Recently, I was asked, “do you think there are different kinds of Love?” Immediately, I thought, “great question”, followed by, “yes” – sort of.
We hear the word “Love” all the time; “I Love this song”, “I Love shawarma”, “I Love lamp” and “I Love you”. But, what do we really mean? And, when do we really mean it? We “Love” a lot of things that are as easily forgotten as they are remembered. Ultimately, the existence, or lack thereof, of those things won’t compromise who you are or how you live. In a month’s time, you might like another song or find a new place to eat. It’s surface stuff.
But, what about the not-surface stuff? The Love we show for others? We Love our parents differently than we Love our significant other, than we Love our friends or our teammates. There are enough derivations that we almost need an instruction manual.
The Love most of us experience on a daily basis is a wonderfully beautiful emotion. In any form, Love can possess immense power. It gives us hope, inspiration, joy and a sense of purpose. Love makes us feel good. It also makes us feel bad. This is the Love that often comes with conditions. We need our partner to Love us back. We Love our best friend until they disagree with us. We Love our parents, sometimes, just because they’re our parents. A person we “Love” can quickly become a person we don’t. Love based on expectation and contingency has the ability to exert a gripping power over us.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that this embodiment of Love is an amazing phenomenon. It gives us unparalleled strength. It’s just that, for as much strength as it can give us, we are also vulnerable to having that strength taken away from us.
The truth in my Heart is that I know there is only one kind of Love – pure Love. Pure Love is not in you, it IS you. It’s the Love you give no matter what. It doesn’t come with prospect or hope of reciprocity. It doesn’t gush over lust or dwell upon disappointment. It’s simply an unwavering force that has no beginning and no end. Pure Love doesn’t know any boundaries. It’s infinite.
Love is blind.
An idiom that couldn’t be more true. Pure Love IS blind. It doesn’t know your name, or your age, or your job. It doesn’t know where you come from, the colour of your skin, or what faith you practice. It doesn’t know what you’ve done or haven’t done. It’s just Love. It sees everyone, and everything, the same – as an opportunity to be an uncompromising and unrelenting power. It’s a power of the most humble expression. It’s not something to be exerted on others or held to any standard; it’s a brilliance that we can all shine from.
Pure Love is the “no strings attached” Love, it’s the “Love your enemy” Love and it’s the “no matter what you do to me; you can’t take the Love away from me” Love. It’s the Love that Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Jesus lived. Because none of those people are any different than you or I, it’s a testament that it’s a Love that we can all live.
Be the Love that is you. You have opportunity each and every moment of each and every day. Let go of thinking about what Love can get you and understand what Love can give you. The Love you offer and the Love you receive is dependent upon only you. This is the foundation of pure Love. This is YOU.
be Love.
But, the tangible question is, how does one tap into that love? It is easy to understand the concept, but how do you actually ‘feel it’?
Like most anything in life that we wish to be good at, it takes practice. Being pure Love couldn’t have a more reassuring foundation, in that, you can KNOW that you are it. It’s why you’re here. Some may say it’s not readily supportable, but is it readily refutable? And, wouldn’t it be better to subscribe to that idea rather than the one that you’re just a walking suitcase for your bones? We’ve each lived our “x” number of years on this Earth and have conditioned ourselves to think, act and be otherwise than Love. But, it is in you. Pure Love IS you.
By allowing this idea back into who you are, you’ve already started practicing. It’s about allowing your natural being to come through you. And, that natural being is pure Love. You can start by simply KNOWING that you’re nothing but Love, contrary to what you believe. You can KNOW that others around you are nothing but Love, contrary to their personality or behaviour. You can, in your Heart, silently offer people positive energy and blessing. Think of the number of people we each encounter in a day. Offering them an unspoken good tiding will not only shine on them, but will have no choice but to shine on you, too.
None of us entered this world thinking or knowing we weren’t deserving or worthy or wonderful beings. We adopted this consciousness. It only stands to reason that you can deprogram that and return to what you really are, Love.
Be an unspoken force of Love. Open your Heart to everyone you see INCLUDING YOURSELF. You don’t need to say or perform any action other than to open your Heart. Sooner than you think, your softness will become more and more second nature. You’ll start offering kind words where you wouldn’t have before or having patience where your fuse would ordinarily be short. You’ll have a desire to tangibly and physically do things that benefit others. Your perspective will begin to shift on what you believe to be important. You’ll graduate into wanting to feel full inside and knowing that Love is the answer.
The next thing you know, you’ll have started a crazy website believing that you can change the world. 🙂