Introduction - Love with a capital L?

[Consilience]

Hi actualized.org members,

So I’ve been a “lurker” for a while now, but finally decided I’d reach out and engage with the community directly :). There are a lot of interesting and unique perspectives here and low-key I should have joined up sooner. The deeper I’ve gone into this work, the more obvious its significance becomes, but equally, the more obvious its scarcity within society becomes as well. Like, I’m one of the only one in my life I see asking these existential questions that are commonplace around these parts so... It would be cool to finally get involved with like-minded “individuals.”

 

I was hoping you all could give me thoughts or insights you’ve had on the topic of Love with a capital L. What is it? Why would it be present? Does it have anything to do with enlightenment? Often times enlightenment is described as pure “being,” which is achieved by resting in a state of pure “awareness.” So essentially, when we’ve achieved this pure being-ness with our present experience, dropping all beliefs and concepts, we become aware of the nature of our reality, self, etc. By only being our-selves, we are enlightened to the true nature of our selves and reality. Intellectually, however, none of this seems to include or require something like Love to be included into the mix. I can imagine pure awareness being utterly cold, detached, impersonal and observatory without there being any sort of internal feeling of connectedness with the present experience. And in this sense, you are that which is aware, nothing “more” (such as Love) and nothing “less” (such as Hate). How could LOVE be a part of this? If Love were to be found within *being,* it would still be observed via awareness right? (e.g. not YOU because YOU are that which is AWARE) It’s just a strange concept overall, and yet enlightened masters have continually emphasized the point of Love within this spiritual journey. 

 

So yeh… If any of you all have thoughts it would be extremely cool to read them 

Thanks!  

[nex462]

I would be curious to know as well. I heard Leo talking about how happiness is the acceptance of the now from this link: 

This is one of the things he said:

"Happiness is just total acceptance of whatever is happening NOW, no matter how terrible is it. Imagine that someone is sawing off your leg, and you are like, "Okay, cool. So be it. I will enjoy this." << That is true happiness. You don't resist it."

Another person explained being enlightened as this: "When you are connected with the deepest truth within, there is satisfaction, contentment, and happiness that sustains as much as the enlightened state itself. In the early experiences of awakening there can be a fluctuation in feelings as the entirety of the ego has not completely dissolved". 

[Nahm]

@Consilience

Hi & welcome to the forum. 

[nex462]

There is another quote I copied off of from a comment of someone who claims to be enlightened and lives in a constant state of bliss. 

These two quotes from her mirror what Leo says about causing unnecessary mental suffering

"Nothing on earth has the power to destroy me because i have transcended beyond that. There is self preservation but ultimately i have a "so be it" attitude about every single thing."

"The reason it rarely happens is because i approach things that happen from a perspective where being upset as a reaction or response is usually inappropriate or useless."

 

"my third eye opened by accident after a near death experience in childbirth twenty years ago. i came back to my body and tried to continue my life as normal. But that was not possible. Every dark shadow in my heart was brought to the surface. i was forced to battle my inner demons. i wasn't given a choice. i literally had to kill my demons in my dreams and in this way my soul was purified. i walked through the fire but not on purpose. i felt that burning pain of the darkness of my heart burning away. Then entities made contact with me inside my dreams to awaken my consciousness even when asleep. They taught me the physics involved with energy work over many many months. my third eye opened as i began to master skills like astral projection and remote viewing, telepathy and control over elements when awake. one day, i was standing next to my kitchen and suddenly all the light of love in the universe went into me and poured through me. on that day i became a vessel for God's love and a manifestation of love in the world. i went into intense ecstasies, physical ecstasies, indescribable ecstasies. and twenty years later it remains the same. my talents have changed and matured and my focus has changed over time. But, the feeling of bliss and peace and pure ecstasy never leaves me. i fall asleep in ecstasy and i wake up in the morning in ecstasy. its not a state of being i have to will mentally into experiencing. i read no books and had no names or terms for the things i was experiencing. i was very confused at first and felt i must be losing my mind. i didn't tell anyone what was happening to me because i was afraid of the consequences. i was incredibly confused and an unwilling participant in this, at least at first. But now it is my natural state of being. the person i was no longer exists. my ego is unimportant. my Enlightenment is unimportant to anyone including myself other than being aware of who and what i am which is nice and less confusing. and also, only useful in so much as it is helpful to other human beings. There is no power trip here and i rarely tell anyone im enlightened because why should they believe me. what difference is there for anyone to know that about me. But, there are times i wish people were not so blind to the obvious because i would be willing to help if they asked but then again even that doesnt matter because everyone is where they are supposed to be in life, on their own path with their own experiences and their own level of spiritual growth.
The more spiritually advanced you become the more you realize how little it matters where someone is on the path in comparison to yourself. They will get there in their own time and on their own terms. and thats how its supposed to be. its a really bad idea to assume for anyone else what their experience of enlightenment is. You dont get a cookie or gold sticker for having it. it wont raise your social position in the world. You wont be taken more seriously. instead what it does is offer you a permanent sense of well being and a permanent state of bliss and happiness. well, thats nothing to sneeze at i promise. im extremely blessed in life and i know that. and when i say permanent i do not mean i do not have feelings sometimes, even strong ones, even sad ones or angry ones. But, negative things that happen dont affect my emotional or spiritual wellbeing the way they do most people. Even physical pain is somewhat numbed. You learn to control that also. Nothing on earth has the power to destroy me because i have transcended beyond that. There is self preservation but ultimately i have a "so be it" attitude about every single thing. when i say permanent i do not mean 24/7. i just mean "mostly all the time." what i mean is ecstasy, Love and complete peace is my natural state of being. i may deviate a little bit here and there but i always return to that state. and its not an effort or prayer or meditation. i was permanently transformed and changed through Enlightenment. ive experienced loss of loved ones since then and i did cry for my loved ones but even in my tears i was in ecstasy. After awhile you get so used to it that it becomes the new normal. The only time i ever notice it now is when its temporarily taken away if i am upset by something in the moment, which very rarely happens. The reason it rarely happens is because i approach things that happen from a perspective where being upset as a reaction or response is usually inappropriate or useless.
Everyone seems to have an opinion of what it means to be Enlightened but please know if you are Enlightened you would know it without any question because it would be impossible to escape even if you wanted to. But why would you want to. infact, why would you want for anything at all. There is a downside to all this in my experience. its hard to keep your feet on the ground because you exist in more than one world at the same time. i have to do things sometimes to ground myself inside my body and this plane of physical existance. a cool night breeze off the balcony is useful for sobering up an enlightened one. i have to pay extra close attention when i do activities that include physical risk of some kind. left to my own devices i probably wouldnt notice or care if i didnt take extra precautions to protect my physical body. Functioning in society can be problematic. You kind of want to sit there and do nothing except BE. i make a point to keep myself in check and make sure im not being too flaky. i function alright but its deliberate and before i was Enlightened it wasnt an effort to care about my physical wellbeing or surroundings. i dont know if any of that makes sense. ive tried to convey my own experience in a way that i hope you might be able to understand. There is alot im not saying but its not anything you yourself dont have access to knowing if you inquired and did some reading on it. in closing, i just want to assure people Enlightenment is a real thing. its not a made up fairytale or a matter of perspective. i do believe its worth aspiring to, though i never intentionally perused it for myself. if you want to know how i became enlightened i will share but i dont know how many ways there are to have that change occur inside you permanently. For myself, it was the trauma of several years of absolute misery and emotional pain in childhood, the near death experience during childbirth, inherent psychic sensitivity that laid dormant before that time, also a general sensitivity to my own body and energy and emotions as well as other people and environment and animals and even inanimate objects."
 

Edited September 13, 2018 by nex462

[Leo Gura]

Love is a facet of the Absolute.

This makes no sense from the materialist paradigm. You have to stop thinking of reality as a dumb physical mechanical object. Instead, think of reality as a Giant Mind, and minds can love.

I'll make a video about it in the future.

[Joseph Maynor]

Love is all part of the illusion of Maya.  I think the highest form of love is compassion which comes from seeing the self in the other.  When you can see the self in the other, that enables compassion.  When you see the other as different than you, that’s what enables lack of compassion.  You would never want lack of compassion to be directed towards your self.  So lack of compassion is caused by an ‘othering’ of reality — there’s a ‘not me’ quality to lack of compassion.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Nahm]

 

3 hours ago, Consilience said:

Why would it be present?

If Love’s infinite, omnipresent, then thinking won’t do. You’d have to become directly aware of it. You’d have to go within, like a drop seeing ocean.    Excellent name btw!

[iamme]

Everybody knows what Love is. The winning question is how one can be it. Some say fake it till you make it and let it take care of the rest. That's good advice but don't beat yourself up if you can't sustain it. Even better advice is to not focus just on love while ignoring your demons, but let it aid whatever practices resonate with you. The goal being to rid yourself of all your false conscious and subconscious beliefs. 

[Joseph Maynor]

35 minutes ago, iamme said:

Everybody knows what Love is. The winning question is how one can be it. Some say fake it till you make it and let it take care of the rest. That's good advice but don't beat yourself up if you can't sustain it. Even better advice is to not focus just on love while ignoring your demons, but let it aid whatever practices resonate with you. The goal being to rid yourself of all your false conscious and subconscious beliefs. 

Faking it until you make it can cause suffering because that’s Ego.  Love can be a very Egoic thing paradoxically.  If your compassion isn’t Metaphysically grounded, it could actually backfire and cause you a lot of suffering.  Think of Stage Green as a great example of this.  Stage Turquoise falls victim to ungrounded compassion as well.  Ungrounded compassion is you getting lost in Egoic distraction.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

Maybe this shines some light on the topic!

[here-now]

Some lovely videos on Love:

1. A Rumi poem set to a harp version of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters"  :

 

and 2. a Rupert Spira video (starting at 5:00):

[yawning_]

welcome fellow long-time-lurker!

 

love is love itself

 

allow it to be more than just a conception, its depths cannot be fragmented into knowing...

 

far too often we seek to make categorizations in the mind, instead of allowing things to be and reveling in experiencing

 

gratitude, love, peace, and even understanding can all be just expressions (or categorizations) of the mind/ego if we limit them to that -

make no judgment!

 

contemplate what is love, listen and observe without defining and this will lend to deeper insight

 

 

n̪͓͚̪̙̯̻̟̙̖̲̜̱̪͕̬͔̪ͥ̅̌̌̑̈̚̚ͅa̬̬̲̭͔̲̤͚͈̤̮ͯ͛ͮ͊̂̉̏̾̄ͩ̓͒̈́̂̈̀m̦̞͙̻̜̞͙̗͎̤̆ͤͤ͂͗ͨ͛͗͐ͩ̀ͣ̀ͪ̂a̻̞̪̫̮͚͎͖͈̠͔͖̺͗͋ͨ͋̍̉̾s͚͎̱̼͙̲̲̳̟͎͕̍͐̂ͤ̌ͧ̆t͍̤̱̻ͦͪ̌̍̉ͯ͋ͬͭ̂͗e̤̖̮͕͎̠͍̖̩͈͔͓̲̲̫̻͓̼̓ͧͯ̈͗̽̉ͧͧ̾̍ͭͥͤͤ̍ͮ̃̔

 

- yawning gap

[Consilience]

17 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Consilience

Hi & welcome to the forum. 

Hi thank you

15 hours ago, Nahm said:

 

If Love’s infinite, omnipresent, then thinking won’t do. You’d have to become directly aware of it. You’d have to go within, like a drop seeing ocean.    Excellent name btw!

This is true. Having an intellectual understanding of enlightenment is initially what got me on board with all of this, but I simultaneously recognize that this is a beast outside of the intellect haha. I see what you mean though.

Also thank you pt 2!  

[Consilience]

@nex462

Thank you for the thorough reply. There's a lot in what you posted to process, but I really appreciated the "so be it" component... In that way, if one were to become so fucking accepting of everything, I could imagine how love would be allowed to flourish unobstructed. 

[Consilience]

16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Love is a facet of the Absolute.

This makes no sense from the materialist paradigm. You have to stop thinking of reality as a dumb physical mechanical object. Instead, think of reality as a Giant Mind, and minds can love.

I'll make a video about it in the future.

I agree, a materialists paradigm wouldn't make sense in this context. Thankfully, I'm not a materialist. I was actually anti-materialism before I knew about enlightenment just because their arguments didn't make any sense to me (obviously they still don't). I think this comes down to me simply not having enough 1st hand experience with the "absolute" and non-duality... 

I'm glad you'll make a video about it

[Consilience]

16 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Love is all part of the illusion of Maya.  I think the highest form of love is compassion which comes from seeing the self in the other.  When you can see the self in the other, that enables compassion.  When you see the other as different than you, that’s what enables lack of compassion.  You would never want lack of compassion to be directed towards your self.  So lack of compassion is caused by an ‘othering’ of reality — there’s a ‘not me’ quality to lack of compassion.

 

15 hours ago, iamme said:

Everybody knows what Love is. The winning question is how one can be it. Some say fake it till you make it and let it take care of the rest. That's good advice but don't beat yourself up if you can't sustain it. Even better advice is to not focus just on love while ignoring your demons, but let it aid whatever practices resonate with you. The goal being to rid yourself of all your false conscious and subconscious beliefs. 

 

15 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Faking it until you make it can cause suffering because that’s Ego.  Love can be a very Egoic thing paradoxically.  If your compassion isn’t Metaphysically grounded, it could actually backfire and cause you a lot of suffering.  Think of Stage Green as a great example of this.  Stage Turquoise falls victim to ungrounded compassion as well.  Ungrounded compassion is you getting lost in Egoic distraction.

This is a lot to process haha. I agree though that faking it until you make it seems like a dangerous foundation to lay... But yeah, becoming too center minded on love would be counter productive too considering the "goal" is to rid oneself of false beliefs. 

An interesting delineation between compassion and love. I'll have to think more on that topic mayne, but thank you Maynor based Joseph and also iamme 

[Consilience]

14 hours ago, Juan Cruz Giusto said:

Maybe this shines some light on the topic!

The fact that Ralston is struggling to communicate this topic here is interesting. It's just more evidence for the fact that whatever component of enlightenment is made of Love/Compassion is going to fundamentally be experiential rather than something language or mind may communicate

[Consilience]

@here-now Super helpful! Especially that Spira video  

[Consilience]

7 hours ago, yawning_ said:

welcome fellow long-time-lurker!

 

love is love itself

 

allow it to be more than just a conception, its depths cannot be fragmented into knowing...

 

far too often we seek to make categorizations in the mind, instead of allowing things to be and reveling in experiencing

 

gratitude, love, peace, and even understanding can all be just expressions (or categorizations) of the mind/ego if we limit them to that -

make no judgment!

 

contemplate what is love, listen and observe without defining and this will lend to deeper insight

 

 

n̪͓͚̪̙̯̻̟̙̖̲̜̱̪͕̬͔̪ͥ̅̌̌̑̈̚̚ͅa̬̬̲̭͔̲̤͚͈̤̮ͯ͛ͮ͊̂̉̏̾̄ͩ̓͒̈́̂̈̀m̦̞͙̻̜̞͙̗͎̤̆ͤͤ͂͗ͨ͛͗͐ͩ̀ͣ̀ͪ̂a̻̞̪̫̮͚͎͖͈̠͔͖̺͗͋ͨ͋̍̉̾s͚͎̱̼͙̲̲̳̟͎͕̍͐̂ͤ̌ͧ̆t͍̤̱̻ͦͪ̌̍̉ͯ͋ͬͭ̂͗e̤̖̮͕͎̠͍̖̩͈͔͓̲̲̫̻͓̼̓ͧͯ̈͗̽̉ͧͧ̾̍ͭͥͤͤ̍ͮ̃̔

 

- yawning gap

Thank you for your words... I shall contemplate dis 

[Nahm]

@Consilience

Great attitude & perspective for enlightenment work imo.