To Be Loved

“It is not for the concept, but for the experience, that we use the term “the Beloved.” The experience of this enormity we falteringly label “divine” is unconditioned love. Absolute openness, unbounded mercy and compassion. We use this concept, not to name the unnameable vastness of being— our greatest joy— but to acknowledge and claim as our birthright the wonders and healings within.
Levine, Stephen; Levine, Ondrea (2010-06-05). Embracing the Beloved: Relationship as a Path of Awakening (pp. 6-7). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Although it seems that everyone needs and wants to be loved, it also seems that accepting love is the most difficult feeling to accept. In the late nineties, I enjoyed To Love and Be Loved by Stephen and Ondrea Levine. This was the most beautiful recording of a workshop about Love. The raw emotional reverberation between Stephen and Ondrea is beyond amazing. The depth of awareness and understanding between these two souls was enlightening to say the least. To understand love, one must open one’s heart to the core of fear and desire. I highly recommend their addition to the knowledge of love. Many lovers seek Rumi for inspiration. Rumi’s inspiration on the spiritual path of love has been a poetic work of transcendence of self, being, being Love, being Source. And, yet, the Gods and Goddesses of Love are ancient mythos within our human psyche. The roots of poetry as a path of knowledge derives from the path of Love. Poetry evolved from song–prayers, love stories and storytelling. We can say, all paths lead to Love. But to be loved, that is the quest to conquer our greatest fear.

Why do we fear love? Love opens our heart to our truth, our fear of our truth, our fear of being told we are not lovable, our fear of not being loved, our fear of not being good, not being accepted, not being what we think or feel. Love opens us to being vulnerable. We are vulnerable to every nuance of feeling, sensing the world. Our world is what we feel and think until we are loved. Then, our world no longer revolves around our own sense of self. Now, the world revolved around what we hear, see, feel, sense from the lover.

This sense of being loved is like being a new born infant again. As an infant, we rely in our caregivers, our mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles and all those who pay attention to our needs as we are learning to eat, potty, talk and walk on our own. This sense of vulnerability, we feel again when we are in Love. It is all the memories of being an infant, baby, toddler, child, young adult and then an adult that we must face again when we feel vulnerable to the depths of love.

My Cherokee Great Aunt used to say that we are not adults until we reach thirty years of age. In our twenties, we are learning to let go of being children. We are learning how to be adults. We are finally learning this as we enter our thirties. It is in this transition that we have experienced most of the formation of our adult life. And, we have taken account of our childhood as we grow in comparing and contrasting our experiences between childhood and adulthood, friendships and lovers, lovers and partners. Through those experiences, we gain more memories. More memories are more insights of both good and bad, positive and negative experiences. As we gain those experiences, we are making decisions based on weighing those experiences.

When we are in love, now we have to weigh our experiences with the beloved. Which experiences will be important to share? Which will be ones we keep to ourselves? Which ones will be reveal when we can no longer keep them to ourselves? Which ones explain the way we feel? Which ones do we need to discuss to feel understood? Which ones will we try to keep forever? Which ones will not be kept inside our hearts forever? The choices we make over and over, on a daily basis leads us through a maze of decisions based on our fear of love.

How do we get through the maze of choices and decisions about discussing our truths with the beloved? The heart holds the keys to unlock the fear of the soul. All those things we hold within our soul, our heart knows when we can tell them and when we cannot. Our heart is at the core of our being, our Life Source. Our heart feels open or closed, expanded or contracted. For some, the heart feels always closed. Others, the heart feels always open. For many the heart opens and closes. The goal is be able open the heart to remain open without fear. That is the only way we can face the beloved and the world.

Much, much more can be said and will be said by many, many people about the heart. The lessons of the heart are endless. All the ways we feel and express emotions, all the memories, fears, doubt and pain will teach us to pay attention and focus on our hearts, our truths. In our truths, we learn to trust our heart. In our heart, we learn to trust others. We learn to accept love in all forms. We learn to feel the love of the beloved. Our hearts become the scale which weighs our fears, doubts and pain against the feather likened to the Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Our hearts are our prayers to Source. Our hearts are our songs, our poetry, expressing our love.

Love is endless. To be loved is divine.

Namaste
Jedhi