What is the true meaning of love? In my opinion love may be the most misused term of language.
When I write I try not to use love in the egoic sense because love is naturally present when you are present. Your presence is the presence of love in this world. The light of consciousness is the light of one. Love is what naturally arises out of the space of presence when the other is no longer seen as "the other".
When that separation that comes from being identified with thought, that sense of separation between you and "the other" being trapped in a form, identifying with the form, then you cannot recognize the other as one with yourself. When you cannot recognize the other as deeply, as deep down as one with yourself, you can no longer see the sense of oneness. All you see is the otherness which is the egoic state. All you see in other humans is otherness and that's not a pleasant reality. When we look at people with judgement, it is the ego speaking. So when you are identified with form you see only another form.
There is no realization of connectedness or the realization you are an expression of the same ONE life, the same ONE consciousness in another temporary form. You don't know it because all you see is the other. The more deeply you are identified with the form the more suffering there is. If there is such a thing as "evil" as an abstract thing, you could say it is complete identification with form. That is no more than the complete absence of the realization of oneness.
There are many humans who are identified with form, but not totally. There is a slight awareness and sensing of oneness. They can sometimes selflessly help someone, feel the persons suffering, and have empathy with another human being.
Love is simply of course the realization that there is no other. Love arises out of the recognition of one. Really, love is the realization of one-we are one ultimately. You cannot do that when you meet another human being through thought because thought separates,divides, and classifies.
This entire post is about the arising of a state of consciousness, the only state of consciousness in which love becomes possible as a natural and an integral part of that state of consciousness. Love comes out of spaciousness. When you realize you are not the form, but the formless one life. Everything else is also not the form, merely a temporary appearance-it's only the formless one life. Looking at yourself-that's love. Meeting the other as yourself. The internal self.
Compassion is really inseparable to love because compassion is also the relization of oneness. It is just a different aspect of it. Love and compassion are one. Compassion does not mean you suffer with the other person. True compassion arises from that relization of oneness. Then you are faced with a suffering human being so you bring in the empathy with the suffering of this form because you yourself are a form and has experienced what suffering is. So you have empathy with the suffering of the other life forms because you have known suffering and maybe still know it from time to time.
That is you as the form and then you are in touch with a stillness in yourself, presence. In presence of course there is no suffering. You bring that into this encounter with another human being. The two come together, the empathy or suffering that come from the other human being and allowing that to be. The deeper realization of the oneness of all life and ultimately who they are in the depths of their being cannot be touched by the suffering. Perhaps it is the suffering that will actually get them there.
There's no wanting in love. The misuse of love is because the ego uses the word and to the ego love is a kind of wanting. You look with love, gentleness, and compassion upon the world. When you overuse the word, it's meaning becomes reduced. It is so much deeper than that. It is so overused in the superficial senses. Love is the essence of our being here and now.
Wishing you all love and happiness 馃挅
Love,
Kristan