When it comes right down to it, the one thing everyone is after, whether they're conscious of it or not is to love and be loved. It is when we are feeling the lack of love that we feel bad. In order to understand what's really going on here, we must first get clear on what love is!
What most people define love to be is a romantic, conditional possessive type of love which really isn't love at all. The love that Christ spoke of was a love without conditions placed on it... an all encompassing love that included everything and everybody.
The reason why people keep searching for this love and can't seem to find it, is because this LOVE is who you are. It is the substance that holds together the entire Cosmos. It is in the act of searching for love outside oneself that one denies their very essence!
One of my favorite teachers, Candice O'Denver speaks to this very topic. Listen to this amazing talk called PERFECT LOVE:
I Know The Way You Can Get
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
they decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
and throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.
O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.
That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
to keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.
That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!
All a Sane man can ever care about
Is Giving Love!
From: "I Heard God Laughing-Renderings of Hafiz'
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
