By Wes Annac, Openhearted Rebel
This is a part of The Teachers Speak, a series of articles on the Culture of Awareness and Openhearted Rebel.
Love will change the world and show the way to enlightenment. It’ll bring our awareness to anything within that prevents us from being effective agents of change, and it’ll help us slow down the mind and access the calm, blissful higher vibes that have always existed underneath the surface.
Love doesn’t need to be sought, because it’s already here, just outside our awareness inviting us to remember it.
Shift Your Mind and Open the Door
You only need to shift your mind and look at the concept of love from a different angle to see that it’s much more than society likes to think, and you’ll quickly realize that in this powerful spiritual force lives the enlightenment often sought in the conscious community.
Love brings our awareness to an enlightened state of being that, if we inhabit as much as possible, opens the door to Source and makes us want to tackle the world’s problems head-on.
It gives us compassion for those who suffer, and it inspires us to figure out what we can do to help.
Love, compassion and understanding are the three most important things the world needs, and fortunately, we can be the ones to bring them back.
“We Were Made for Love”
Here, I’d like to look at some quotes from various people in the spiritual community who were all aware of the value and importance of love. This is by far one of my favorite topics to write about, and my desire to write about it goes deeper than a simple sense of amusement.
Sharing insight into its true nature is a part of my mission, and there always seems to be something to say about it. I’m sure it’ll always be relevant, because in my opinion, it lays the foundation for everything we want to do and experience.
First, ‘Julian of Norwick’ writes that “We were made for Love.” (1)
According to St. John of the Cross, “Perfect union with God … is achieved, insofar as is possible in this life, through love.” (2)
We Can’t Save the World without Love
Krishnamurti tells us that trying to change the world is hopeless without love.
“Without love, do what you may, you will not know the total action which alone can save man.” (3)
These three quotes waste no time cutting to the heart of the matter (no pun intended). Love is a creative force that far transcends romance and relationships and is, in fact, essential if we want to make a change, and people have known of its value for centuries.
Most of the quotes you read here probably come from the past one or two hundred years, but love, spirituality, and so many other things have been well known throughout history.
I can only imagine the changes we’d make if we all approached our problems with an open heart and we weren’t so quick to condemn each other, and we might find that changing the world is a lot simpler.
Love, Service, and the Mystery
‘White Eagle’ writes that love is synonymous with giving.
“To love means to give. When you love you seem to go outwards, flow out in order to help, to serve. But as you cannot breathe out without breathing in, so you cannot give love without receiving. Love is an out-breathing and an in-breathing. It is a light that burns deep within; a warmth, a certainty, an inner knowing…” (4)
God remains a mystery, ‘White Eagle’ writes, when love is absent.
“Love is God; and God is discovered within the heart; and if love is absent you flounder about and cannot understand the meaning of God, and God remains a mystery.” (5)
Love Makes Spirituality Real
An absence of love is one reason so many people struggle with spirituality, positivity, and similar concepts. I’d imagine it seems like fantasy to them; a belief system no different from religion used only for comfort and assurance of an afterlife, along with finding some kind of meaning for this life.
This is one reason I try not to force my thoughts or beliefs about spirituality onto others.
Everybody has a different opinion, and instead of working against each other by forcing each other to accept our philosophy on life, we can work together with respect for our differences as long as we can accept that they exist.
Nonetheless, the struggle with spirituality or positivity can be mitigated by opening up to love; true love, not a form of it that’s been distorted from what it was and still is.
Opening up to this creative force makes it easier to understand the mysteries of the universe, and you’ll no longer feel the need to ‘be positive’ or avoid the bad things in life.
What we know as ‘positivity’ flows with ease when you’re centered in love, and you can handle all the bad in the world because these calm, loving, accepting energies prevent an extreme or overwhelmed response.
The Key to All Wisdom
‘Mary’ encourages us to see that God is love and love is the key to all wisdom, and then, to love everything about life; even the bad stuff we’d rather ignore or hate. She also writes that our motives for being in this world at this time “are based upon pure love”.
“Do you know what love really is? Do you understand that love is God and God is all? Do you understand that in those words you are reading the whole truth and that you need no other? If God is all there is, and love is all of God, then you need only to accept and express love to touch upon all of wisdom, to realize all of realization, to express all there is to express.
“So, open yourself to this truth.
“Love every part of your physical existence, not with a conscious determination that you will pretend it so you can fool God into thinking that you feel love, but with the knowing that although your human mind does not understand the motives for being where you are and what you are at present, the motives are based upon pure love.” (6)
True Fulfillment
Only love, she writes, will ultimately fulfill us.
“Only love can make you happy and serene. Only by understanding it is all there is, only by learning to express this allness can you find what you seek. It is already yours; you have only to claim it.
“Love everyone with whom you are in contact, not with a fawning air materially, not with the surface attitude that regardless of what these individuals do they are acting in pure love, but with the understanding that if their actions toward you are not pure love in reflection, they are expressing love with an unknowing activity, a distorted reflection, which will in time be changed to an undiluted channel of the great God himself, when their understanding reaches that point of acceptance.” (7)
She encourages us to ‘love constantly’, which will help us develop and do what we came here to do.
“Love without demand and love constantly. Love so you yourself may be what you are supposed to be, so that you may become everything that you long to become, so that you may experience all you are meant to experience and can therefore write a successful, triumphant finish to your earthly tasks when this lifetime has come to an end.
“And when that time comes, you will go forth from your physical body with love, in which there is no room for fear and hesitation. You will enter the consciousness of the next plane awaiting you with complete love, knowing love is what you are, love is what you do, love is everything you feel.” (8)
When our awareness returns to love, we essentially hit the creative and spiritual jackpot.
We tap into everything we need to live a life of joy, inspiration and bliss, and when inspiration runs dry or nothing seems to be in our head or heart for us to express, we work calmly and patiently anyway because we know the inspiration will eventually return.
Love Will Respond
If you make a sincere effort to tap into love and let this creative force permeate the work you give to the world, it will respond.
The response might seem slow at first, but if you can be centered and persevere, it’ll provide everything you seek through the portal known as the spiritual heart.
It’ll heal the polarities and bridge the gap between you and the divine, and somewhere along the way, we’ll all realize that we created the gap in the first place.
Love helps you tear it down without hesitation while raising awareness with passion and the knowledge that when you’re done here, you’ll return to a place of pure bliss.
Footnotes:
- Brendan Doyle, ed., Meditations with Julian of Norwich. Santa Fe: Bear, 1983, 74.
- Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trans. Complete Works of St. John of the Cross. Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1973, 69.
- Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Livinq. Third Series. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1970; c1960, 82.
- White Eagle, Wisdom from White Eagle. Liss: White Eagle Publishing Trust, 1983, 85.
- Loc. Cit.
- “Mary,” Love. Marina del Rey: De Vorss, n.d., 10.
- Ibid., 8, 25-6.
- Loc. Cit.