Always Love

There is always love, you simply have to look for it.  Not in the sense that it is hidden, but training your mind to see it out in the open...in the person next to you, the grasshopper at the door, the tree in the meadow.  Love constantly flows all around and through us.  Feel it, taste it, bring it alive in your life.

Open to Love

My heart opened tonight. Not in the sense as by a knife, or that which would explode emotions about the surroundings, but opened in a way that Love coursed through it. Love, at the purest and most energetic level. How the feeling of feeling overcame me. Not instigated by anything but stepping onto the grass. It first felt as if my chest exposed the beating heart to the world and the world accepted it and loved it. I reveled in the feeling for quite some time before it overcame my stomach. It overwhelmed me as tears filled my eyes and water dripped along my cheeks. I felt I wouldn't be able to hold on. I said to myself and the universe that I don't know how I could ever live like this. I feel it now as I type. It's utterly amazing - like i could cry and sing the most joyous song at the same time. I'm in Love and of Love. God's Love has filled me but I don't think that's it. I believe the Love was there, it has just now been released - or opened. I don't know what to do with it other than continue to leave the channel open with prayer and meditation. I will look for God's guidance in every leaf and the winds of this Earth. I will look for it in the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky. In the hooker on the corner and the pusher in the shadows. Love resides in everything and all Life. Love is everywhere. I will look and I will see and I will accept it into my life.

Love Is

Simply look for it and it will emerge.  Not in the sense that it is hidden, but train the mind to see it out in the open - in the person in the adjacent seat, the grasshopper on the door, the tree in the meadow.  Love constantly flows all around and through us.  Feel it, taste it, bring it alive in life.

My heart leapt

Once upon a dream
a reality it did seem
from the moon came a beam
of light to my eye did gleam.

Away so far I was
as the water in a river flows does
a flower once became
from a princess they were the same

Beautiful and lean she stood
in a Meadow within the wood
my eyes would not turn though it would be best
as my heart Iept from my chest.

Decisions

Everyone we have met in our lives has had an impact on what we believe.  Teachers teach us what they want us to know.  Preachers teach us what they want us to believe.  Governments tell us what they want us to do.  Parents teach us what they think is right and wrong.  Friends teach us what they think is cool.

All of these influences have conditioned us to see the world a certain way.

However,

Why should we follow the misguided beliefs and rules others make for us?

What do they know more than ourselves about how we should live our lives and what decisions we should make?

Ultimately, you know what is best for you.  You know it.  Follow your heart and do what it is screaming for you to do.  Let it out and see what happens.

Wanting

From a young age, specifically infanthood, I wanted.  When I wanted I cried creating suffering for myself. 

If I received what I wanted I would be temporarily pacified.  However, with time, I would want again and cry again, restarting the cycle of suffering.  If I was not rewarded with the thing I wanted, I cried harder and even harder until I received the thing pacifying my suffering, received punishment increasing my suffering or gave up extending my suffering over time. 

The very act of wanting presents stress.  The fear of not getting.  The hope of getting.  Emotional tugging of both producing a rollercoaster of feelings.  Worst of all, wanting and not getting or just the thought of possibly not getting produces sadness, suffering, jealousy, anger, envy.

It is not wrong to want.  It is not wrong to strive to get what I want.  How else would anything be obtained?  Understanding the desire and knowing why it is there is important.  To avoid suffering for a want, I observe my mind and understand its motivations whether it be for security, jealousy, pleasure, avoidance of pain, etc. Understanding any desire is created to avoid pain or experience pleasure, I can observe my mind's attempt to protect itself from both failure and disappointment. 

After fully observing, I become free of the emotional response to the want.  I am unattached from the outcome of the want.  And that is the ultimate goal, to seek my wants but be emotionally unattached to the outcome of those efforts.

As an infant or child even, I was not capable of understanding the source of my suffering.  As an adult, I can learn how I perceive my mind.  I can witness my thoughts and the emotions tied to them. 

Many of my loved friends and family fail to take the time to truly learn who they are.  I see them suffering for their unattained wants and I am saddened.  I am in pain for them.  I suffer for them.  However, I can see my mind's emotional attachment to the relief of their suffering and my personal pain is releived.  I understand that even if they receive the thing, they will again suffer for the next want.  I continue to seek an end to their pain.  This message is one of those efforts.  However, I no longer suffer for them at this moment.

I still often find myself in a depressed state.  Looking inward seems too hard.  I enjoy my lower state and refuse to look for the exit.  But just a moment, a quick breath above the surface encouraged by a passing bird or stunning sunrise inspires me to stop and quiet my mind.  I then, almost instantaneously, see the flawed protectionist strategies my mind is trying to implement.  Just as soon as I recognize this, I am free of its devastating effects and can Love myself once again.

Quiet + Observation = Freedom

The Diligent Ant

Grain by grain, builds his bed. 
Day by day, stacks the dirt. 
Hour by hour, digs the tunnel.
In an instant his home is destroyed.
His family of multitudes maintain support.
Love endures.
Grain by grain he builds his bed.