Can you? Reflections on embracing true love.

Can you see any further than your own pain and need? Or will you allow that to eclipse deeper more mature understandings?  I am getting very tired lately to listening to ongoing repetitions hurtful experiences being replayed over and over again, of what he said, she said, they did.  Yes it hurt! Yes it felt awful!  Yes it ended up with us alone and betrayed catching our own tear drops in our hands!..But in the end how long can we argue with fate?  There is a life that lives us onwards and sometimes it has no regard at all for what we wanted or needed.

In time we must understand that certain failures may not have been forced in motion by deliberate intent they just occurred, leaving us with a thorn wedged deep inside of us.  How will we heal unless we take the necessary steps to remove that thorn, to allow it to work its way to the surface working our way towards acceptance?

In the end we are the ones who must care for our body and our heart, our soul and our spirit.   We are the ones that must rain loving kindness down on all our scars.  We are the ones who must hold ourselves gently and tenderly when the healing pain becomes intense.  We are the ones who must make the attempt to find a life of meaning, purpose and joy when and where we can in life.  We are the ones whose responsibility it is, to ensure we don’t allow resentment and self pity to poison all of our days. That last sentence is one I thought I would never write, but is now one I believe to be true.

There is a love we can find at the heart of us, its lies in acceptance of even the bitterest events.  Acceptance does not mean we liked nor condoned what happened but that we use it as a part of our becoming and birthing into a person who uses those injuries and turns them towards the good, the good of our souls, the good of this earth and all its creatures, the good of our fellow humans.  When we remain trapped in unforgiveness and resentment we poison many of the days left to us.  Most certainly things that hurt us we should not have to front up for.  We can set good boundaries with those who might cause us harm both intentionally and due to unconsciousness, but with those boundaries we can learn to nourish what is good, true and of most value in our lives and remember each day is a precious gift.   

Today I cried with the recognition of all the ways in later years Mum tried to help and support me.   I was aware of times I pushed against that help due to wounds from my own past I could not quiet accept or forgive and was still, in some way, running from.

I would like to share these beautiful words that I read today in my new book which I bought as a Christmas gift to myself on Christmas Eve, it is titled :  Embracing Each Moment : A Guide to the Awakened Life, by Anam Thubten. These words seemed to encapsulate what I was feeling today in the aftermath of my Mum’s funeral and Christmas.

..true love is not the feeling of oneness, the feeling that we are one with the universe. True love embraces everything; it does not reject anything.  This love that I am speaking about is something we can cultivate.  There are many methodologies to cultivate this love.  There are beautiful songs we can sing.  There are profound verses we can recite.  There are meditations we can practice as a means to cultivate this love.  Sooner or later, we feel that we become this pure love, this objectless love.  Buddha became this objectless love.  He is always love.  So the very quintessence of this living mandala of your self is pure love.  The nature of the river is this beautiful flow, even though it sometimes freezes.  To truly realise that the very quintessence of your being is true love, you may have to have self knowledge, which is the honest and complete understanding of yourself.  It is being aware of your divinity, as well as your limitations.  You already know that you have divinity, and you know that you have courage and love.  You know that you are generous and open hearted.  You also know that sometimes you are able to give of yourself for the well being of others.  It won’t be difficult for you to love your own holiness.  At the same time you have limitations – fear, insecurity, and selfishness.  Once you become aware of these limitations, don’t try to demonise or condemn them.  If you demonise your imperfections, then you may end up being more frozen.

Once you become aware of your coarse neuroses as well as your subtle neuroses, love them.  Love all your neuroses.  Love all your imperfections.  Learn to love your fear and anger as well.  Always be aware of them, and they will dissolve on their own. They will keep dissolving by themselves without any effort.  As times goes by, you become more this melting, living mandala rather than this frozen one.  Your heart is filled with more joy and more love.  You feel more and more connected to this world as a paradise – an imperfect paradise, not a perfect paradise.  In the end, you may love everyone and everything that exists.

Amen to that! Life is never perfect and in the end it has its own agenda, how can we not believe that certain events were given to us for the purpose of awakening, to deeper truths we may never have understood had things turned out a different way.