The Law of Love

The Law of Love ihe current of love, intimacy and intense vulnerability that runs in and through those who have gathered around me over time has attracted many, but has also repelled others. That is because I have never been able to divorce the experience of love from its absolute demand. The extraordinary revelation of true love is over- whelming in its depth. When the floodgates have opened, it completely unhinges the lover temporarily from all points of reference—past, present or future. In that vast expanse there is only love, and in that love only perfect goodness. The power of this kind of revelation is usually like an earthquake that literally shakes to pieces all previ- ously held assumptions about the nature of reality and the meaning of existence. In its wake is left a heart that has been opened so painfully wide that it has eclipsed all fear and has annihilated all doubt. Wounded by absolute love, the lover now knows the truth. In light of that knowledge, the lover has to answer the question: are they willing and The Law of Love able [o live up \o loves demands? Arc they willing and able to be an undivided expression of ihai hnc in a world that is chanutcrized by fear, doubt and division! The uncondilional demand of love is to be il, and in order to be it we have to be willing to come out from any and all hiding places in time and in history, from all that is false, wrong and unirue. We have to be willing to stand alone— in that as that. At the end of my own first experience of profound revelation at the age of sixteen came the following message from the unknown: "If you surrender your life to me and me alone, you will have nothing to fear." It was clear at that moment that if I chose to do otherwise, 1 would indeed have a lot to fear. Fifteen years later, several weeks after I had met my last teacher, 1 woke up early one morning and without a trace of premeditation heard myself utter the words out loud: "My life is yours, do with me what you will." 1 saw before me a vast whirlpool that was life itself and into which 1 allowed myself to be consumed. At that moment, 1 knew my life would no longer be my own, for it was then that 1 abandoned my future, and in that all hope and all fear. From thai moment on, there has been nothing left to do. True love and the absolute freedom thai il brings demands everything from us. As long as we wani [o have anything for ourselves, even freedom ilsell, we will not lincl true emancipation in ihis life. True loxe deniaiuls e\ery- ihing, and liberation, which is its reward, can on\\ he cuirs when we are willing to sacrifice even ihal. A)] { 'ihondmoudl Relationship to Life "Thy will be done" is the war cry "I surrender!" of the true seeker who has now become a finder. Only love, only love, only love. Only that, only that, only that. Not my will, but thy will be done. What has always intrigued me is how many people appear to be interested in the experience of love while they so often seem mysteriously able to avoid its implica- tions. This is part of the reason why, 1 think, in recent years so many have been able to spend a significant amount of time in the company of powerful spiritual teachers, attracted to and absorbed in the experience of love, without that experience necessarily having a deeper impact than one of feeling better. Many have been drawn to me initially because of the experience of love that they have felt in my presence. And while the majority may be more than satisfied with that, for me it has never been enough. I have never been able to allow those who have come to me to settle merely for the experience of feeling better. While bliss indeed may temporarily create the illusion that all is well, in most cases underneath that bliss still lies the demon of igno- rance, ready to strike as soon as the bliss fades or when the ego is challenged once again. If the experience of love and bliss is not merely a super- ficial event, then in that experience must be the revelation of the emptiness of a separate or personal self. That means. The Law of Love therefore, that ideally bliss becomes not the possession or mere object of fascination for the ego, hut that ocean of being within which the ego loses its balance and all points of reference. When all points of reference have truly been lost, then there is only that and nothing else. It is because the demand to drown and truly lose oneself in that ocean for eternity is not made often enough that so many seekers end up satisfied with being mere voyeurs of their own Self, rather than living expressions of it. Because the attachment to the ego and the world of becoming is so strong, most seekers feel deeply threatened by the possibil- ity of drowning forever. The course of my life as a teacher has been defined by my continuous insistence that the experience of love and bliss is meaningless when it is not supported by a life lived with true integrity. Integrity, in a life based on the pursuit of freedom, is the unconditional willingness to renounce all that has been discovered to be false, wrong and untrue. Ironically, it is because of this that I have been the object of much controversy. In retrospect, I can see now that even from early on this was my message, implicitly if not directly. Little did I know that this would often pose what appeared to be an almost overwhelming challenge for many. The integrity, or lack of it, in the manner in which one lixcd one's life became an issue of fundamental importance lor liiosc who gathered An Vmomlinonal Relationship lo Life around me from the very beginning. In fact, for those who became one with me in spirit, it soon was expected that integrity or pure-hearted motivation be the expression of one's response to the experience of love and bhss. It was precisely this that simultaneously attracted some and repelled others. The call was absolute, and the response ultimately had to be also for the circle to remain unbroken. The very substance of that circle was love. In that circle there was no division and no difference. But if true love was the very substance of that circle then any and all obstacles to that love had to be given up, because true love demands the renunciation of all that is false, wrong and untrue— if one is going to be able to truly dissolve into it. Such is the law of love. It is only through allowing the law of love to become manifest as ourselves that the profound evolu- tionary leap can occur in which Love and Truth can finally become indistinguishable. This is the whole point of spiritual life. ThcLawofUivc