Beloved Students:

I greet each of you in the spirit of Love on this Valentine's Day. I hope that each of you is indeed celebrating love on at least one day of the year. When you celebrate love, however, celebrate the fact that you, and others, have the capacity to love. Clearly, anyone can celebrate the loving relationships present in his or her life, for all enjoy being loved and expressing love. However, the real wonder of it all lies in the capacity for loving, which ideally should extend far deeper than simply to those who love one back.

Many of you have heard me say that one of the greatest challenges – or perhaps, tests, – for the expanding heart is learning to love the unlovely, however one applies the notion. It is in learning to love one's own un-loveliness that one opens to the profoundest levels of healing: soul healing. If one is able only to despise, defend or deny her/his own unhealed places in consciousness, then the energy of the coping mechanism used occupies all one's internal space, and there simply is no room available to allow in the needed healing.

Simply stated, Love is the only force strong enough to dissolve the heavier energies of hate, greed, aversion and denial. However, it must be understood that simply loving the people who return your love does not dissolve these heavy emotional states. In truth, it does not really require much of a person to simply love back those who love him/her. Such loving arises with little or no real effort on one's own part, but simply by the power you call “attraction”. Of course, sustaining a loving relationship may require a lot of effort; but the arising of attraction between two people requires no effort at all. While such loving is pleasant, from a spiritual perspective it is actually seen as a lesser form of love, since so little is required of the lover.

Great Love, on the other hand, demands a tremendous effort on the part of the lover; and ultimately it transcends the personal realm altogether. While less clearly understood than personal love, this Great (or “para-personal”) Love not only supersedes the personal level of loving, it is further capable of generating healing at all levels. It is the force of this para-personal Love that literally transforms the self (as one experiences it) into something far vaster; for the little (or local) self is far too small a vessel to contain and direct great Love. In fact, it is difficult for the small egoic self to even experience great Love for often it resists the sheer force of its magnitude.

Know that the ego does indeed recognize the dissolving power of Love, and since it fears any form of dissolution, it often resists mightily when feeling itself in the magnetic pull of Love. While holding out against the consuming force of Love may seem an empowering event to the ego, in truth, such is actually an act deviant to one's own true nature. As such, how can it not cause – or even increase – suffering? Holding out against, or resisting the very Source of one's own being turns out, indeed, to be the ultimate act of disempowerment.

Perhaps the salient question for the moment at hand is, “How does one come to experience this para-personal Love? ” As we have noted so many times previously in our work with the ego, of great significance is the fact that the ego simply refuses to be satisfied. Yet, when one is confined to function in an egoic state of perpetual dissatisfaction, great Love is simply not possible. Thus, a giant step toward attaining para-personal Love is taming, or calming, the egoic “instinct” of dissatisfaction. One must silence, as it were, the “Monk of Complaining Mind*” in order to taste the sweetness of serenity, the harbinger of Love.

One of the recognizable traits of any spiritual master is the genuine happiness that exudes from one who has learned acceptance of what is (or what appears to be). Indeed, what the student experiences from such an individual is often an inexplicable flow of serenity. One may ask, “How is it that this one can be so calm and at peace when there is so much chaos and trouble in the world?” Of course, the serenity thus experienced does not come from one's connection with the world around. Rather, it arises quite naturally when the monk of complaining mind is silenced. When one can place her or his mind anywhere one chooses and simply let it rest there, free from the complaints of ego, one is then truly free to discover Love.

Of course, Love (even in its greatest form) has an opponent. That opponent is continually present, seemingly, in not only the world around, but within the self as well. The opponent is fear, which, it turns out, is actually the energetic opposite of Love. While all love supports an expansive movement of both body and mind, fear generates a contractive reaction – both in the body and in the mind. Since the nature of pure consciousness is like that of the sky (vast and open), then clearly, expansiveness is desirous for both heart and mind. When the ego contracts against Love, it can do so only out of fear, or what we might call an uneducated projection of perceived danger. When there is recognition of some danger (whether actual or not) complaining mind jumps into gear and often drives the car of one's being without any guidance or supervision from the Soul, or Higher Self.

While there are many feelings to love (and many to fear as well), Love transcends the personal level at which all feelings occur. In fact, Love is what one might call the energetic presence of the Soul. Clearly, love can (and does) emanate from the personality; but Love can emanate only from the Soul. When one is completely identified with Soul, or the Higher Self, It's Love simply shines through the personality, dissolving it bit by bit into the vast expanse of Divine Essence. Thus, as one stills the voice of complaining mind, one opens to the voice of the Soul – a voice so compelling and so wondrous it speaks with a level of Truth that demonstrates universality. You could say that the voice of the Soul is asking to sing the song of Love to all beings, literally everywhere.

Indeed, learning Love is an incredible journey into one's divine potential. Know that Love in no way invalidates love. Rather, love dissolves into Love. Virtually every viable spiritual tradition teaches the necessity of attaining Love, whether it sees it as a vehicle of salvation or a vehicle of transcendence. In all cases, Love is the reason for being, the force for healing and the path of wisdom. Even though spiritual traditions appear to differ in some significant ways, when seen through the eyes of Love, it becomes readily apparent that the differences are merely different pieces of the same pie. When one looks through the eyes of love, one see others as the objects of love, and may experience the love shared among a specific spiritual family or friends as preferential to what may be perceived as differing spiritual communities. However, when seen through the eyes of Love, all spiritual foci are but points of love within a greater field of Love. And in every tradition, one single truth can be demonstrated again and again: where love is present, fear dissolves; yet where fear abides, love is precluded from entering.

St. Paul in one of his letters to the early church comments, “Now there yet abide these three things: faith hope and love; but the greatest of these is love.” Indeed, love is the harbinger of Love. And Love is the very source of your own being. In virtually every thought, word or action taken, there is a driving force which precedes it. That force will be one of two great forces: either love or fear. As spiritual aspirants, it is your task to ruthlessly investigate the mind in order to discern the internal forces that drive you. You have the power to choose one over the other; you have the ability to act on your choices; you have the opportunity to rend the veils of illusion that keep you from knowing the Who you really are.

Please join me this month in listening to Love vs. Fear, a talk I gave in Glenwood Springs on February 13th of this year. It is my sincere hope that each of you will discover within this teaching a level of truth and empowerment you may not have previously experienced. Bless yourself and all others; and know that your divine unfolding process has been placed in very capable hands – yours!

Walk in kindness, and in all matters be grateful. Know that whatever experience comes to you, it comes as a vehicle of blessing. Use your powers of concentration and focus to find the blessing in all of life's events. Only you can discover the blessings that grace your path.

Your Loving Teacher,
Djwhal Khul