If I have not love . . .

 

When we awaken in the morning, we make a to-do list and immediately fill ourselves with our ideas, our worries, our concerns, our frustrations, and our angers. We fill ourselves up with the part of ourselves that we strive to let go of on this path. We strive to let go of the small, childish mind that is with us all of the time and the unnecessary emotional terrors that plague us and pull us all over the place. We strive to be peaceful, we strive to be harmonious, but we wake up in the morning and fill ourselves up with ourselves. When we do that, we falter, we really falter. We want the Great Mystery to take us, to be with us and to fill us, but we miss the sign, we miss the signal, we miss the Grace, we miss everything. We miss the breath and we miss the Love because we’re so busy in our own small consciousness, plotting, planning, complaining, devising, manipulating, and worrying.

With all the things that we do, we miss the Great Mystery. We miss how amazing it is to be able to breathe in and to breathe out. I breathe in and I know I’m alive, I breathe out and I give thanks for my life. That is one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever worked with. Thich Nhat Hanh made that prayer. Such a beautiful, simple prayer.

We’re alive and we are taken by the Great Mystery every single day. But we don’t know that we’re taken because we have an agenda that we put in front of the Mystery. And so we miss the It, we miss the Sacred. We don’t know It when It has us right in Its arms, and It has us in Its arms all of the time. But we miss it, we miss it, we miss it. Not because It doesn’t come to us, and not because It isn’t there. It’s always there. It is the one thing that’s always there, that eternal Love. We miss It because we are filled with something else at the moment.

So what is the point? What is the point of your day today? What is the point of your life this week? What is the point? Reflect on your contract with God. What is your contract? What is your purpose? What is your path in this life, so that you can be living a good life and fulfilling, for your own soul, the promises you have made to yourself? This is between you and God.

For me, I know what my point is. I uphold the Absolute. And what is the Absolute? For me the Absolute is the consciousness of God. What is the consciousness of God? Well, the consciousness of God is Love. So I strive—I don’t succeed, I fail everyday—but I strive to uphold the Absolute. I strive to be harmonious.

A couple of things came in this morning. The first one that I want to talk about is the passage from Bible that says If I have not love. (1 Corinthians 13 NIV).

Despite how we think it goes, the Great Mystery is in charge. There was a For Sale sign at the bottom of the driveway less than three weeks ago because Memoria House was going to be sold. Now what’s happening? Now, an infusion of a whole different energy is coming in and everything has changed. So what do we know? We don’t know anything. So we strive to be able to trust Love. What is Love? What is trusting Love? Trusting Love is the consciousness of God, it’s the Great Mystery that’s guiding us everyday.

Sometimes there’s magic in the guidance. Sometimes it’s overwhelmingly fun and wonderful but those things just happen once in a while. They don’t happen constantly. They happen once in a while where we have these really WOW moments that are unmistakable. The rest of the time, it is much more subtle than that. So let’s read this passage together.

 

What is love? 

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

All of those things—the gift of prophecy, being able to fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and having enough faith to move mountains? Those are very, very lofty things. If we give up all of our goods to the poor, that is a really, really beautiful thing. All these things involve faith and generosity and many spiritual qualities, but it’s all nothing if Love is not at the basis of it all.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

We wake up in the morning, and we fill ourselves with ourselves because we’re proud. We’re proud of ourselves, and we seek to fulfill ourselves. And when we seek to fulfill ourselves, we are not going down the path of Love. When we become impatient with life—everyday I become impatient with something, usually little things. But that’s not Love. Love is taking in the breath and knowing that you’re alive and breathing out and giving thanks for your life. Love is slowing everything way down.

So what is the point of everything that we do? If we aren’t harmonious together, then how does that feel? It feels separate; the Heart is not there. There’s no Love. Love is what we know in our hearts. When was the last time you really felt the flower of your heart just bursting open? And I’m not talking about romantic love. I’m talking about Love of life and the connection to life—the beautiful power of love, the Shakti of the Mother.

It keeps no record of wrongs. There is a file box in your head. There is a conversation in your head about whomever or whatever. You carry a briefcase so you can make your case. Right?

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. It perseveres, it never lets go, ever, ever, ever. It never lets go. That’s why we trust Love. And that’s what is meant when we talk about trusting Love. It’s absolutely persevering and persistent. It’s absolute. It’s the only thing that never fails.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 

What really matters?

But where there are prophecies, they will cease. So all the things we read and that are prophesied, will end. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Don’t you already feel that in your life? Nobody cares about all the things that you were so filled with that you thought you knew so much about now that you’re getting older. Don’t you feel that? Everybody in this room is old enough to know that. All that you know is not so much and is not so great, because what comes in behind you? Another whole wave of beings filled with knowledge. And what does knowledge say? “I know best.”

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When you’re on your deathbed, and death is really, really close to you, all those parts don’t matter. All the prophecies, all the knowledge, all the pieces, all the whatever—none of it matters. All that matters at that moment is Love. That’s all. That’s all there is at that point.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. We just spoke about this. We talked about this in terms of the higher self and the lower self. The lower self is the child. The lower self is the one that pulls us around. The higher self is spiritually developed and can exercise consciousness for us and help us to remember, help us to sustain, help us to strive to love at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances, and to drop the childish, petty picking and complaining. All of that dissipates our love, right?

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I would like you to work with this between now and next Sunday and between now and the next retreat. Have it on your altar and read it a few times a day to really reflect on the passages that have come to us this morning.

(May 19, 2013)

Maresha's next blog will be published December 17. 

Messages of Light is published by the Sanctuary of Universal Light on Snow Dragon Mountain in Meredith, New Hampshire. www.snowdragonsanctuary.com.