I Really Don’t Know Love at All

Love is a many splendoured thing..
Love is all you need..
Love, love, love..
Love hurts…
What’s love got to do with it..
I say love is a flower, and you its only seed..

There are so many songs written about love this list of well known song quotes could go on all day, but what is love? It seems to mean different things to different people, some define love as fidelity, some as something soul mates share, some as compassion, it seems many perceptions of love exist.

Let’s see if we can come to an agreement about love. I began thinking about this as a project I am a part of called The Difference has a monthly theme and this months was LOVE. This group of collaborators are all focussed on making a movie that will open humanities heart, begin a movement all over the world and make the difference to mankind through the movie itself, the spin off television interviews and the collaboration of 6,000 people all focussed in one direction all over the world.

Yes, I really did say this movie was going to be made through the collaborative efforts of 6,000 people internationally. Yes, it is a monumental project and I am so proud to be a part of it. I have a lot of faith in the amazing woman who had the original vision for this project and faith also in the people she is surrounding herself with. It is going to be truly amazing!!

Back to our discussion about love.

Love is essentially an energy that arises spontaneouly from the heart. Love is there all the time whether we feel it or not and we need do nothing at all to feel love other than allow ourselves to go inward. Of course the smile of a tiny baby, or the feel of our childrens arms around our necks, our lovers kiss or a long walk holding hands on a moonlit beach can trigger feelings of love. However, love is out intrinsic nature.

Love sits within the cells of our body waiting to be expressed, and it bubbles up at the tiniest excuse – thank goodness. Inside each of us there is a wellspring of love, which are always ready to flow limitlessly. Love is like the universe there is no beginning and no end, love is infinite and so there is always enough to go around. Love is another definition for chaos, that feeling of infinite potential, of unending energy, of the creative force. Have you been in love? Didn’t you feel as if you had wings, as if you could accomplish anything, leap tall buildings in a single bound..?

If you are not experiencing love right now it is not because you are failing to create it. Not at all. The only reason we do not experience love continuously is because we are holding back on it for some reason. Stemming the flow, so to speak. Think of love as a flowing stream, our illusions about love; love hurts, I am not lovable, noone loves me, are like dams across that stream. The only way to allow the flow to be continuous is to be vulnerable, to remove the dam/s and love without fear. “Love like you’ve never been hurt.”

Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.” Rumi

One thing I recognise in people who are feeling depressed is that they have stemmed that flow, sometimes intentionally holding themselves back from loving for fear of being hurt. Another ‘dam’ is built when people try to stem another honest emotion like anger, when we hold back on one emotion we hold back on them all. I used to have a sign hanging in my treatment room that read, “To master emotion you must first lose control.” It was a great way to get the conversation started about what it means to ‘lose control.’

Love is our essential nature, by holding back on love we are stemming the tide of all of our emotions and our energy. Imagine the effort it takes to hold back on all those emotions for years and years when all they want to do is flow freely. The wonderful thing about losing control or removing the dams is that because we are love, love eventually is the only real emotion left flowing. All those other emotions run dry.

Allow love to flow freely in your life, it is far grander, wiser and more powerful than we are. In fact love is the most powerful energy in the universe. It can move mountains and it does so with grace. Love demands that we surrender – and then it rewards us with the fulfillment we have been seeking. Love connects us with our true divinity and frees us from petty troubles that wash away effortlessly when we fully embrace it into our lives.

When we are in the full flow of love doors spontaneously open, our hearts open to our full potential, we allow ourselves to shine in ways we never thought possible. In fact all things become possible.

“I have three treasures
The first of these is love” – Lao Tzu

In the end, love is beyond words. In stillness, in silence the ineffable beauty and radiance are revealed to us. “There is a tower that Love builds. Live there in silence.” Rumi

“O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now,
Be all – worlds dissolve into your
stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with your brighter
than cold stares –
Make me your servant, your breath, your core.” Rumi

© 2009, AnnieInfinite. All rights reserved.