music to my heart. I recognize my own experience totally in what you write -the confusion about what love is, the self-hatred and and self-condemnation inside, the attachment and neediness which comes from that lack of love within, which, in the past, I was so lost in. And now the process of healing all that, and starting to wake up to what love really is, which is starting to happen in me. You just described so beautifully everything I am in the process of discovering myself, and saying ‘yes’ to. Thank you.
Hi Agyana – it’s wonderful that you are on this journey… it can be hard one, but you have my respect for undertaking it
. Let me know how you get on with it, I would love to hear back from you.
Hello Albet.
I’ve read the “Emotional Mastery” and “EGO” articles and now I’ve
also read “Love and Compassion” articles as you suggested.
I’ve been doing the “Watching” part from childhood…
I don’t know how I discovered it but I always could watch myself
as though ME wasn’t part of ME(Body, Mind, Emotions).
All my life I was in pain because of not knowing what to do with
my emotions and behaviour (I’ve always known it wasn’t the real me)
fighting against them and striving to be under control of myself.
Now I know how.
The missing part of the equation was LOVE…
Since the “Watcher” was POINTLESS without the goal to bond the whole package toghether.
My awareness (watcher) always had many goals through my life, Those are the Meta-Thoughts that change us… now I have a new one.
Now the emotions are even more painfull when I purge them,
because of the Love that I’m building to replace them.
“Love yourself and watch – Today, tomorrow, always”
I’ve missed the Love part too.
Thanks Albert.
Wow Ilya…thanks for that story. I’m happy you liked my article. Thank you once again for sharing.
That is an awesome post, it really made me stop and think, it was amazing food for thought. Your personal example was great, in a way, i really feel like you. Thanks for sharing this, i just bookmarked your website, it’s the kind of website that makes me happy
Hey Karen, that is a really big compliment. I appreciate it.
Beautiful – thank you for taking the time to share this =)
Thank you EQ
Its amazing how things can be right in front of you the entire time, yet someone has to point them out for you. Albert you truely do have a way with words that makes every reader feel as if each post is for them personally. Keep up the good work man.
Mark that compliment is very much appreciated, thanks!
Well thanks for sharing
.
Wow, this was a deep post! I think I have to read again to grasp everything. I just want to say to keep up the good work! =) /Elsa
Thank you
Hi Albert, I have been reading your articles for some time already now.I really find them helpful in my daily life. Thank you so much for writing all this helpful articles and keep up the good work!
Besides that, I would like to ask a question on this article; about Buddha’s saying in the Dhammapada, according to u, it’s “Love yourself and watch-today, tomorrow and always”
But there are some websites that quote the same verse from Dhammapada as “Love yourself and be awake-today, tomorrow, always”
Is the meaning of both “watch” and “be awake” same, like what you explained in your article?Because your explanations are clearly for “watch”, how about “be awake”?Just wondering whether both are same…
Hey V, thank you so much for those kind words.
To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve only ever studied that one version of the Dhammapada, so I have to say that the below is just my opinion and nothing else.
I guess you could say that they are the same, depending on how you interpret the word “awake”.
Awake can either mean enlightenment, or it can mean “not sleepwalking”, which is what people do when they are not watchful/mindful of themselves. I really don’t know which version the Buddha is referring to.
When we don’t watch ourselves, we are just sleepwalking. We feel angry and don’t really know why, we feel happy and we don’t really know why. We just go out and do things, eat, sleep, and die. It’s possible that is what the Buddha meant. Sorry I couldn’t help more.
Thank u for ur reply, Albert…
Most of what we consider love, friendship, etc. is an agreement between two persons who determine they can mutually benefit from one another. Everyone is seeking their own self interest, their own preservation and promotion, serving their own agenda. Don’t be naïve. If you can fit in with it somehow, you’re probably ok. If not, you’re probably in trouble.
Love is the only exception, the only “real” connection human beings can have. The only thing of meaning that can be shared. Love and attention are energy. They are the most important communication possible. They are necessary for our health. When we love, when we give another our full attention, we give of ourselves, we make a shift from our attention centering on ourselves and show another that they are important enough to share it with. We temporarily forget ourselves and make another our priority. Words of love are pale in comparison to joining them, where they are. To see them fully, beyond even how they relate to us. Love is what is, when the thought of another exists in the place of the thought of oneself. When you allow another to occupy the awareness that you usually reserve for yourself.
Lastly, to paraphrase Osho: Meditation is the only way to discover who you are, and love is the only way to share what you find.
JJP I said it many times before and I’ll say it again – you’re depriving the world if you don’t share what you have!
I feel guilty that I’m one of the few who can read your stuff either thru our emails or in comments!
Love is best described in the Bible. There cannot be more completeness than that. It is the real definition
Great article, the point about love should start with ourselves is especially true and often ignored!
Thank you goacom and Chelsea.
I have known love. I was married and pregnant at 17 and proceeded to have 4 daughters by age 22.
We have been married for 37+ years. We grew in love together. I agree about loving self first. One will never know a greater love than what they give to themselves. They will attract someone who loves at the same level.
I beleive I was 32 when I started studying A Course In Miracles. The biggest lesson for me at the time was there is no such thing as sacrifice.
Anyway I like your exercises about loving ones body. That should be taught at the same time one teaches a youngster to eat!
Hey Tess, thank you for your comment. Interestingly I’ve been poking around ACIM recently as well. Some truly astounding lessons in there!
Hello! I have only recently discovered this blog (through Leo`s Zen Habits blog) and all I can say is THANK YOU!! This article is written for me
Just kidding!
I still have a long journey in front of me to actually love myself. I blamed my parents and society to give me this internal voice – you are not good enough, however, I have to work on myself, have to embrace myself!!
So, once again, thank you for this well written article!!
Wish you all the best and I will keep on reading!
m
love this one too, albert.
i practice it by just being happy for everything, well almost everything. Being happy is wonderful.
is loving means free of expectations? is it wrong to expect to be loved by the one you’re in love with?
Hi Mirci and eva. Thank you both! I really appreciate your kind words, and happy to have you here.
Eva, I would say that’s a yes to the first question. For the second, I would say it isn’t “wrong”. It’s a normal, healthy, desire. But as with most desires, it can lead to pain (most obviously if he or she doesn’t return your love). If you can, love them without expecting anything in return. That way, you’re *both* free.
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