All we need is love

December 28, 2009

“I don’t care about people” I realized a while ago. we were walking dogs at night, my husband and I. We talked about something relationship-related. There was trouble in our relationship for a while, we talked a lot about it, and I was pondering and considering. And I realized that I don’t care about people. I do care about them with my mind, I am interested in their affairs, I like talking about what happens in their life, having conversations about them … but I don’t care with my heart. I don’t open and allow myself to be with people, I realized. I don’t allow the space, the connection, where there is no “me”. I don’t allow my mind to go away and simply be with another human, as fully and completely as I am with myself or with trees. Be present with them, feel with them, sense with them, relate with them. “I” am always in the relationship. There is always “me” that observes, calculates, thinks, decides, acts … there never is a simple experience of another person. Well, maybe not never, but very, very rarely. And so I decided to “practice” on my husband. I thought that it would be a good way to learn to allow myself to open to being with people, relate with people. I decided to be with my husband without putting myself in the way. To experience him. After few hours, after a day, the feeling begun to emerge, very slowly but unmistakably, the feeling of an absolute contentment. A feeling of being whole, complete in a very normal, very ordinary way. A feeling of being perfectly happy, perfectly at peace with my life, perfectly satisfied with myself, even though “myself” was not there. “I” was gone, fear was gone, need was gone. My husband seemed to enjoy the results of my experiment, of my letting go of me, and I … I was perfect. I was complete, whole … perfect … once I let go of “myself”, as my mind would have it. I heard the “All you need is love” song on a radio today and thought that it is true. All we need is love, but not the sort of love that we are used to. Not the love that provides support, safety, care, admiration, company. Not the love that fulfills needs, that solves problems, that remedies loneliness. Not the love that fills holes and gives what is missing. All we need is love that is present when we are with another so fully and completely, that there is nothing but the experience of them. There is no thinking, no wanting, no needing, but simply relating, simply being. All we need is love that is a complete opening, that is in the space where mind is gone. In this love, in this space, where there is no mind, where there is no needs, wants or lack, we are truly ourselves. In this love, in this space, there is no fear, no need to fight or defend, no need to do anything at all. In this love, in this space, we can relate with everyone, with everything – humans, animals, plants, trees, rivers and rocks. In this love, in this space, we are who we are, and so is everyone and everything we relate with. Last night I walked down the street by my house. The moon is half full now and the black trees stand out distinctly against the luminous night sky. I stopped by a tall eucalyptus tree for a moment. I stood looking, opening, feeling, and then I sung. It came to me that I could hold a certain sound, a certain note, that the tree would respond to. We could talk to each other. I opened my mouth and the sound came out and the tree responded. I could feel the tree’s awareness so much clearer, so much stronger. I could feel the tree relating with me as I spoke to it with the sound I made. There was nothing there but the sound, and the feelings it carried, and the presence and experience of another life, of another awareness, of another being. Presence growing stronger and more distinct. I was not there, I only experienced, as I was experienced. Have you seen the movie “Avatar” yet? Do you think that we need fiber optics cables that blend with trees and animals to be able to be with them, relate with them, communicate with them? Or to communicate, to be, to relate with each other? Well, think again.  All we need is love.

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