Love: Energy Practice, Part 8

Inner Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

Inner Work

For the week of September 1, 2014

Love

The dissolution of our inner barriers opens us to love. And we all have true moments of love. The question for our spiritual practice is how we can enter love as our normal state of being. Toward that, the practice of love addresses both our defensive barriers and the reality of love.

First, the barriers. Foremost among them is our self-centered egoism. The base nature of egoism is to create a false distinction between self and other. Ego is an assumption that I am here, while everything and everyone else is out there, separate from me. Ego builds a wall and claims that it, that we, exist inside that wall. True seeing, though, reveals that it is just a wall with nothing substantial inside. Indeed, the wall itself is ephemeral, built as it is out of our thoughts of who we are, out of our patterns, our history, our hopes and dreams, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Even the thought I is part of this illusion, for it is just another thought, one that refers to what we assume is inside the wall. But there is nothing inside that wall. Nevertheless, the illusion masks a reality: we have a real I, our individuality, but it does not depend on the wall of ego, and has an unbounded nature. When we think of ourselves, we think of our ego and its patterns. So we end up looking in the wrong place for who we are.

The wall of ego is a pattern of energies. When those energies, when our mind, begins to quiet down, the assumed existence of our ego and its flimsy nature stand out in relief. When our mind fully quiets down, that assumption, that ego of ours, evaporates, at least temporarily. This begins for us when we enter the peace of the conscious energy. When our thoughts and emotions settle down, we enter a greater wholeness, one that transcends us, transcends our ego, which for those moments has receded into its true state of non-existence. That wholeness includes all things, all life, all people. All the differences are seen as surface phenomena. Underneath is the unity: not the unity of interconnected parts, but the unity in which each part is the whole. All the fundamental boundaries we believed in are not actually there. The boundaries are superficial and evaporate to reveal our unity.

There are levels to the unity. At the level of the conscious energy, we are unified within ourselves and we are individuals sharing in the one seamless field of consciousness. We all partake of the same consciousness. At the level of the Sacred Light, our dual nature comes forward. Here we are individuals and at the same time we all serve the Sacred and are transparent to the One Will. At the level of Love, the unity is complete. We are one. No longer is it me seeing you. No longer is it you seeing me. No longer is it the two of us. It is just us, just seeing. That way of being, that way of seeing, is Love.

The energy of sensation puts us in contact with our senses. The energy of consciousness puts us in contact with awareness itself. Living in that cognizant stillness, we spend less energy maintaining and defending our illusory ego. The energy of the Sacred Light puts us in contact with the unimaginable joy and perfection emanating from the Source of All. And the energy of Love ushers us beyond our boundaries into the fundamental unity of all

Inner peace allows our ego to subside. The Sacred opens our heart. And Love awakens our natural humility. Not only are we not better or worse than others, and not only are we not different, we are not even separate.

For this week, seek Love and let Love find you.

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