Love is something I have been deeply interested in, both from an emotional and from a spiritual perspective.
And the one thing that always comes to light with true love is the notion of “being”: the capacity, as the universally accurate saying goes, “to live in the now.” This inevitably necessitates a degree of awareness unfamiliar to many of us, raised in a culture of constant doing rather than being.
Luckily, Ram Dass (April 6, 1931–December 22, 2019) wrote an excellent book Be Love Now that shows us how to embrace — deeply, truly, profoundly embrace — the art of how to be in the now and in love.
Ram Dass writes:
Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You’re being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or your most intimate lover — anyone. This lover doesn’t need anything from you, isn’t looking for personal gratification, and only wants your complete fulfillment.
[…]
This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything. When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart — not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, “I am.”
In a sentiment that calls to mind Vincent van Gogh’s memorable meditation on true love — “love is something eternal, it may change in aspect but not in essence,” he wrote — Ram Dass adds:
Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is a part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not “I love you” for this or that reason, not “I love you if you love me.” It’s love for no reason, love without an object. It’s just sitting in love, a love that incorporates the chair and the room and permeates everything around. The thinking mind is extinguished in love.
Be Here Now and Be Love Now are enlightening reads, the ones that stay with you for life — and love. Complement with Journey of Awakening: A Meditator’s Guidebook, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart, and then revisit a Zen story which famously proclaimed, “If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.”
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