Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Wrestling With Yourself

Home
New Visions
Love Is All

Love Is All

Last updated on: October 26, 2011 at 3:12 am by David Matthew Brown

Love Is All 2011-10-26T03:12:05-06:00 David Matthew Brown

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Love is All

By David Matthew Brown

Q: I am told by most people, religions, that love is all we are and yet, in my own life I am having trouble finding love, finding a mate, if love is everywhere why can’t I find a partner?

A: So the question is about love and finding it? Correct? So what is this love that is everywhere?

Q: Well love is beauty…

A: Not the idea or attributes of it…what is love?

Q: I don’t know.

A: Good. We speak about it, over use it, and yet have never looked at it, investigated it, right? Love is not a thought, not an image, not idea, and yet all those notions form a belief about it. A mother who loves her child does not act from an image of loving her child, nor does she think about it, there seems to be a knowing sense that follows. So what is love?

Q: For me love is an attraction, desire…

A: Are you attracted to the idea of loving, desiring love…that seems to have qualities of need…yet love would need nothing if it is all that there is. Correct? So there seems to be a separation again between what is and what isn’t. Let us say for the dialogue that you love someone, have a sexual relationship with them, and what happens when the sex goes, does it not become two people trying to control each other. So what is love?

Q: Acceptance with out labels….

A: Acceptance without labels. Wonderful idea. So labels would be what love is not. If I have labels, images, memories, past, it constructs into a belief, which is a conclusion on what to expect when I find this love I am looking for. The moment that belief is challenged, hate arises for the other. Now it may look like I hate you, but I am really in resistance to the image I am carrying around about love, and at the moment you would represent the outcome of the image. So now we find our self in conflict. Both of our ideas are conflicted. Now if we both acknowledge the conflict and work to come to an understanding a huge healing could take place.

Q: Yes but I suggested acceptance.

A: Yes acceptance without labels. Which is an idea. You’re still looking for your idea. But if in fact love is here, where is there to look. You can only look where it is.

Q: I am confused. Love is all there is and yet I can’t find it. Where is it?

A: The idea keeps changing to fit your needs. But if you understood that love needs nothing, then the search would end. Is jealously love?

Q: No.

A: Envy?

Q: No.

A: And why not? You are with your partner and you experience jealously. So what is jealously?

Q: Control.

A: Control of what?

Q: An idea? The idea of separation but I seem to be separate from the experience itself.

A: Good. The experience is happening right now. You can’t deny it. So you must deal with what is coming up now. You observe the jealously, you are with it, and then you will begin to uncover the love that is. So what are you trying to find?

Q: An image of loving partner.

A: (Laughs) Good. Will you ever find it?

Q: Probably not.

A: So you will continue to deny what yearns in you, and look for what you want. Do you see the conflict?

Q: Yes the conflict is that if I look at the images of love and observe it, and then I will understand what love is. It sounds simple but challenging.

A: Yes the challenge is understanding what you have allowed to run you. Love doesn’t deny anything, doesn’t run from anything, or fear anything perhaps. You have to inquire, investigate for yourself. What is there to fear? Only the mind creates then destroys its own creation. The mind creates an image of love then it destroys it. It creates and destroys. But because we believe that love is desire, lust, self -will, and control, we want to attain and achieve it like property. It has become a product of power, and yet we are told it is all. So this conflict continues until we look at the actual idea of love. Does love compare?

Q: No, but when I love, I do compare.

A: What are you comparing?

Q: Other experiences…

A: So love is not new. You appear not to accept fully. Correct?

Q: Well I accept fully when love is going smooth, when it hits a rocky road, I don’t want to be with it.

A: Rocky road…what is rocky?

Q: Again…fighting, anger, blame….

A: Perhaps these terms are aspects of love. Since we have trouble being with the “rocky road” with our selves, then how can we be asked to be with it with someone else?

Q: That makes sense, but being with it is difficult. It consumes me. I want to run for comfort, pleasure, drugs, food etc…

A: Good yes, most of the population does. It is conditional to look for someone else to help you through it. Right? We are taught “problems”. Which we have learned is conflicted with what is. So we call it a problem and then try to fix it, change it, help it, manipulate it, kill it, drug it etc…in our own experience which is the whole experience of consciousness. Rather then being with it as it unfolds moment to moment. The work is to be with it. You cannot control the mind, but you can observe the motion of it. Be skeptical, and question it. Religions, mythology, stories, have trained us to believe that there exist a hero and villain. Is there? Is it not the belief that confines the problems of the human life? This mind that creates right and wrong, good and bad, cheat and cheated, etc. The world propagates enlightenment with out work. Quick fixes, saving you, how to get things such as money, lovers, men, women, sex, drugs, food, etc…all the while the mind is uninvestigated, accept the brain. We investigate this organ and wonder how it works. We are more programmed to see the effect of things, rather than the cause. Look to the cause. What causes thoughts?

Q: What causes thoughts?

A: Is it consciousness? Your God, your not having a God, etc…? Where do thoughts come from?

Q: I would say the mind?

A: So this mind creates things and we label as thoughts. This motion. Thousands of years of past memories, theories, events, images, and in it we are searching for us. But we can’t seem to find us. It appears to fragments of who we are, but no wholeness. The self is fragmented, unreal, is it not?

Q: It feels that way. I get lost in it and confused.

A: Confusion? Confusion is distraction. Distraction from what is happening. What is happening now? So what is confusing about love?

Q: these thoughts about love are distracting me, trying to find the answer to the problem that love doesn’t work out for me.

A: How do you know?

Q: From my past experience which I draw conclusions on, which now as I say that have been made into problems, which seem like the world is against me, but I am against myself. I seem to have created a problem and now I am searching for the answer, and not getting it.

A: Yes the mind creates and destroys, pleasure and pain, greed and poverty, always a problem that needs to be answered now. A problem exists with conflict. Again it says, “This shouldn’t be happening to me, my image that was created, I am good, or bad, or famous”, but it is happening.

Q: So if love is the answer, what is the problem?

A; What is the problem?

Q: I don’t know if there is one. Everything now is based on the past. Past conclusions, decisions, and yet right now is showing me something else. I negate it for what I want, which is comfort, pleasure, and gratification.

A: Good, keep following the motion. The motion is always bringing you commotion. It doesn’t know anything but what it knows. What it has learned.

Q: So what am I looking for then, if not love?

A: What are you looking for then if not love?

Q: I seem to be keeping myself distracted from what is.

A: Yes what is. Observe it.

Previous Post

October 25, 2011

Death

Next Post

October 27, 2011 Spirit and Matter

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 90 Days straight of Hot Yoga spiritual Uncategorized

Select a Month July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz