Love As Never Before

One of the things that all spiritual teachers and teachings seem to agree upon is that God (or the Tao, if you wish) is Love, and all of us are That Love, which can only be found within. Pretty simple, right? As Valentine's Day approaches, whether you have a partner or not, you might find yourself wishing that you had that 'someone special' to celebrate with, or perhaps you do have someone in your life, yet feel that the romantic flame has long ago died out. When we forget that Love is our true nature, we can easily find ourselves longing to find it in someone else, comply forgetting that the Love we seek is already inside us.

This doesn't mean, however, that having a fulfilling Love relationship with another person is impossible. On the contrary, if we are fortunate, we may find ourselves meeting someone who we Love deeply, and who Loves us back. The key is to first know the Love that's is within our own hearts, to radiate that Love into the world, and to feel completely fulfilled in that inner Love. Then, if we are fortunate, we may meet someone who also knows the Love within themselves, and radiates that Love to us in a way that we resonate with deeply. In this kind of Love there is no clinging or attachment, no expectation; only a deep resonance between two people who are content and satisfied with their own Love, and who radiate that Love to each other. In fact, what we think of as unconditional Love, is actually allowing your partner (and everyone else you know), to be as they are, without trying to fix or change them. Imagine that for a moment; just allowing the people you Love to be, and to Love them for who they are (and this doesn't mean we allow someone to take advantage of us or treat us cruelly). Of course, if we are honest, we can find ourselves doing just the opposite. After the honeymoon period is over (usually about 3 months to a year), we can suddenly start to find many things about our partner annoying or downright disturbing. It then becomes our 'mission' to fix or change them, so that we can Love them once again. Of course, this never works. You either Love someone as they are, or you don't, and if you don't, you're likely to spend most of your time frustrated and upset by your partners behavior. As Eckhrt Tolle has said, "The greatest catalyst for positive change in a relationship, is to stop criticizing your partner, and allow them to be as they are". Sounds pretty simple, right? Yet we probably know from experience that what usually happens is, once we meet 'the one' we generally tend to put them on a pedestal for the first few months or so, until the inevitable day when they do something that we don't like. the I sat down to write a blog about Love - romantic or otherwise - only to find that, after two hours of effort, all of my words about love seemed dry and without flavor. In the same way that writing a dissertation about chocolate cake can never be the same as sitting down and enjoying a delicious bite, so it is with words and ideas about Love: to know it, you must live it, and to live it, you must realize that Love is what you are. And so to those who may still be wondering how to attract Love into your life, or to those who feel that Love is about getting something from someone else, or to those who perhaps feel that Love has passed you by, I offer you this Valentine's Poem from the great Sufi poet Rumi. I give it with Love to all of you reading this, and wish for you this Valentine's Day, a heart that is already full of what you are seeking...