Love
Is
“The
world as a whole has forgotten the real meaning of the word love. Love has been
so abused and crucified by man that few people know what true love is. Just as
oil is present in every part of the olive, so love permeates every part of
creation. But to define love is very difficult, for the same reason that words
cannot fully describe the flavor of an orange. You have to taste the fruit to
know its flavor. So [it is] with love.”
Paramahansa
Yogananda
There
is a moment in everyone’s life when we are stopped dead in our tracks and
simply absorbed into an experience. A transcendent moment when we blend into whatever
surrounds us and all boundaries that define us dissolve. We become one with all
that is and are no longer aware of being separate. That is the experience of
true love.
I’ve
been reading about Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity in which the idea of
universal consciousness plays a role. He believed that consciousness is a force
of nature, a natural law, like gravity. He and others put forward the idea that
all parts of creation have consciousness just as they have electrons, protons,
and neutrons. Yogananda puts love in that camp as well—it "permeates every part
of creation."
Concepts
like universal consciousness and the elusive experience of true love are difficult
to understand. Anything that is not a result of cause and effect, that resides
outside our ability to weigh and measure, is almost impossible to describe and
prove. And yet, we know it’s real and that it exists because we experience it. That
transcendent experience is not something that can be ordered up, nor can we
choose when we enter its mystery, but when we do, we recognize it instantly.
During
the upcoming holiday season, let’s make a pact to become aware of love—not as a
Hallmark concept, but as a universal force of nature. It won’t be easy because
we are all imperfect and tainted by our human need to observe, label, and judge.
It is something that exists outside our limited range of descriptive words, and
therefore meant to be experienced and not defined. What is needed is awareness
only. Ask to be aware of love and universal consciousness. Who knows! You may
find yourself in communion with the trees. They always have a lot to say.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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