The following article first appeared on FuturEdition, the free, bi-monthly e-newsletter
of The Arlington Institute.
Our literature, both popular and sacred, is laced with categorical statements
about the essence of love. Love is all there is; Love, which created me, is
what I am; God is love, etc. In the things I have been reading for the past few
years there is a common thread that suggests that these adages are true. We're
not necessarily talking here about valentines and stuff like that — romantic
love — but about a transcendent feeling of gratitude and appreciation for
things that are bigger than just "us". If you walk outside on a crisp
spring night and look at the majesty of the cosmos painted across the sky and
feel a transcendent sense of awe and gratitude then you probably have tapped
into this field of love that we're discussing here.
A scientist friend says it this way: "When one realizes that in the
entangled quantum universe one is literally
not just metaphorically, 'in touch'
with the entire rest of the universe, the experience of it can only be
expressed as a sensation of Cosmic Love."
Many years ago this same quantum physicist friend confided that he felt that
the most essential energy field — at the bottom of all physical reality — is
really love. Actual love. He thought that if and when we get to the place where
we have generators that can access and concentrate this energy such that it can
be converted into heat or electricity, that process of concentration will set
up local energetic fields around the equipment that will give off a feeling of
love that will be obvious to anyone who walks near it.
Interesting idea: make them small enough so that everyone is carrying one and
big enough that every building has one and now, there is a broad-based
"field of love" that pervades everything, everywhere. Has the
potential of changing basic human relations, I'd say.
But, what is this love energy that we're talking about? What is this stuff?
Where does it come from? The metaphysical and esoteric folks say the biblical
pronouncement is literally true: God is love. They say that God is all there
is. (Insert any alternative word for the originator of all reality here that
you'd like, if "God" doesn't feel right to you.) We're certainly not
talking about some old man-type figure "out there" who is messing
with us all and telling us what not to do. We're trying to be a bit more
sophisticated than that here.
There are bundles of sources, both religious, metaphysical, and in some cases
scientific that explain our reality experience as being that of individual
consciousnesses that are an integral part of the whole, cosmic consciousness
which creates or manifests this extraordinary exercise that we are a part of.
Albert Einstein said: "A human being is a part of the whole, called by us
a universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest….a kind of optical
delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons
nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of
nature in its beauty."
You can think of it as a subroutine in a very complex computer program. The
routine operates "independently" but is an integral component of the
larger program, is connected directly and indirectly to all of the other
subroutines, and only has meaning in the context of the larger program. . . .
or something like that.
The explanations suggest that "God", which is "everything"
wanted to have as many experiences as possible and so partitioned itself up
into derivative (but integral) consciousnesses, and in our case, at least,
provided those consciousnesses a degree of free will to do what they want. As
each and all of the consciousnesses do and experience things, those rich,
evolving experiences produce a net, increasingly interesting, experience for
the creator of all of this. Got that? We are a piece of God. When we have an
experience, IT has an experience, and IT likes that. (This, of course, is not
the explanation that I got as a youth in church, but it works for me these
days.)
As you might imagine, there are some unconventional implications to this
paradigm. First of all, if we are each a piece of God, then "IT"
doesn't need itself to worship itself. That's a little problematic for many who
come from fundamental perspectives. The defining issue is perspective. Some
religions see God as external to "us". IT's out there somewhere, overseeing
all that we are doing, etc. If that was true, then it would be logical to have
a certain degree of reverence (and worship even) for an outsider who has great
control over you. That's how we think of bosses and presidents and kings.
But if IT is not separate from us and rather, we are a part of IT, then the
whole perspective changes. Everything's One and there is only One. We can't
make God angry, because we are God (a piece of God, anyway). We can get angry,
and that is part of IT's experience, but IT being angry at us would be like you
and me really being upset at our finger or knee. My knee is me – how can I be
mad at my knee?
This approach also means that everyone (and everything) is connected to
everyone else. To use the bodily metaphor again, my nose and arm are both parts
of me and if all of the component parts of my body are not healthy and in
balance then all are negatively affected. If you bloody my nose, it will
certainly have a direct effect on how my arm reacts and how the whole organism
feels.
If we humans could get to the place where we really believed that we were all
connected to each other, particularly in nonphysical — but very real — ways,
then it would change everything. We would look at other individuals
differently, knowing that through our current physical eyes we certainly seem
separate but we are otherwise very much connected, and injuring someone else
always produces self-inflicted problems.
By the way, this is obviously an evolutionary, learning, process that takes
time to assimilate. The events across the Arab world these days are pretty
convincing that there are benefits to be had from using violence to change some
governments. One could argue, though, that in general, much of the developed
world has now learned (domestically, at least) that it is much better to affect
change in governments, work situations and families without resorting to
violence.
This "oneness" perspective also fundamentally informs how we see
ourselves and points to the big question about how we should live. Apparently
this whole human experience is about moving inexorably (albeit seemingly
slowly) toward directly experiencing the essence of "God". It seems
to me that if there is a common thread to the evolutionary development of
humanity then it is about an increasing embrace of the notion of universal
love. Before you get all excited, let me explain.
We seem to slowly be treating each other better. For example, in the U.S. every
citizen has the right to vote and we don't lynch anyone. Women and others
oppressed groups have made extraordinary advances within just my lifetime.
There's a lot that still needs to be done, of course, but with women and
minorities running some of the largest and most important businesses and
government agencies, it's clear that we are making some progress.
So, what is that progress about? It's about inclusiveness. It's about seeing
others with more equality. It's about "loving" others more. We
obviously don't love everybody already, but one could clearly argue that the
increasing inclusivity and equality that we feel toward each other certainly
isn't hate. It represents increasing degrees of love.
Why is this happening? If the sages are to be believed, the relationship is
somewhat simple. The essence of "God" is love and the ultimate human
objective is to be increasingly transparent to that love. As Erich Fromm
eloquently expressed it, "Love is
the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."
In the western world, at least, the process of human enlightenment, regardless
of whether you see it in economic, political, social or spiritual terms, is
about a decreasing of the influence on ourselves and our organizations of
historic human values such separateness, competition and violence, and
increasing the "God-like" notions of love which manifest themselves
as inclusivity, equality, cooperation, et. al. That's not all of it, of course,
but in behavioral terms, it starts to look like that from the outside.
Isn't that what's going on? The European nations were all fighting among
themselves for many hundreds of years. Now they're not. Major corporations that
used to exclusively compete are now both competing and cooperating — they call
it coopetition. Enabled by the Internet, thousands of individuals located in
far corners of the world from dramatically different cultures are working
together . . . to bring down oppressive governments and institutions. Family
members use the Web to stay in touch far more so then was possible in the past.
That's all love-like.
Let's say this interests you, and you're wondering how, in practical terms,
this might translate into something that you could hang your hat on every day.
I alluded to an answer up above when I mentioned decreasing the influence of
historic human values and transparency. I think of it in terms of this
"God-love" being the lowest, most basic level of a stack of
contributing factors that result in "what we do" and how we see
ourselves.
Borrowing from Robert Pirsig, on top of that most basic source, we begin to
overlay what we think we know about how things work in scientific terms, for
example, that become assumptions that shape and constrain the way we interpret
things and limit what we think is possible. These rules and principles are the
things we think we "know". They have a sense of universality.
One layer up are all the social ideas and laws that we have ginned up,
depending upon where we live, what we have experienced, been taught, and how we
were raised. This is the layer of religions, governments, and social and family
rules. They are all subjective. They change from country to country and culture
to culture. They are most likely different on different sides of town. The most
barbaric and dysfunctional behavior in humans comes from this layer. Most
likely you have changed your mind about some of your notions about what is
"right" within your life. You've changed, society changes, the
priorities change. But all of us use our set of these conventions to determine
what is acceptable and what is not. These ideas come from the social system,
from authorities. This is the layer of things we "believe".
The frosting or top on this layer cake is where we "explore" — where
we leave the comfort of the familiar and gather up the guts to strike out on
our own. Here is where original ideas reside — where things that make intuitive
sense live. We decide for ourselves. This is the land of joy and progress,
where early independent thinking, not based necessarily on any previous rules
or conventions, is nurtured. This layer is one of confidence and engagement.
Enlightenment is not possible without some commitment to exploration that
eschews the conventional and is independent from institutionally engendered
beliefs.
Ideally, the characteristics of the love that underpins everything would
illuminate the middle layers and inform the top layer. There would be unimpeded
transparency from the bottom of the stack to the top.
For most of us, that is not the case. The two middle layers of
"knowledge" and "beliefs" obscure and hinder the essence of
love showing up in our life and therefore moving us forward into new space.
Think of it as a stage light that has many gels and filters fixed on the front
that guarantee that the light that illuminates the actor has significantly less
intensity and a different color from that of the light itself. The filters that
we add are reasons, almost all based upon fear, that tell us why we can't or
shouldn't do anything other than what authorities and society — others — say is
acceptable.
It is hard to overstate the significance of this. From the time that we are
born throughout all of our education, employment and partnering, a full-up set
of social conventions are driven into our minds. Authorities and important
people in our lives reinforce a core set of rules and guidelines and we observe
what society does to those who don't conform. We call them quirky, crazy,
unreliable, immoral, and insane. The system expects that you will live in fear
of the social implications that will result if you don't follow the
"rules", either explicit or implicit.
Those rules — and, with them, a social structure — are what has given us the
world we presently live in. It is axiomatic, therefore, that if you want to
become enlightened or awake (or whatever you want to call your personal
development) you will have to depart from the level of conventional beliefs and
begin to think for yourself. If you don't, and instead keep doing what you're
doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting.
Here's the bottom-line presumption: the more love-light that illuminates your
life, the better it will be. One way to state the purpose of life, then, is: to
systematically eliminate the filters that hinder the ability of love to color
all aspects of your life. Put another way: anything that hinders the
proliferation of love must, by definition, be holding you back from what you
can become.
There are two imperatives then, that must be put in place to become this new
human: you must shed the conventional filters of fear-based rules that
constrain the God-love light from fully illuminating all aspects of your life,
and you must become an explorer, actively striking out into the relatively
unfamiliar to find those new ideas and approaches that will allow you to become
who you are next supposed to be.
"In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?"
– Siddhãrtha Gautama
This is not necessarily easy. It takes courage and resolution . . . and time
and effort. But accomplishing anything significant requires all of that.
God is but love and therefore so am I.
"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we
cannot live within." — James Baldwin
Image courtesy of Nasa Goddard Photo and Video.
