Body

The Path To Love is the Practice of Love

An Introduction to Spirituality with Self-help Exercises for Small Groups

by Carol Riddell

Foreword by Eileen Caddy

The contents of this book may not be reproduced in any form, except for short extracts for quotation or review, without the written permission of the author. Copies of the book are still available from the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.)
Dedicated in Love, Humility and Gratitude to
BHAGAVAN SRI SATHYA Sai BABA.

Acknowledgements
Above all, to Swami', Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Source, Inspiration, Guide, Supporter, Friend, Divinity. If I look to Him, He looks to me. And even if I forget, He looks to me.
The basis of this book was written during a three month stay gifted to me by Albert and Anneliese Harloff at their beautiful former centre, 'A Rochinha' at Ponta do Sol on Madeira, an inspiring location. We are always together in our hearts.
Henk, Marianne, Arendt and Hanka Van der Sluis gave the house 'Taigh Sith' on the Ross of Mull, as part of the 'Highland Renewal' Project, for me to live in during typing up. Charles and Heather Murphy were there to support me as I began the text preparation and Charles did some initial revision. When they went south for a time, Iris Urfer gave me her love and support. The detailed criticism of Sandra Kramer and Lynn Barton stimulated me to present the book in this form.
The Findhorn Foundation and its Erraid Community have given me so much over the years! So many friends, so much unstinting support! Thank you, everyone
Charlette, the antique and indefatigable 'Kaypro Computer' typed the book initially, and Brother HRII, printed it out. This version is produced on Charlette's modern big sister, Charlette III as a book and Web file version.. Contents
Foreword by Eileen Caddy
Introduction
Section 1 - Guidance: -
A Beginning
The Basis of Happiness is Love
Experiencing Love
More about Consciousness
The Divine System and the Human System
Understanding the Divine System
The Practice of Love as the Way to Love
Stillness and Understanding
(In Part 2)
Judgement is Redundant!
Therapy and the Practice of Love
Words and Actions
Be in the Present
Suffering and Death
Detachment and Engagement
Surrender
Omnipotence and its Attractiveness to Ego
Humanity is Ruled by Divine Will
Link to Part 2 ***

Section 2. Working Together :-
Exercises for 'Self-help' Spiritual Groups,
Further Reading. (Details in Part 3)
Parts 3 & 4.
Link to Part 3 ***
Foreword.
Many people are now seeking to reach a state of divine and unconditional love. Carol Riddell's book offers constructive, common sense help in reaching this ideal and how to incorporate it into everyday living. She leads us to discover the love within each one of us, and stretches our consciousness to reach that only real source of happiness - Love.
The exercises are excellent, and will be invaluable not only for groups but also for the individual on the path to unconditional love. I believe the meditations, some of which I personally use and find extremely powerful, will also facilitate the reader in their inner search for their divine centre. The desire to reach this centre leads us on the path to love, and the way to reach this path is the practice of love, through service, devotion and stillness. Let service come from wholeness, not lack. Let devotion be the practice of love, and the practice of love be stillness.
Let all you do and all the words you express come from love. The time for love is now, for now is all the time we have. Eileen Caddy Introduction
This book explains the meaning of a spiritual life, and provides a way for people to get together with like-minded friends to practice its principles. Through understanding and practice, one can transform daily life, give meaning to one's experiences, and find happiness in the service of others.
There is little 'theology' or narrowing dogmatism. The teachings can equally apply to Christians, Buddhists, Moslems, Jews, Hindus or Humanists, as long as one accepts that the essential principle of the cosmos is love, a love which is both detached and personal, all-pervasive yet specific. The various religions are the structures and social supports through which the search for truth can be channelled. All are, ultimately, equally valid; yet, in as far as they are social constructs, flawed.
The guidance in this book is 'channelled', a technique for accessing a higher wisdom that can be learned (see exercise 11). The exercises have been tested over a period of four years in workshops in several European countries and at the Findhorn Foundation. Several self-help groups have already used them.
The dominant 'religion' of this age is materialism, a world-wide doctrine with many 'priests'. Its consequences are disillusionment, cynicism and, in the worst cases, self-destruction. Finding a way past materialism is the challenge of this era. As a result of my own experiences, I have become confident that humanity will find the way. This manual is a contribution to that end. It is the result of 20 years of training and experience in Zen meditation, therapy, psychic studies, at the Findhorn Foundation and as a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, the great Indian spiritual teacher.
As always with such texts, work with it carefully, but critically. It will help you along your own path to true happiness in life.
Guidance
A Beginning
Who doesn't want happiness in life? People everywhere, whatever the task they are engaged in, hope for it. They define their aim in many different ways. For one, it is having a new car or computer; for another, owning a piece of land. It may demand possession of a loved one, or an increase in power and prestige. Every human desire you can think of is projected as a potential source of happiness.
Many dream of happiness in social terms: they believe 'society' or 'people' could be happy through belonging to this or that institution - such as the church, or 'democratic society' or through social transformation.
None of these individuals and social groups have found what they seek. They go through life searching. Some are convinced they have discovered the source of happiness; only a little more will give fulfilment another (newer) car, computer, wife, husband, project. Others cajole only a little more struggle, violence, obedience and happiness will be there for the populace.
As people get older, many become disillusioned. They feel happiness is a death-right, only existing when unpleasant earthly duties have been fulfilled. Others resign themselves to obligation and dullness, resentful of those who so foolishly seek an unattainable goal. They are mistaken. Happiness is the birthright of every human, but it is a state of being, not a state of achievement or possession. It has to be realised. You have it now, but are unaware of it because of the way you perceive and define the world around you. It is inherent, all-pervasive. It is, now, and remains so, irrespective of circumstance. Happiness is not in another bucket, so to speak. It is in the bucket in your hand, hidden under the sand of attitude and world view. It is perception that needs to be transformed. The first great spiritual challenge is to shift the focus of longings from a future state of acquiring to a present state of recovering, uncovering.
To take this important spiritual step requires an act of faith. Old thought patterns whisper: 'If 1 don't feel happy right now, how can 1 actually be happy - that denies my own experience.' On the contrary! It has to be affirmed: 'Though 1 don't feel happy right now, it is clue to the way 1 see things.' It is not such an easy step to take and maintain; it is not easy at first to trust. There is help there; but even accepting that can be scary. Yet it is this change in attitude which leads beyond knowledge to wisdom itself. The Basis of Happiness is Love It can be affirmed: Love alone exists; all else is secondary. Love expands and presents itself as forms. Physicality, thought and expression, are all, in their essence, love. The entire universe is composed of and constructed of love. Love is the natural organising principle of human existence. The expression of love is necessary in relationship and the growth of human awareness. Here, then, are three great spiritual truths:
* The physical universe is love clothed in form.
* The way of the universe is love organised in structure.
* Conscious life results from love expressed in relationship.
The third truth provides the link between human consciousness and the true source of happiness. It is like the key which opens the door to happiness. We will return to it later.
Love is a quality but one unlike any other. Since love is the basis of everything, it has no opposite. If it were to have one, it would not be something like 'hate', which is merely love distorted, but 'nothingness', which is an irrelevance.
In the spiritual sense, all consciousness that does not experience existence as love is illusory. As soon as love takes the form of human beings, those same humans learn to experience life in ways that hide the love from which they were created. The social construction of human existence itself builds this 'illusion' in. Although all the objects you may experience with your senses are actually love, without their differentiation into forms and names, consciousness itself would be impossible. Although human life requires the illusion of form, it is possible to regain the experience that love is the basis of every form.
Love, as a quality, is not neutral. In human experience it translates itself as feeling. This 'feeling quality' of love in human relationships whether to parent, spouse, child, pet, nature or God is genuine 'happiness'. The more one experiences love, the more happiness there is. Eventually, happiness becomes 'bliss'.
Beyond bliss is 'ecstasy', which describes the experience of the whole of creation as love. To penetrate the illusion that there is 'not-love' is ultimate fulfilment to reach enlightenment. It requires that everything that exists be experienced as love. Once one is completely illusion-free, harm and hurt to others would just be unthinkable. But as human beings develop, the practice of love and its expansion to wider and wider areas of life lead to steadily increasing happiness.
Here is a simple example:
If you work in an office with five people and like two of them, are indifferent to two and dislike one, we can give you a 'happiness quotient' of +2 -1 = 1.
If you change your attitude so you can like three, remain indifferent to one and still hate one, your 'h.q.' will then be +3 -1 = 2. By changing a little more so you are indifferent to the one you disliked, your 'h.q.' then becomes 3. It rises to 5 when you can like them all.
Let's suppose your 'transformation' doubles the intensity of your 'liking' by increasing its love content. Your happiness quotient will then shoot up to 10.
Finally, to find enlightenment, you transform yourself so that you experience love for all humanity and the created universe, without exception. Your 'happiness quotient' is then infinite!
How do you transform yourself? The first thing you have to do is to determine to try; and lovingness increases. Then, try to accept that all is ultimately love, even if this seems abstract at first. You are now on your way to the deepest truth of all great religious belief - God is love, and love is God.
Since the truth is that the basis of all existence is love, you also are love. If you do not experience yourself as love, your experience of the rest of creation as love will not be perfect. The task is to understand and remove everything that prevents you from experiencing love as your own basis. The more you can genuinely express that experience in life, the more love will become the focus of your identity. Thus is happiness realised; to have a fulfilled life, you have to seek your own loving nature. There is nothing selfish in this, for what you find leads you inevitably to the service of others.
(Note. Modern physics unravels the physical principles by which the universe is created. Scientists, describing and categorising forms and energies, present them as 'abstractly' as they can, denying qualities of feeling in themselves. One is not supposed to feel angry or joyful at the experience of photons, much less project such qualities upon them. The 'scientific approach' regards them only as 'photons' .Since love, the essential quality, gives feeling when experienced, the scientific method can never really comprehend the true nature of the universe - it has denied love 'a priori'. There is a point when physical enquiry must merge with spiritual experience for the most profound insights.) Experiencing Love
Love is the basis of everything. Humans experience love through relationship. By consciously deciding to seek more and more love in their lives, they become aware of their own essence. Thus they approach vibrant oneness, the basis of form and the source of bliss.
A conscious decision to seek love implies an identity - a self - that can make such a choice. Babies do not have this identity. To become fully human, they have to develop one. A baby being is love, innocent and vulnerable, but without the consciousness that would enable it to know that it is love. It is the way things are. Even the instinctive life of the human baby is small. It needs human relationship in order to survive and to develop a sense of self which can make choices to seek love. Human relationship inexorably links it to the existing world of human consciousness.
There is no escape from culture, language or nationality - all of which are lying in wait - via parents and siblings. The baby enters this interaction equipped with the desire to live, which is expressed physiologically in its needs for food, drink and warmth. As those who provide for these needs are identified as separate from the general environment, consciousness begins to emerge. Through this identification, the child begins to experience love in a conscious way.
What love means for the child is very strongly affected by the treatment which it receives from such primary figures. Since it has no other yardstick, the little child accepts the providers it loves as perfect. As they are not, its definitions of love can be distorted in the earliest stages of its development.
In extreme cases, a baby/child brought up with violence may incorporate violence into its definition of love. One brought up with parental withdrawal may bring distance into its definition of love. One brought up casually may define indifference as love. And so on. To find the way back to true love - the source of bliss - all such misidentifications must be overcome.
When a child's wishes are not immediately gratified, it experiences a sense of frustration. It starts to wish that things could be better arranged than they already are; it has become cognisant of a self separate from its experiences. Through separation the child can begin to evaluate the world around it. By the time the child begins to experience itself as a separate identity, distortions of what love means are already in place.
As childhood continues, more complex forms of expression, social rules and customs are added to basic identifications and frustrations. The little child interprets, and is changed by, its surrounding situations. Because this is the way everybody develops their individuality, people grow up with enormous confusions about the way to search for and express happiness - often passing them on to their own children. For these reasons, most people have to make a major shift in perspective to comprehend that love is the real source of happiness.
For everybody without exceptions, there are moments which could lead to the discovery of the essence - Love. These 'clues' may be ignored, rejected or misinterpreted; nevertheless, they are there. Often, they are moments which seem outside of normal - socially accepted - experience, giving them a mystical quality. Here are some examples:: * experiences where the self seems to merge with nature;; * experiences of a sense of oneness in otherwise ordinary social situations, accompanied by intense feeling;; *experiences that may occur when someone consciously seeks love, such as in meditation.
During such moments there is an 'expanded' consciousness; the self merges into indefinable unity. Since these experiences are beyond the scope of normal consciousness, they are also beyond the scope of common language, and people have great difficulty in describing and communicating them. These special moments are short-lived and cannot be recreated at will.
Every human being has such experiences appropriate to their consciousness. They are 'extra-social' and do not arise logically out of the particular setting in which they occur. They are a practical proof of the existence of Grace. Love is more than the passive existence of universal oneness. It moulds itself into experiences which potentially expand and redirect consciousness. It not only exists, but also manifests. It can focus to support an individual.
The challenge is that not all extraordinary experiences are mystical. Some may be symptoms of delusion or even mental illness. You need to have discrimination and integrity to evaluate them and understand their meaning. As you make the effort, you can discover that literally everything that occurs is part of a divine drama of separation and reunion, and every experience, of whatever kind, has a place and a function.
(Note. This focusing of love also happens when a divine teacher appears on earth to assist in the discovery that love is the source of happiness. Rather than a projection of love outward upon a form ('Love is there, but not in me!'), devotion to such a teacher may assist in the discovery of love within: 'He helps me to find love within me', or, 'Love manifested guides me to my own essential love' .But remember that not all love-professing teachers fully embody what they profess.) More About Consciousness
In the highest experience, manifest creation is realised to be love and known as continuous ecstasy. This is truly Divine Consciousness: 'Being, Awareness, Bliss'. It is total human fulfilment, the soul merged in love with all creation; the Divine and the human become one, without separation.
Why is such a thing a goal, if it is already there, the essence and birthright of all humans? Why are even the 'clues' to it ephemeral and tantalising, often misinterpreted and feared as bordering on insanity? One reason is that the consciousness of the average person is not prepared for such powerful energy.
If a high amperage is put through an inadequate circuit, a fuse occurs at the weakest point. The circuit has to be strengthened before it can take the higher amperage. Love is the energetic basis of all creation. To experience it constantly as a reality requires both physical and mental development. This does not necessarily entail endless hours spent in meditation in silent places; since humans are capable of experiencing Divinity, they require the practice of love to discover its omnipresence. If one is potentially able to run a mile in, say, five minutes, one has to have the determination and physical capability to perform the task. This is achieved partly by exercises, but, above all, through practice.
There is another reason why enlightenment is not quite readily available. To understand it, we must return to childhood development.
Without a sense of self, consciousness cannot grow. In a little baby, this sense of self hardly exists; a nascent consciousness floats in a sea of undifferentiated, unexperienced lose. The self is 'drawn out' by interaction with its particular environment, and builds up a 'personality' .The early experiences of relationship are so powerful in this developing identity since it cannot resist them. Because the sense of self is so unformed, the child's experiences have a powerful effect on its identity.
As growth continues, the child becomes more powerful, more adaptable and less overwhelmed by input. It interacts more; the self congeals. A relatively stable sense of self, the Ego, emerges.
Gradually, more or less consciously, it develops 'strategies' for coping with the challenges posed to it and tries to resolve its problems by these means. The more effectively a strategy 'works' for a child, the more it tends to be adopted as part of the ego. Thus, an individual illusion is created, which separates the ego self of practical short-term strategy from the potential self of limitless, joy-filled love.
To the psychological illusions of a developing child are added social ones. In the present age, a materialistic consciousness is a strong component of almost every ego on the planet. It says: 'The way to happiness is through what you have, what you do and what value others attribute to you - 'prestige' .Many people hold on to this illusion until death's door the end of the road for the soul's lifetime ego frustrates it.
In these psychological and social ways, the ego, which is necessary to the achievement of personal consciousness, acts as a powerful block to the awareness that love is the real way of being. Thus, that which has created the self has to be surrendered for the realisation of the True Self quite a challenge.
If ego is to be suddenly overthrown, what may remain? The fear of madness, oblivion, social ostracism, and poverty have all been advanced as good reasons for keeping within the ego's boundaries. Deep, suppressed childhood traumas may subvert even a determined wish to find love. Desires for instant gratification may make a seeker impatient and easily discouraged. The path to self realisation requires understanding and a cool head. Small wonder then that it is not so often taken.
The established religions do not always help. In order to regulate social action among individuals living illusions about happiness, religious systems have not only taught that 'God is love, and love is God'; but their moral codes have become law and practice. This is a great dilemma for all religious teachers: God seems more 'outside' than 'inside' and morality becomes command rather than discovery. Some religious institutions almost end up denying that there is an 'inside' a direct connection to love God in each individual. Such a love link could threaten the authority of the churches organisations themselves, not to mention that of social institutions at large. This is one of the reasons why love expresses itself in perfect human form from time to time in order to ensure that individual's direct contact with love itself is not forgotten. The Divine System and the Human System
The development of the personal identity, essential to consciousness, distorts it, to create a subjective awareness: the human system. Parallel to the human system is the Divine System, interacting with it and giving it meaning.
For human beings who do not make good progress towards Self-discovery in their lives, death would be a devastating defeat. But, just as there is a cosmic physical order by which things run, there is also a cosmic moral order. Both are governed by the law of cause and effect. The workings of the moral order have been discovered by inner exploration, primarily by the spiritual teachers of India.
A man who kills another, if discovered, is subject to the moral effect of punishment in the human system. In the 'divine system', all action has a moral effect. Some religious systems believe in the 'day of judgement' after death, when the soul is judged according to its earthly actions and allocated an appropriate place heaven, limbo or hell (eternal damnation). But love knows no damnation. All creation is on an eternal path to conscious reunion; this is love's way of experiencing itself.
Although the individual's personality dissolves with death, the soul is clothed in the consequences of its actions. It does not die, but re-emerges in life as another being to work out those consequences and create new actions. It therefore has another opportunity to experience love and find happiness. This law of moral cause and effect is called 'karma'.
An individual soul is a non-material aspect of divine energy. It is endlessly reborn in different forms until it has developed its consciousness to the point of experiencing oneness and its truth as love. Life is an opportunity for learning about the universality, omnipresence and feeling of love. Eventually all souls learn this lesson they are reborn continually until they do and consciously reunite with love. There are no failures; but because of differing individual attitudes, some soul-experiences take longer than others. However, at any given moment, conscious emergence is available, if the identity is prepared to accept it.
Physical existence is not random karmic discovery. Love is not merely passive and existent. It is dynamic and supportive. The divine regulation of life ensures that every soul's experience is regulated and relevant to its choices. This grace-filled intervention operates constantly, although individuals do not become aware of it until their consciousness is awakened.
We can picture creation as a divine game. Love divides itself into physical forms (the board), structures of organisation, physical and moral (the rules), the players (individual souls), and the teacher and supporter of the game (divine Grace).
Grace, the teacher, provides appropriate experiences to which embodied souls react. The miracle of Grace is the perfect governance of all the complex interactions of embodied souls , so that each individual can make choices leading to the discovery of love. This miracle of constant creation inspires awe and humility in those who become aware of it.
The 'divine system' parallels the human system, but is far, far wider. It encompasses all forms, not just human forms. It regulates the entry of life-force into form, the entry of consciousness into life force and the entry of awareness into consciousness, until, eventually, the soul becomes aware of itself as love, and experiences itself as love. At this point, the regulator and the regulated are one, continued physical existence is a choice and incarnation is voluntary and perfect.
Great love allows freedom. The greatest joy occurs when freedom is used to find mergence. That joy, that ecstasy is Love's self-experience, or divine self-knowledge. There were never two, only the illusion of two. As the illusion dissolves, Love experiences itself. Understanding the Divine System
Theologians of all faiths have struggled with such concepts as free will, divine intervention, the existence of evil and the meaning of suffering. Unless you start from the knowledge that love alone is real and that the process of creating human consciousness masks that truth, the ground is full of pitfalls.
Much theological argument merely takes the apparent world at its face value, accepting that the experiences of our normal senses constitute truth. This is fallacy, constructed to comprehend, rationalise and attempt to control an apparently external, objective reality.
But from such ignorance flows only ignorance. Solutions to human problems of war, famine and disease are always 'just round the corner'. A new technology applied in one place causes problems somewhere else. A problem is solved in this part of the world and another emerges in that part of it. By thinking that the material world is 'really real', people think that real solutions can be found in it.
If one denies that love and grace control the illusory world experienced by the senses, explanations of that world and attempts to change things will be equally illusory. For many centuries there has been no effective change: humanity has been crippled by violence, disease and suffering. The ways they are inflicted may change, but the 'solutions' do not resolve problems because these really stem from its alienation from love.
If the evidence of the senses is not subordinated to the practice of love, karmic cause and effect continue to operate from the divine system like a rule of a game, in order both to expose the effects of ignorance and to offer choices that could lead souls to the wisdom given by placing love first. The way to knowledge of the divine system and alignment with it is the practice of love. You can either apply love in life through service; or reject all that is 'not love' by devotion (surrender to God); or, in stillness, strip off all superficiality to become aware that love is the ultimate reality.
Love is fundamental. In different eras the relative importance of service, devotion and stillness may vary, though the practices are never exclusive. In the present 'action packed' age, service is most important.
Subtly, little by little, the practice of love itself and not merely its discussion changes consciousness, expands it. It does not matter where one starts; the murderer or brute, who chooses not to murder or be brutish moves in love's direction. Grace and new understanding will flow to such a person in measure: 'Take one step towards Me and I will take ten towards you.'
The practice of love develops a certain feeling concerning aspects of one's daily life. This 'feeling' is not emotional but intuitional an access to wisdom. It has nothing to do with deluded states, nor is it quite the same as conscience, which is concerned with mentally internalised social moral codes.
Such intuitive wisdom leads one to the awareness of three basic principles. One, love is the basis of all things. Two, the operation of the observed world depends on a Divine system. Three, a direct inner connection to love is possible.
These principles really turn everything around. In the human system it seems that 'a dog is always a dog'. Wisdom shows that 'a dog is a dog' by Divine Grace. If you are near the source of Grace, the dog may turn out to be something else entirely. There is a story of the God figure, Krishna, walking with His devotee, Arjuna.: "Look, Arjuna, over there sits a crow!"; "Yes, 1 see the crow."; "No, Arjuna, it is a pigeon!"; "Indeed it is a pigeon."; "No, it is a sparrow!"; "Of course, it is a sparrow."; "Arjuna, you are merely agreeing with everything I say to please Me!"; "No, Krishna, You are the definer of reality. If You say it is a crow, it is a crow; if You say it is a pigeon, it is a pigeon and if a sparrow, then a sparrow it is."
This story shows that the human system the 'objective' world is really defined by the Divine system. It is only by love's adherence to the 'rules of the game' that the human system appears to be real and responds to the scientific 'laws' that scientists have deduced for it. The application of Grace can change or 'bend' these rules at will.
Baldly stated, the above is just information, subject to argument and discussion. But by actually practising to love, you will come to know the reason for it in your heart, your 'innermost being', so you won't need to get into argument. Through the practice of love, intuitional feeling develops and wisdom begins to emerge in consciousness.
The practice of love is not something intellectual. Life is a school, but not an 'academic' one. People from any walk of life undertake the 'course of study' which the practice of love entails. The conscious choice to do so is the choice to take a spiritual path in life, but you can practice love and achieve wisdom without building theories about it.
As long as the ego is still powerful there are psychological pitfalls on all the paths to wisdom. Feelings towards other people are strongly coloured by qualities of the ego: sexual desire, attachment, dependency, admiration, envy, hatred, rejection and so on. Love differs from all such attitudes; rather, it is masked by them. For instance, a worker in an office may have a boss and a subordinate. Their roles may make one seem superior and the other inferior, an egoistic attitude which arises from the human system. By overcoming this attitude and respecting and valuing both colleagues, irrespective of their roles and performance, they will be moving in the direction of love.
Love is detached from either a role or a performance. But a general may remain detached whilst ordering the deaths of thousands, so detachment alone is not the essence of love.
A mother deeply loves her child, and much attachment is involved. If she extends her affection to all children, she will be moving towards love. The practice of love is always expansive, incorporating larger and larger categories of things.
A business man may see a wood, and view it as an opportunity for saleable timber. If he views all woods with such an opportunity in mind, he is certainly being expansive, but by no means approaches love. If he begins to see one tree in that wood as intrinsically beautiful, perfect, wonderful, he then begins to approach love, for he is accepting the tree as it is.
Love is 'coloured' by appropriate qualities, depending on the situation. Examples are: patience in repetitive tasks; respect when working with nature; compassion in accepting human ignorance and suffering.
The happiness that comes with love may bring tears to the eyes in its intensity. But someone who enjoys spanking so much that it brings tears to their eyes is not practising love. Qualities attributed to love cannot themselves define it. Love is basic and ultimate. It is defined by its experience, and descriptions are never quite adequate.
People who come to know love, their essential Self, are wise. They are unaffected by the ups and downs of life in the human system. Intuitively, they know that everything derives from the Divine system. They are full of compassion for human beings who struggle in life, unaware of their own perfection. Those who have loving wisdom serve, not to demonstrate the practice of love, but as loving agents of Grace. The Practice of Love as the Way to Love
The three main forms of the practice of love are service, devotion and stillness. Let us examine them further.
Service should not simply be thought of as doing good for others. There are many ways of 'doing good' that have distorted psychological motives and are fraught with illusion. For instance, if a person feels inadequate in themselves, they might feel better when caring for others who are less well off. This is not service, but projected insecurity. It is as if a person were to say to another: 'I am only ¾ of a person. Lend me ¼ of yourself and I'll be alright.' Such a 'server' is really being served. They need the poverty and deprivation of others to 'do good' to. What would they do without a famine, crisis or third world to provide them with fodder for their own needs? Although it is possible to find a path to love through any activity, a person who does not feel worthy without helping other is truly being served by them rather than serving.
A preliminary to true service is to make a connection with love within. Service is to act from it. In fact, nobody who finds love can resist serving. It is an imperative, just as water building up behind a dam will somehow find an outlet in the end, be the dam ever so high. Service comes from wholeness, not from lack. Wholeness comes from contact with love.
Before any prestigious and high-sounding activities, the first and most basic form of service is consciously to practice looking lovingly on others. Initially, this is an act of will; and it will instantly put you in touch with the illusions which veil love. Looking with love is like digging a little channel to let water flow out of the dam. As soon as it starts flowing, it enlarges the channel by its flow. The practice of looking with love gives a person energy and motivation to get rid of their personality blockages so that the Divine system may be more freely expressed. What an energy that releases what a motivation! Such a simple thing, such a good feeling! One is not a sinner, expiating guilt, but a human being expressing the Divine within.
Look lovingly on your room, on the clothes you have to wear, on your belongings, on the world of nature, on your partner or your children, on your friends, on your parents and relatives, on strangers, on your enemies. To practice this for even half an hour a day is the beginning of service. Think of all of them with love, not judgement, criticism, or qualifications - without 'buts'. You will find happiness moving into your life and out into the world. Frustration with the world which seemed to be the cause of your troubles turns towards the real cause, ego structures, and gives you the determination to reform and transcend them.
Just a little lovingness practised is the next step in service. Lovingness expresses love, and opens inner channels to wisdom, Grace and the Divine system. Through it knowledge of the Divine will become possible and you will want to follow it, knowing Love as a teacher which gives you the optimum path, blending its lessons with your desires to support Self-realisation.
Once love begins to flow, some means for action will be provided by Grace. In service, the act done is much less important than the quality with which it is done. A woman cleaning her home may provide more service to humanity than an aid worker distributing relief food packages to the starving, if the former acts with love and the latter from insecurity.
Ultimately, it is only love, increased drop by drop, that can resolve problems. It is a mistake to think of 'trouble spots' as being somewhere else, to do with another part of the planet. Like a run-down body which breaks out in a boil somewhere, so a system with little access to love will produce 'trouble' spots at some point within it. Poverty and starvation, epidemics and brutality are a direct result of lack of love in the system. A loveless person cannot find happiness; nor can a loveless humanity. There are adequate resources for everyone to enjoy a life of physical well-being only lack of love stops them flowing appropriately. Humans struggle to solve these problems through changing social systems, but any loveless system will create problems, no matter how perfect it may seem on paper.
Again and again people are deluded by achievement. They want to see immediate results! Achievement without love is hollow: an empty form giving at most, ephemeral satisfaction. If love is not present, the 'achievement' of feeding the hungry does not resolve the problem of famine, which merely rears its head elsewhere. Of course, you do put a band aid on a cut, but it is better to deal with the carelessness which led to cuts; don't think you have achieved something great by putting on a band aid.
Service is the practice of love most easily accessible and valuable in a world starved of love. It involves surrender to grace, trust that the right lessons are being given, faith that all tasks are transient and will be changed at the appropriate moment. It is not easy to release human will and become totally aligned with divine will. But service will take you there.
The second aspect of the practice of love is devotion. Devotion is love surging into wonder, surrendering in the knowledge that, though seemingly separate, you are one with love. Devotion acts primarily through the feeling self, cleansing it, purifying it, elevating it. It also carries rationality along with it, as a surge of water carries with it all the flotsam that has been lying around.
Devotion arises in the heart, as you realise your utter minuteness compared with the overwhelming and infinite universe. It arises as a fraction of the divine order guiding all lives is revealed to you with overwhelming consciousness. Devotion bursts out when a perfect embodiment of love in human form reveals itself. It is characterised by a feeling of expansion of the heart, by awe and wonder: Love overwhelms.
Devotion to an abstract, conceptualised love is most difficult, nor is it a quicker or purer way to oneness with love as mental pride sometimes suggests. It is a great challenge to try and deny the physical, human side of feeling in order to find transcendence. Devotion to a Divine teacher is the easy way, the holistic way through the forest of attachment and desires in the human personality.
As with other spiritual qualities, the roots of devotional attitudes lie in human relationship. A baby expresses devotion in its dependency on and trust in its nurturer. Its feelings become coloured by the way its needs, desires and demands are satisfied. People often begin a devotional relationship with a teacher by projecting onto him or her their experience of this primary relationship, looking for the flaws they once discovered in parent figures.
For devotion to be in the present, such motives have to be transcended. Divine figures on earth always suffer from projections from the past. They are rarely seen for who they are, in spite of the intensity of devotion of their followers.
Spiritual teachers come to focus love and adoration. Their task is to embody love so purely that projections from childhood have no peg to hang on. In a developing relationship of faith and trust, their role is to unveil the mystery of the Divine system and, beyond that, the perfection of love, so that the devotee can begin to experience it. Once devotion, genuine and spontaneous, begins to flow, it can be purified through prayer and song, reflection and meditation, till confusions from childhood wither away
True spiritual teachers have penetrated illusions, discarded ego and are indifferent to all the projections showered upon them. Even if they sometimes play an 'as if' game with their devotees 'It looks as if 1 am angry or neglecting you, but I am actually purifying your devotion, for love's sake' they continue to see divinity as being equally present in all, irrespective of behaviour. Devotion to a Divine teacher makes acts of grace personal, immediate, and comforting, as the devotee's mind strives to unite with love, disentangling it from the strings of illusion.
Devotion is still not perfected, however, as long as it is directed solely at one figure. For that figure can only be an exemplary expression of the Divine. All are equally divine, and shrouded in the cloaks of confusion. As devotion purifies, it bubbles over into compassion for and service to all humanity and creation, love's own projections in the great game of life.
Everyone teaches each other. Nothing is more delightful than to share love with others. But devotion to other seekers is not proper unless one is able to love each equally without projection or attachment, thereby experiencing them as divine embodiments. If you project perfection on to someone who is not perfected, you misplace your faith and enter once more into the karmic chain of cause and effect.
Love expresses itself in being and in living. But as devotees strive towards Self-awareness, they can easily become trapped by the power of love's acts and the admiration which they cause in others. Ego seeks to appropriate power and admiration, to find gratification in fame and reputation. Once again, a new cycle of karma begins.
So remember that all acts of love belong to love alone. As you work on Self-discovery, dedicate every 'success', every 'achievement', every 'gift of grace' to the Divine teacher. Let your day be full of His name, your thoughts be full of His presence.
Do not attempt to own your acts. They are love's .Dedicate them to love, in devotion and humility. Use your free will to surrender your ego to love, completely and without inhibition. Then you will find love. Stillness and Understanding
The third aspect of the practice of love is stillness. Through it you can discover your true identity and find fulfilment. Through stillness, the mind is calmed, allowing argument and thought to drift away so that love alone is 'laid bare'.
To describe spiritual experience effectively and share it with others in a book, talk or video energises and stimulates interest in self-discovery. But there is a great distinction between scholarship, which is based on argument and learning, and an experience of Truth. To see a sign at a street corner which says 'Restaurant this way', does not stop your hunger. At best, it helps you to know where to eat. Using stillness as a discipline at first supplements and then supplants book learning and argument, and gradually cleans up the identity by reducing unnecessary speech, idle chatter and thoughtless words. This is a form of practising love.
Though discipline is not an end in itself, it is required to learn any skill. You cannot be a physician or carpenter, bus driver or astronaut without first subjecting yourself to discipline. Similarly, learning stillness requires it. For many people nowadays discipline has to be learned before it can be practised, which makes this method of spiritual development doubly hard. Even with discipline, seeking Love out through meditation can be very arduous. The Buddha took seven years of sitting to find it.
Although spiritual experience does not come through normal sensory channels, it carries with it a certainty that is deeper than sense-perception. Often we think we see, hear, and so forth, but we actually do not. But an experience of that which is, as it is, is never forgotten and leaves no room for doubt. You can doubt everything, but not the experience of love.
The aim of stillness is to free the self from attachment to sense impressions, memory, random thought and material aspiration, so that you can experience love through and through.
The process is to slough off layer after layer of the personality 'Not this, not that' till love alone is left and real 'I am that'. Repetition of a holy name or of holy sounds, or contemplation of the pictures of spiritual teachers may help to still thought. Physically comfortable bodily positions give ease in the attempt.
With stillness comes a sense of detachment. After a while, this is infused by love, until a great compassion for the created world emerges. This compassion remains for a time after such a meditation, but fades if it is not repeated.
A meditating figure sits still and upright, in a solid position comfortable for the body. A chosen mantra, or a holy name, may be repeated. The eyes are closed, or, if open, focused on objects which do not provide a stimulus - for example, a blank wall. An inner, verbal preamble may set the intention for the time in stillness. If such sitting is the sole practice, it must be prolonged and prolonged. Grace will be given to help the endeavour. As one approaches Love, wisdom about the divine plan of creation becomes available, physical limitations are removed and the soul is divinised. At the final stage, time and space are transcended, and Love alone is real. Neither sound, mantra, nor picture has any further significance.
All three ways of discovering and practising love service, devotion and stillness are valid paths to Love. They are not mutually exclusive. All of them benefit not just the seeker but also humanity itself.
In this epoch, the proportion of time spent in service is highest, that in contemplative stillness least; but the balance may change with age and individual circumstances. The final experience however is the same. Through practice of the three forms, you will discover which 'blend' of them is best for you. Anything that does not expand love real happiness in you is valueless.
The practice of love releases love's energy so that it flows through the world. Subliminally, it stimulates a desire for love in others, thereby becoming an aspect of Grace. LINK to Part 2