And most great Guideposts stories are love stories…love of family, love of partner, love of country, love of God. Law of Herukhutt – it specifies that God doesn’t influence your life Therefore, he will not punish, rewards or even protect you. As ananda, the Great Love is woven into the fabric of the universe, which of course also puts it at the center of our own being. This physical love prevents divine love, and without divine love, all other love is barter and exchange. The practice of love—actions and attitudes that create an atmosphere of kindness, acceptance, and unity in ourselves and in those around us—is not only the basis of spiritual life, it is also the basis of civilization. Be happy! “I wondered where that love came from,” he told me. Create a personalized feed and bookmark your favorites. When you open your eyes, look around you with the thought that the love you have been contemplating is still flowing toward you from whatever you see and from the air itself. Love … ‘There is only divine love; the rest is carnal, personal. I appreciate ur approach to discuss the very rare factor of society’s spirituality because inner peace is more important for our mental health. It was the surf! What is a spiritual love? So you control your own life … So, how can we determine a partner’s purpose? This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. “Of course,” he said. Here is a famous love quote from Audrey Hepburn, claiming that the love between two people is truly the best thing in life.Whether you are the one being loved or giving love … How does spirituality come into play in relationships? Over the years, two practices have helped me reconnect to the source of love. My boyfriend wants to hold off on our engagement and get to know each other better—what does it mean? Psychic … And how is it that some teachers tell us that love is both the path and the goal, while others seem to ignore the subject altogether? Love and/or compassion are often [quantify] described [by whom?] If you want to grow your spirituality, we have some beautiful passages for you to read and inspire you. This person is watching you through the window; her glance protects you and surrounds you with sweetness. Therefore, our spirituality or lack thereof can have an impact on our relationships. Spiritual love rituals are very powerful and are only intended to help relationships with a strong and REAL connection. Yet when the father became seriously ill, the only person he wanted around him was his son. Is love something we have to feel, or is it enough to offer kindness and direct positive thoughts toward ourselves and others? “For instance, individuals may come together to raise children or create something for humanity.”, : Others enter our lives to teach us important life lessons that support healthy growth and development. I once heard someone ask a great spiritual teacher, “Will loving you cause me to suffer the way I’ve suffered from loving other people?” The teacher replied, “If you love me in the way you’ve loved other people, you’ll suffer.” He was saying that as long as we think that love comes from something outside ourselves—even from God or a spiritual master—we are going to experience pain. Taylor received her bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism, with minors in professional writing and leadership from Virginia Tech. In fact, we often begin the inner life as a search—conscious or unconscious—for a source of love that can’t be taken away. Spiritual Love and Life, United kochin. Whatever differences there were in our personalities, our mental and emotional states, she and I were the same on the level of pure awareness. At that moment, like a small trickle from a dammed-up stream, he felt a stir of tenderness in his heart. “It didn’t exclude my father, but it definitely wasn’t about him. When it comes to daily life, feeling love may actually be less important than acting loving. Remember, spirituality is connecting to something bigger than ourselves. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations. Love comes and sits with you when you’re feeling down and finds out what is wrong. We will explore some of the techniques used to clear these spiritual … The yoga tradition often describes Absolute Reality as satchidananda—meaning that it is pure beingness, present everywhere and in everything (sat), that it is innately conscious (chit), and that it is the essence of joy and love (ananda). You could move to a new place that feels like a sanctuary, find a lover with whom you can be vulnerable, or even start a spiritual practice. At the time, however, I did what most of us do when we get a glimpse of unconditional tenderness: I projected my inner experience onto the person I happened to be with and decided (rather disastrously, as it turned out) that he was the love of my life and the mate of my soul. Louise and Robert present a practical philosophy based on seven spiritual practices. “It was the music,” we say. Love is meant to heal. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love … If so, why wasn’t it there when I needed it, so to speak?”. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. The state sprang up seemingly out of nowhere, a sensation of tenderness and ecstasy that seemed to ooze out of the walls and the air, carrying with it a sense that everything was a part of me. Required fields are marked *. So he practiced paying close attention to his father. Not feeling loved ourselves, we pass on our sense of lack to others, so that even when we try to give love, what comes through instead is anxiety or clinging. Elliot and his father had been polite strangers for nearly 20 years. “It was Ned (or Sarah, or Jeannie). These spiritual loves can serve different purposes: some are meant to walk with us through life… He created us with a soul that thirsts for what only … See alsoPowering Your Spirituality In spiritual life alone, the word love is used in at least three ways, and our experience and understanding of love will differ according to which aspect of it we are thinking about. The third kind of love—love as a practice—is the medicine for the terrible discrepancy we sometimes feel between our sense of what love can be and the actuality of our ordinary experience of it. This isn’t meant as an argument for pasted-on smiles, or for the common game of hiding anger and judgment behind a mask of false sweetness. Most of us get glimpses of the Great Love at some time in our lives—perhaps in nature, or with an intimate partner, or in the moment of bonding with our children. Love with a capital L: That’s the Great Love, love as the source of everything, love as radical unity. To evolve to this state, you need to trust your partner absolutely and surrender yourself to the higher purpose designed for both of you. (“God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,” Rumi wrote. Finally, if a relationship lacks spiritual connection—whether it’s one-sided or two-sided—the relationship might suffer. Love, light, and light is God; in other words, totally unfathomable!" “Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or … He served his father. We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website. The practice of loving is never about presenting a false front. When we read spiritual books and encounter teachers, our understanding about love can get even more complicated, because depending on what we read or whom we study with, we get slightly different takes on what love means in spiritual life. Agape love … The words of the message talk about love and fondness. Love knows you’ll come through just as God planned, and love … The second practice I use goes right to the heart of our sense of lack, to the secret feeling of not having enough love to give. Love … To say that our individual experience of love can be unsatisfying or changeable or incomplete is not to say it is less real than the Great Love. And sometimes, the Great Love hits us unveiled, as it were, and changes our lives. Check out “Leaving Depression Behind: An Interactive, Choose Your Path Book” written by AJ Centore and Taylor Bennett.". He slowed himself down and tried to keep his awareness linked to his father’s breath. He fielded the emotional crises of the other family members. If we’re on a devotional path like bhakti yoga, Sufism, or mystical Christianity, we’re often taught that the way to enlightenment is to fall in love with God and let that love grow until it engulfs us and we become one with the Beloved. Strictly Necessary Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. Spiritual blockages removal: This article takes a focused look at some of the causes of spiritual blockages, including those that are completely outside our own control. It doesn’t matter who or what we love; at some point, the object of our love will disappear from our life or disappoint us or stop being lovable, simply because change is the nature of existence. And both are based on the insight that the best way to bypass the ego, which cuts us off from love, is to learn how to undermine our feeling of separation. We can’t always feel gratitude, but we can remember to say thank you. He wanted to love him. Instead, it’s an active answer to one of life’s greatest questions: How can I, in spite of what I may be feeling at a particular moment, offer my best to myself and other people? “Was it a reward for taking care of my father? In short, if the Great Love is naturally unifying, our individual, human experience of love is subject to change and loss, moods and tides, attachments and aversions. And it all begins with a decision you must make. He did everything, in short, that a devoted son would do—and he did it, as best he could, as an austerity, a practice. “It hides within these, till one day it cracks them open.”) It is only when love gets filtered through the prism of the human psyche that it begins to look specific and limited. Remember, spirituality is connecting to something bigger than ourselves. If you pose this query to yourself—or, better yet, ask yourself (as Elliot did), How would I act if I were feeling love?—you will eventually discover the practice that helps melt your frozen heart, so the love that always hides behind our emotional barricades can show its face. Open our minds to life because life is God. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine you are sitting in the center of a vast flow of love. A truly spiritual love can also be a little frightening. Whoever does not love abides in death. Key themes cover: • The … Of course, this concept could apply to any area of your life but today we are focusing on the spiritual aspect. Spirituality makes us cool and calm and it brings the happiness in life. Just as physical life begins when our physical heart starts beating, our spiritual life begins when our spiritual heart starts beating. We’ll bond, and I’ll be able to feel love for him at last!'”. That said, as Holland prefaced, when we take the time to connect to our spiritual selves—to meditate, spend time in nature, surrender to art, worship our religion, or tap into our spirituality in another way—the answers become clear. He asked himself, “How would I act if I did feel love for my father?” Then he acted on the intuition that arose for him. If you have any questions, 5 ways to survive family tensions during the holidays. It came softly, yet it was almost shockingly sweet. It’s practicing peace and purpose, which might involve asking ourselves questions like, “How can I find fulfillment?” and, “How can I live the best life possible?” While some people connect to their spiritual selves by turning to their religion, and others find it in nature or art, our spirituality often has a heavy influence on every area of life. But their history together had formed such a habit of disconnection that he felt nothing at all. hi, Allow yourself to receive the love that is flowing toward you from this being. Instead, the feeling I had in that moment was that there was nothing but love. It becomes veiled by our thoughts and feelings, and we start to think that love comes and goes, that we can feel it only for certain people, or that there’s not enough love to go around. From the Greeks to the soaps (and it’s not that great a leap in terms of subject matter) we are always trying to figure out love… The questions his experience raised are essential ones, questions we all deal with as we probe that most fundamental and yet elusive of all human feelings: love. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Inspire your practice, deepen your knowledge, and stay on top of the latest news. Imagine that love is flowing toward you like water or passing into you like a gentle wind. 1 John 3:14 says, We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Gift a Yoga Journal membership and save 20% →, Gift a Yoga Journal membership and save 20% →, The Simple 5-Part Practice To Encourage Self Acceptance, 4 Travel Destinations Unexpectedly Packing Deep Yogic Lessons, Criminal Justice Advocate and Yogi Steven Medeiros is Taking Life’s Challenges in Stride, Spiritual Leader Ram Dass on Zen and the Art of Dying. Not different but one. … '” The thought struck him as so funny that he giggled—causing something of a commotion in the funeral chapel, as people turned to see what was making him laugh at such an inappropriate moment. The Great Love, the love that is the kernel of everything, is present in everything, peeking out during every moment in which we feel a spark of tenderness, appreciation, or affection. Most of us have been confused about love all of our lives. Absolute Love. Agape love can change your life and set you free. The great lie that the feeling of separation fosters in us is the delusion of being unloved, or cut off from love, of there not being enough to go around. If they do not select a partner who has a complementary or shared interest, then there will be conflict regarding their choices resulting in communication breakdown and other negativity that will impede the progress of the relationship, as well as impact their lives.”. This experience inspired a burning desire to get back to it and ultimately became the motive for my spiritual practice. “The highest love is the love that is sexless, for it is perfect unity that is expressed in the highest love, and sex differentiates bodies. I realized that behind Elliot’s question was an even deeper set of questions, ones that plague us all. If you have any questions, please email us. If you love God, then you will be able to love others. It was my teacher’s presence!” Yet the yogic view is that all of our experiences of human love are actually glimpses of the Great Love. How to Have a Great Love Life Do you have problems in your love life or just want it to be all it can be? At this level, love is another name for Absolute Reality, Supreme Consciousness, Brahman, God, the Tao, the Source—that vast presence the Shaivite tradition sometimes calls the Heart. Most Great Guideposts stories are love stories…love of family, love of God father had spiritual love life strangers... The mainstay of spiritual … spiritual love message to your boyfriend to let him know how much you love.. Are connected to their spirituality, there isn ’ t revealed until later in the.! Can we determine a partner ’ s degree in multimedia journalism, with minors in professional writing and leadership Virginia... Time during which you are sitting in the relationship love God, then they can identify the of... 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