The Path of Love
That which you seek you already are, closer than close, here in this moment, free from any form of condition or circumstance the ground of your being is always present. Commonly we look to change, to become bigger, better, brighter versions of ourselves, but what if for one moment you were to turn your attention to what does not change, what is always present regardless of the ever changing tide of circumstance, what is timeless, free from condition, always available?
What begins to open when you touch upon that timeless essence of your being? What happens when time falls away, your history, all that you have used to define yourself, life, and others? What happens when all of your projections regarding the future fall away into the pure mystery of life, the humility that recognises the truth that it is only ever this moment that is truly given?
Life, Reality, Presence, Truth is here. The future and the past exist only as an image in your mind and have no inherent reality.
What happens if your heart opens to what is here? What happens if you are truly present and act in right-relationship with what IS – rather than from your past habitual patterns of behaviour and/or your attempt to manipulate reality within order to arrive at a future you think should happen?
This is the path of love, the path of the open heart, the path of being awake to reality, awake to who you truly are, what life truly is, not higher or lower, no better or worse than any other path, not special in anyway – because it is simply the reality of what IS – though it may appear as extra-ordinary to those who choose to walk another path.
Loving Life
To love life, to know the love of life, is to walk this path. It is for the heart to be ignited with the flame of love’s presence. Different traditions refer to this inner flame in various ways but most commonly it is called the Eternal (Timeless) or Three-Fold Flame, the presence of the Holy Trinity alive within the heart as love, power, and wisdom.
To touch upon this flame, to truly enter the heart – ignites within us a remembrance of who we truly are, opens us to see reality as it IS. You are not who you think you are, what your senses tell you – you are, who others tell you – you are, you are not your circumstances or your past. Without referring to any of that can you find who you are?
If you are not your past, your history, your circumstances, if life is not what you have been conditioned to believe life to be, how does that change your relationship with your past, with life, yourself, and others? When it is that you recognise who you truly are and are able to act from that place how does your relationship with the more challenging aspects of your life change, how are you able to meet those challenges with a greater depth of wisdom, compassion, love, and acceptance?
In every circumstance this embodied expression of who we truly are can assist us to flow in harmony with the natural rhythm of life, to let go of our resistance and embrace what IS. So we suffer less, we find more joy, more ease, more grace, we find ourselves available to connection, true intimacy, and authentic relationship, available to new opportunities, inspiration, and love, not because life is suddenly perfect and free from challenges, but because we are able to meet those challenges with love, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness for ourselves – even in those circumstances where it is we may have experienced deep hurt or pain in some way due to the actions of others.
Non-Judgement
As we deepen into the embodied expression of this timeless presence, open our hearts and embrace life, we are empowered through a focus of connection to the love our heart carries to give love where it is we had thought love could not be given, to truly forgive, and in the act of forgiveness embrace all parts of ourselves and life. To no longer hold any part of ourselves closed or disconnected or to judge any part of ourselves or another as unworthy of love. To see all as God.
This can be seen as impossible particularly when we have experienced deep pain or hurt due to the actions of another and yet when we choose to open our hearts we come to discover a capacity for love that is far greater than what we may have believed possible.
What happens when you can remain centred in that timeless presence, open-hearted even in the presence of deep pain and suffering, what happens when you remain connected to that source of love within your heart and don’t shut down or disconnect?
If you remain open, centred in your heart, in flow with the rhythm of life, you will experience connection, love, intimacy, the truth of what you are. If you close, with-hold love, disconnect, judge, and attach to an image of yourself, life or another in your mind, you will experience pain or suffering of some kind.
Opening the Heart
This is like anything in life a process, our hearts do not automatically suddenly fully open. We carry many beliefs that are given evidence as real due to our past experience in relationship to why it is not safe for us to open our hearts, why we should remain closed, dis-connected, isolated, and shut-off. All of those beliefs need to be met and seen through. The opening of our hearts is not about discrediting or denying the experiences of pain that we have encountered in life as if they did not matter and we should simply forgive and move on. The opening of our hearts includes embracing ourselves within our experience of pain, our anger, sorrow, grief, and extending compassion and forgiveness to those who have caused us pain, as well as to ourselves in how it is that our actions may have caused pain to another.
In opening our heart to our own pain, our own sense of isolation, our own sense of disconnection from love and those parts of ourselves that we may have judged we can then come to open our hearts to others.
Everything within our lives becomes a vehicle for love to reveal and express itself, everything brings us back to love.
Our Journey
God, our true nature, divinity, presence, wants to know itself through us. Our human journey is a journey of opening our hearts, of coming to know ourselves as love, beyond our minds expectations, stories, and demands of what life should be. Deepening us in wisdom and clarity, as we step into right-action in relationship to life – rather than making decisions solely rooted within our ego’s wants, false desires or beliefs about our needs.
The journey of opening our hearts to receive life, to give love, opens us to receive all that we may require in order to fulfil our purpose here. Not in that it dissolves all our challenges, grants all our desires, or promises a life of ease. But in that it opens us to connect with the truth of who we are, to live and express that in each moment, which brings a certain quality of richness to our lives, a fulfilment that is absent – when our hearts are closed and we live in disconnection from our true nature.
The apparent wants, desires and needs of our ego-ic sense of identity may give us a temporary sense of fulfilment but at what cost to ourselves, others, and the world around us? When we truly come from the open-heart, from love, we find a fulfilment that far transcends anything that we might imagine, a fulfilment that is not dependent on others, or circumstance, a fulfilment that comes from our connection to the love (divinity) within ourselves and the sharing of that love with all of life.
Through the open-heart giving love becomes the gift through which we receive love and true fulfilment.
What in your life is calling for you to give it love, to open your heart to it, to let spirit, grace, your true nature, the divine – touch it?
May you be graced to know love’s presence in all your actions and in all you meet…
