There is only one thing you need to know. Love. Love is all there is. Love is God, only love is real.
But, you already know this. You’ve been told this repeatedly, over and over- no matter your spiritual or religious background. It is that universal.“Love” is the #1 trending hashtag #love on all social media platforms so it is pervasive among our collective consciousness. Love is, in fact, a meme.
So what? You know about love. You know how to love. You consider yourself a kind person who strives to ‘do good’ in this world. What more is there to know? You give to charity. You donate your time helping others. You let that person merge in traffic in front of you. You called your Mom today and told her that you loved her. You sent flowers to your friend who just had surgery. We all do the best we can and yet the world still is a pretty messed up place. And we repeatedly hear “Love is all there is” and “All we need is love.” If that’s true, then why is there still so much evil and negativity in the world?
We aren’t loving properly, that’s why.
Are we loving from our minds and egos? Or from the Higher Love?
There is a higher love - Divine Love - The highest Love. When we speak of the “love that conquers all” this is what we mean. This love is the flow of creation into this world, what some refer to as the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is the creative impulse we all feel when we are connected. Humans are unique in that we are instruments of this love, antennas to receive it, and have the capability to use it and to be stewards of this creation.
What is the opposite of love? Is it hate? Is it ignorance? No. It is fear. Fear is the root of all negativity. Fear is the product of the mind, “Fear is the mindkiller.” Think for a moment how much of your day to day life is rooted in fear. We experience fear when we live from the mind, from the place of self preservation of our own egos. The greatest and most destructive fear is the fear of each other.
Every day, each moment of the day, we have a choice. Do we live from love or from fear? Do we react from our hearts or from our minds? This is why the great sages, saints, and ancient mystics told us to “Silence our Minds.” Did they mean to lock ourselves up in a cave on a mountaintop, meditate for 22 hours a day to shut off all thoughts? No. If you quiet the mind, surrender the ego, then fear dissipates and there is only love that remains.
The mind is designed in duality, and we need this for survival. But this duality creates the illusion that we are separate when in reality we are all connected. We are all the same. We are all Divine. In fact, you experience the highest love multiple times a day, you just don’t recognize it and even worse, you may even reject it because of your mind and its fear based thoughts.
You experience this love when you look upon your child’s smiling face, or when your loved one offers you a hug at the end of your day. It is there when you feel a connection. This is why we love going to music concerts, to a movie theater, or to an arena to cheer on our favorite sports team, even though it is much easier to watch it all on TV. It is why we scroll through social media, addicted to connection.
You feel a blast of this Higher Love when a stranger pulls over to help you fix a flat or when you pay for the Starbucks for the car behind you in the drive thru. It is a simple smile to a stranger at the grocery store or holding the door for the mother with her hands full at the doctor’s office. It is these simple acts of kindness that actually are not simple, but quite powerful. We pray to know God and have him “show us a sign” but yet it is all around us, always. We just need to open our hearts and see it.
If you feel an impulse to act, do so. That’s the divine nudge. Don’t let fear talk you out of it.
When we live from love, miracles, even the seemingly smallest of miracles, flow endlessly. We cannot experience this love alone. You will not find it meditating on a mountaintop. We only experience it from connection with others. We are antennas, receivers of this higher love. Each moment, every day, we have a choice. We can be an antenna for divine love or for fear and negativity.
What will you bring into the world?
Each moment, each interaction with a fellow human being is an opportunity to choose what you will bring forward into the creation and thus perpetuate it into the collective consciousness. Speaking kindly? Or gossiping? Yelling in anger? Or embracing in a hug?
Turn the other cheek. Cut the negativity with kindness and love, ease someone’s fears. It will become a feedback loop and the more divine love that you share into the world, the more you will receive back. Choose Love. A saint is someone who lives in the flow of this divine love, a sinner is blind to it and lives in fear. We need a world filled with everyday saints.
Think back on the last time you felt that connection. The last time you helped someone. Remember that feeling of a “High?” Why did it make you feel so good? That was your heart opening. That was the feeling of the love working through you as a divine instrument. That is our natural state. Think back on the last time someone offered to help you, but you rejected it. Why did you reject it? Was it pride? Was it jealousy? When you reject someone serving you, as a divine reflection, you block them from feeling that divine love and connection. You literally stop the divine energy flowing from them to you. Don’t let your mind prevent you from experiencing small miracles, daily.
On this Holy Thursday of the Christian Celebration of Lent, we recognize that Christ is the greatest example of this truth. Christ only loved. Even during the Passion, regardless of the suffering, the danger, the harm, the pain, the hatred, he only loved. He saw each person as a reflection of his Father’s love and loved them. He stayed in the flow of Divine Love.
Jesus Christ, considered the greatest of all yogis by Eastern traditions, outlined the most simple of paths:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself, there is no greater commandment than these..to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices”
It is simple, there is nothing greater than loving God and loving your neighbor. This is the path. To love like Jesus is to see the divine reflection in those around you, your neighbors, and to love them just as you would love God. You must also recognize your neighbors as a channel of the divine, higher love, to you.
Quiet the mind. Love as Jesus did. Even in the thick of the negativity, the darkness - only love. Make the negativity irrelevant by dissipating fear. This is the key to experiencing a world of miracles.
Each moment, choose love. Only love is real.
Beloved, if God so loved us. We must also love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us his Spirit.
Happy Easter from All of Us at Madhukara
SHARE THE LOVE! PLEASE SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE(S) OF DIVINE LOVE IN YOUR LIFE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
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