What is love?

Love has so many colors, so many flavors and can be pure or marbled with many other energies. Humans, have many experiences which we draw upon to help us define love and life in general. Many times we will draw conclusions about things which makes sense at the time and later does not work. For example, as a child we love our parents. As we grow up we can see that actually we needed our parents to survive. You can see how easy it is for many of us to get need and love confused, even as adults.

Love can be confused with need, obligation, familiarity, lust, gratitude and many other emotions. One of the most common issues I know of, is that we are labeling too many emotional states as “love”. Let’s say that John has an internal definition of love that includes being waited on when he comes home from work. While Jane has an internal definition of love that includes being listened to after a hectic day.

They both come home from work and are tired and want nothing more from each other than to be loved. John thinks he is loving Jane by rushing to fix her dinner while she is talking about her day. After all, that’s what he would like Jane to do for him. Yet she feels as though he is inattentive since he’s preoccupied with cooking dinner for her. John is secretly wishing that Jane would cook him dinner for a change. Jane wishes John would talk to her more about his day. They both become irritated and begin believing that the other one is insensitive or doesn’t really love them after all.

Jane and John have love mixed up with need. Love, when it is pure, has no emotional feeling of its own. Love simply is. Love is not the absence of hate. Love is more like acceptance of what is in the moment. Love is inclusion without dependency. Love is giving without expectation. Love is allowing without sacrifice. Love is gentleness without condescension. Love is connecting without controlling. Love is receiving without taking. Love is an attitude and a way of being. Love simply is.

Somewhere during my six years of therapy I met my spiritual teacher, Gurumayi. She was one of my chosen teachers, as opposed to teachers that aren’t intentionally teaching. Her teaching is simple; God is in me, I AM God. God is Love.  The concept was so utterly and completely free of guilt, shame, judgment and fear, I soaked it up like a sponge.  She gently blasted away all my beliefs around a masculine God, and I loved it!

Relationships often serve as reminders of holding my power, finding and retaining my identity and remembering and applying all I have learned from other
teachers.  My friends, family and significant others teach me so much about myself. Sometimes the lessons I learn this way are gradual, and not as obvious as the ones I intentionally choose, however, the lessons I learn in daily life seem to be the deepest ones.

Now I am my own best teacher. I know me better than anyone, I know my own style of learning, so I can teach myself most effectively. I teach myself how to remain open to others who have lessons to bring me. I teach myself how to remember what I already know. I am realizing that learning and teaching are the same, almost inseparable energies… both have qualities of remembering what we already know.