Status, money , a big house, all become in some way a reflection on
“me.” We also do this with other people. To be attached to someone young
and good lookin g becomes an important part of “me” if I feel I lack those
qualities. Any lack we feel can be filled in this way, by projection, but as
soon as the connection is broken, projection fails. “When romantic  love is at its height,” I told Jeanne, “it’s only natural to
want to sustain it. Romance is selfish, in that you become absorbed in yourfeelings. When you fell in love with Alan, his attractiveness—or yours—
had nothing to do with the inner experience. Delight in another person, the
feeling that you have met a perfect being, is only a reflection of what you
have suddenly remembered in yourself.”
“But there are beautiful people,” Jeanne said. “Are there peop le who are not?”  I asked. “Setting certain peopl e aside as
beautiful is simply image-making, which actually obscures the larger truth
that, in the eyes of spirit, no one is excluded from the highest state of
perfection. How do you feel when you look at an extremely attractive
person?”
“More than one thing,” replied Jeanne. “If he was mine, I’d feel proud,
but there’ s also a good deal of insecurity involved—that’ s no secret now .”
“The whole strategy of being beautiful by proxy can never work ,” I said. “Not only are you living vicariously , which is always fragile at best, but you
are not coming from a place of love. Using another person isn’t loving; it’s
treating that person like an object. Objects always wear out, or the joy we
take in them fades. More important, using someone as an object forces you
to miss his value as a human being.”
I asked Jeanne to examine what this incident said about her. She might
begin with this lesson: You are only as attractive as you feel you deserve to
be. Deservedness is the deep issue that beauty hides. Someone who is
deserving can be open to love in all its spiritual significance; someone who
is not will be limited to love that includes fear , since what you don’ t deserve
can always be taken from you. “This issue of what you deserve arouses insecurity ,” I said, “only if you
put it in isolated terms. Spiritually , we are all totally deserving because we
are all whole. If your being includes everything, how can you deserve one
thing less than another? This sense of completeness isn’t materia l. It doesn’ t
consist of being absolutely beautiful, infinitely rich, or impeccably virtuous. The miracle of love is that you can be imperfect and still be completely
whole.”
This last point isn’ t easy to grasp. But if you consider how a mother loves
her child , it is immediately obvious that the imperfections of the child do
not coun t in her eyes. This isn’t blindness but the vision of love. Love is
extremely sensit ive to weaknesses. It responds by wanting to support and
lend strength in any way possi ble. But there is no judgment in it againstweakness or defect. A mother helping her toddler to walk isn’t thinking, “If
you were compe tent, you’d be walking on your own by now.” She accepts
that growth moves by stages and takes it as her joy to nurture each stage. The question is, how can she do this for herself? Jeanne could have just let her anxiety in this one instance pass—that was
always an option—but the beginning of wisdom would be to take this
opportunity to learn how to reconsider her insecurity . Every time she thinks,
“I’m too old,” she should follow  it with “That doubt isn’t me.” Every time
she thinks, “Ala n is too young for me,” she should follow it with “That
insecurity isn’t me.” Every time she thinks, “Another woman is interested
in my husband,” she should follow it with “That suspicion isn’t me.”
Bringing the issue home to herself instead of projecting it onto an external
object will make  it easier to face her responsibility for creating all her false
beliefs. “Situations mirror beliefs,” I told her. “Removing other people from the
picture and bringing every moment of self-doubt back to its real source is
the best way to stay focused on the truth.”
Having found the truth, Jeanne can begin the inner work of solving her
concealed issue s. Being an “older woman” has never been entirely
comfortable for her, and living in proximity to Alan’ s nonchalance about
their age difference hasn’ t really helped. “You should make it clear to
Alan,” I said, “that you need reassurance. He is the right person to ask for
this, not your best friend.”
Clearly Jeanne desperately wants her husband to say “I love you” at
times, yet she forces herself not to ask. She therefore pushes herself further
into self-doubt, by forbidding herself to ask for what she wants. This self-
denial is a resul t of shame, an emotion closely connected to deservedness. “You need to realize that askin g to be loved is not only not shameful,” I
said, “it’s exactly what one shou ld do to get love. Shame tells us that love is
a small,  preciou s commodity that we have to beg for, like Oliver Twist
begging for another bowl of soup. But love is abundant, and asking for it
only reflects that you already perceive it to be yours.”
Whenever Alan  says that he loves her, Jeanne also needs to trust his
assurance, and if this proves difficult, she should resist the temptation to ask
for more reassurance on the spot—it will be more productive to work on
how she can learn to trust.Here the story comes to a parting between psychology and spirituality . In
psychological terms Jeanne’ s lack of self-worth is bound up in dark
memories from her past. As a small girl she was imprinted with experiences
that told her she wasn’ t good enough—we all have similarly painful
memories. Years later these were transferred to looks, age, and sexual
desirability . Jeanne would never accept herself as long as she was attracted
to men who she believed were more desirable than she, because any
comparison would put her in the shade. Being with Alan was a “solution”
born out of past conditioning that had to fall away . Having gotten this far in her analysis, I told Jeanne that she could open
the trapdoor under which many secret hurts and shadowy fears lurk. Confionting secret shame and guilt is a valid psychological approach to her
sort of problem . The unanswered question, however , is whether it is
possible to release every demo n and doubt, every painful memory and
negative energy. Few who have attempted such a massive under taking have
succeeded without the aid of spirit. “I think it’s a good idea for you to work through personal issues,” I told
Jeanne, “but a lasting solution to whether you are deserving or not will only
come spiritually . Here’ s something useful to write down as a reminder:
“Spirit is always with me. It wants to lift my pain. It does this not by
abolishing painful memories but by putting me totally in the present, wher e
the past doesn’ t exist. “The spiritual answer to any problem is immediate,” I said. “It’s our own
perception that is slow to catch on. God’ s ability to love us is limited only
by our ability to receive that love here and now. Since our loved ones
represent manife sted portions of God in our lives, the same could be said
for them . To receive God’ s love we need only increase our abilit y to receive
the love being reflected back in our intimate relationships.”
As for many people, what really lay at the heart of Jeanne’ s difficulties
was a tendency to pre-reject herself. Instead of assuming that she must be
imperfect, she could start noticing how her husband really feels. In my
experience, if you are getting stuck in negativity , you’re likely to assume
that other people feel the same way about you, and mostly that’s not true. People who really love you keep on loving you, even when you’re not
loving yourself.At an unconscious level Jeanne’ s pre-rejection of herself has kept her on
the lookout for the slightest reason that someone else should also reject her. The more accepting others are, the more she believes she has to be vigilant. The hidden belief here is that the more loving her husband is, the smaller
the slip needed to destroy that love. In reality , love doesn’ t work this way. Alan’ s deepenin g love for his wife would make him accept and forgive
more and more of what she sees as unworthy in herself. Thus the spiritual
truth is validated: the love you get is limited only by your ability to receive
it. “It’s amazingly easy to shut someone else down,” I said. “Without
thinking about it we let pass countless occasions during the day when love
makes a tentative appearance—in other words, we turn our backs on spirit. Your beloved may start to say something nice or give you an affectionate
touch or ask how you are feelin g. Notice how often this seed isn’t allowed
to grow , how quickly you simply cut the gesture of f or take it for granted. In
this way you limit the love you are receiving, rather than nurturing its faint
beginnings.”
“But I want Alan to love me,” Jeanne said. “Why would I cut off the very
thing I want?”
“Because negati vity inside says no when love is offered. Look at your
body language as well as your words, for you don’t have to say the word no
to shut Alan down. Do you detect a tendency to shrug, contract, bow your
head, or turn away when he tries to be loving? Keep the follow ing thought
in mind for similar situations:
Being shown a gestur e of love is like being offer ed a portion of God. “Look into the eyes of your beloved and learn to believe that love is
really there. The ego, with all its fears and self-interests, blocks your ability
to perceive the portion of God that your beloved is offering you. Eventually
your expectations become self-f ulfilling; the more you shut down gestures
of love, the less motivated your beloved will be to make them. “It isn’t easy to stop sending these automatic turnof f signals, but you can
take the first step by refusing to believe that no when someone else sees you
as lovable. Once you stop shutt ing love down, it will become easier to let
no be replaced by yes. This change shouldn’ t be forced. Allow Alan to payattention to you as much as he wants, without manipulation or rejection. Start talking more about love in general with all those who are loving
toward you—they will enjoy this topic more than you realize.”
We were near the end of our time together , but Jeanne was a different
person from the woman who had walked in—she had the look of someone
much happier with herself. In parting I said, “When you find a genuinely
loving person, as you have, you will see that you are in his heart not
because you look a certain way or act a certain way, but because he is
following his own nature—loving others is just the easiest way he knows
how to be. Whe n you realize this, the whole problem of not deserving is
exposed for the illusion it really is.”
INFATUA TION
When attraction  reaches its peak, the phase known as infatuation begins. It
is the most delirious stage of love—immortalized by Romeo and Juliet,
Cyrano de Bergerac, and a thousand screen lovers—but it is also the most
controversial. It is a time of extravagant emotions and wild optimism. Awareness of boundaries and limitations collapses, replaced by impossible
idealism, at least as seen by an outside observer . To her family Juliet was
not the sun or the moon, and Romeo’ s obsession with her was a danger to a
young girl’ s virtue and safety . But outside standards matter not at all in this phase. Infatuated lovers
dwell so single-mindedly on their intoxicated emotions that they can hardly
eat or sleep, their work becomes only a distraction from their consuming
love. Infatuation may be so extreme because it is a release from the loveless
constriction we call normal. In spiritual terms, being infatuated means
seeing another person as God, a divine being to be worshiped. In ancient
India, to truly see the divine and be bathed in its radiance was called Bhakti ,
or devotion. From the devotional hymns of the Rig Veda, the oldest record
of human worship, to. the present, bhakti has been far and away the most
popular means of approaching  God. Religious worship, in the form of
prayers, offering s, and celebrations, is an all-consuming affair for a true
bhakta, who asks nothing more than to be intoxicated by the Lord.In the Old Testament, when the poet of the Song of Solomon rhapsodizes
about his love for God, his words gush as romantically as if he were
swooning over a woman:
You split me, tore my heart
open, filled me with love. You poured your spirit into me;
I knew you as I know myself. The parallel between a lover ’s intoxication and a saint’ s is impossible to
miss. It is in this phase of infatuation that lovers say they worship each
other . “I am in love with loving,” St. Augustine declares, echoing the
passions of a million secular lovers. What makes romantic love seem so religious is this sense of merging. The pouring of one spirit into another produces a ravishing ecstasy at its
most intense. Perhaps no word is more recurrent during the delirium of
infatuation than new. The release from old boundaries is like a birth that
makes all things new . The source of this newness is not a new person, however , but a shift in
perception. The sensation of merging with another person comes about in
the brain. To date we have no biochemical explanation for the suddenness
and strength of this shift, although researchers have found that
neuropeptides associated with intense pleasure, in particular serotonin, are
elevated in lovers. Enhanced immune response in lovers is also well known
to medical researchers. Yet the scientific paradigm is hardly able to account
for the way romantic love can abolish the walls of separation that define the
self. There is an irreversible trend from early infancy to create a stronger
and stronger distinction between  entities called “me” and “you.” Normally
we don’t think of the natural separation between “me” and “you” as a
source of suffering. Yet no agony is worse for the bhakta, or devotee, than
to be away from God. In romance too the release from separation is so
liberating that it has the power of a religious illumination. This is not to say that everyone who falls in love falls this hard. Sometimes attraction builds slow ly, and other times the infatuation may be
one-sided. When the object of love doesn’ t respond, infatuation becomes a
self-centered preoccupation with fantasy . Spiritual masters have declared,
however , that even when love is returned one is truly inspired by one’s ownhigher Self. The reason that the word Self is more  appropr iate than the word
soul is that it accen tuates how love’ s journey is totally contained  within
one’s own being. The insights of this phase center on the ecstatic mer ging of self and Self:
Merging with another person is illusion; mer ging with the Self is supr eme r eality . If infatuation is madness, sanity pales beside it. The infatuated vision of lovers is like the holy vision of saints. BETWEEN  TWO WORLDS
Curiously , falling in love has a poor reputation among psycholo gists, going
back to Freud, who fiercely ridiculed the spiritual meaning of romance. He
viewed it as a primitive regression—his term for any retreat from adult self-
control to infantile instincts and drives. Regression had previously been
exalted as sacred, at least in literary circles. The greatest of English
Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, articulated a common belief that
childhood is the holiest time of life. Wordsworth describes a divinely
inspired conditi on of infancy , when we are still bathed in light from the
celestial world before birth:
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home. By being born, Wordsworth believed, an infant drops into a darker world,
but for a while the perception of holiness lingers; as he goes on to say,
“Heaven lies about us in our infancy ,” meaning that the state of innocence
itself turns earth into a paradis e. By some fortunate chance Wordsworth
himself could still recall that earliest time when his surroundings were
“apparelled in celestial light.” But the loss of this radiant innocence had to
come, as it does for all: “At length the Man perceives it die away ,/and fade
into the light of common day .”
The condition described here pertains equally as well to new-born love. Ordinarily , a form of spiritual amnesia blots out the knowled ge that we
were ever in the light; this forgetfulness parallels the growth of a tough skin
called ego that screens out knowledge that cannot be verified  by the fivesenses. Until, that is, the second birth of innocence, called infatuation. Like
a newborn child, the infatuated lover sees through eyes that make the world
holy. Modern child psychology supports this notion. As far as
neurophysiologists can tell, infants do feel awash in a sea of oneness. Without boundaries or ego restraints, they are little gods in their worlds,
their every need met simply by crying and reaching out, their self-
centeredness so complete that every other person and thing is a mere
extension of an all-pervading awareness of themselves. Feeling totally merged with your environment would seem to serve no
evolutionary purpose for a species, since it eliminates the possibility of
defending yours elf. Recently it was discovered, however , that humans are
born with much more complete brains than we possess in adulthood. The
threadlike conne ctions, called dendrites, that branch off from every neuron
are far more numerous just after birth than in any later stage of life. Dendrites are filaments of communication between brain cells, and
presumably their oversupply at birth contributes to a baby’ s sense of being
enveloped in a sea of sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells. From
billions of bits of sensory data, the infant begins to select, to discriminate. As the range of reality gets narrowed down, like a radio band instead of one
wash of noise, multitudes of dendrites are no longer needed. In short, we pare down reality until we can handle it in rational terms, as
neat slices of sensory data. Wordsworth was probably entire ly accurate
when he remembered a world bathed in light, for a baby’ s eyes could very
likely see that way . But this does not explain why lovers—and saints—revert to such a
“primitive” perception. What makes infatuation so dubious to a rationalist
—many psychologists won’ t even grant it the dignity of being called love—
is that lovers return to a state devoid of useful discriminations. But’from the
spiritual perspective what seems like a primitive regression may be a primal
one instead. Love’ s gift is to strip away a lifetime of imprints in the psyche
that condition us to believe in separateness, returning us to the reality we
were born in, which contains only love. All of us have been conditioned  since childhood to believe in a material
world that can be verified by the senses. Lovers, being no different from the
rest of us in this regard, often report that they live in two worlds, sweptaway by an overwhelming sense of merging and at the same time
rationalizing that it can’t be real. The beloved isn’t an enchanted being; the
world is not bathed in perfection’ s light—this must all be temporary
insanity . Now comes the most  delicate moment of all, for two opposed
perceptions are warring within, and only one will survive. The problem is that both are true. How can two perceptions of the same
event be equally  valid? This is one of the key issues in any spiritual event,
because perception is a choice . The psychological description of falling in
love is so opposed to the spiritual that they hardly seem to fit the same
phenomenon. Falling in love is
   Psychological Spiritual
   Temporary Timeless
   Illusory Transcendent
   Excited Peaceful
   Attached Freeing
   Hormone-based Soul-based
   Imaginary unity Real unity
   Childish regression Enhanced evolution
You do not have to go much further than this list to understand why even
the most timeles s of experiences, one that exposes the soul and opens the
heart to bliss, doesn’ t survive very long. Arrayed against it is an entire
worldview in which such things  are not acknowledged as real. Not only are
most people unprepared for the opening of spirit but they have been
actively conditio ned against it by the materialism that gave rise to modern
psychology , stripping love of any “higher” meaning. Love, however , has the power to unite our two worlds. Metaphysics says
that the world is both immanent and transcendent. Immanent  means
“material, changing, subject to time.” Transcendent  means “eternal,
timeless, and beyond the material.” The lover sees a more  real world
because he or she looks at ordinary things and finds the spiritual light that is
actually there. The rest of us miss the transcendent and therefore claim itdoesn’ t exist; we are doing the best we can, yet we cannot claim truth for
our side. The mystery is not whether you will begin to transcend your old reality
when you fall in love, for that is certain. What is mysterious is that being
engulfed in your beloved is also divine. But the visitation of spirit is a
subtle phenomenon, and a very impatient one. Either spirit takes  you with it
or it quickly departs. Transcendence comes in many forms. Astronauts awed by the sight of the
earth, a blue pearl hovering against the blackness of the universe, have
transcended; the first mountaineers to scale the Alps recorded the
transcendent exaltation of their experience. In other words, falling in love is
not as unique as it may feel; in fact it is the most common of transcending
experiences, given how few of us go up in space or ascend the Matterhorn. Common insigh ts link all these  peak experiences: one feels that life is a
blessed state, that fear is unreal because death is not an extinction but
merely a transiti on, that love surrounds and nourishes us all, and that some
part of ourselves lives beyond the world of struggle and care, in the domain
of pure existence. From a spiritua l point of view , infatuation opens us up to these same
insights—the beloved serves as a trigger , like the mountain, the space walk,
the near-death encounter . This is not to diminish the allure of the beloved,
for the transcendent wonder of infatuation has no difficulty shining through
the physical delight—in love, the immanent and the transcendent are one. OceanofPDF .comLOVING  PRACTICE
Seeing Beyond
NOT ONL Y INF ATUA TED lovers have a sense of living in two worlds. The literal
meaning of transcending  is “going beyond,” and at moments of clarity it is
possible for anyone to be aware that reality isn’t confined to the five senses. Peak experiences open up windows to spirit. Yet “going beyon d” is not an
accurate descrip tion of the experience of transcending, since there is no
distance to cover; spirit never leaves us, it is only overlooked. This practice trains you to stop overlooking the spirit and love that
surround you, waiting to be noticed. Although it means “going beyond,” a better way to describe transcending is
“seeing beyond. ” What can you see beyond the apparently solid facade of
life, the constant flow of time, the limitations of space, and the laws of
cause and effect? If the answer is very little, the reason is that your
perception has not been trained for such vision. Yet every day contains
clues of the second reality we all inhabit, which is timeless, unbounded,
causeless, and intimately tied to our needs on the path to love. First examine the following list to determine if you have experienced
these sorts of clues:
1. In the midst of danger or crisis, have you suddenly had the feeling of
being completely safe and protected? 2. Have you been with someone who was dying and felt a sense of peace
or a coolness in the air when the moment of passing came? 3. Have you known someone who recovered from an “incurable” illness? 4. Have you prayed and had your prayer answered? 5. Have you ever witnessed a soft light around another person or
yourself?6. Have you ever asked for silent guidance or the answer to a dilemma
and received it? 7. When looking at a sunset, a full moon, or something of great natural
beauty , have you felt yourself expand as if you were no longer
enclosed within the physical limits of your body? 8. Have you experienced a silencing of your mind, perhaps just before
going to sleep or on first waking up? 9. Have you felt a loving presence when you most needed it? 10. Do you ever hear an inner voice you feel you can absolutely rely on? (This voice doesn’ t have to speak in words; it can also be a strong
feeling or intuition.) 11. Have you felt wonder at the sight of a newborn child? This isn’t a quiz. You aren’ t trying to answer yes to as many questions as
possible, but if you did say yes to any of them, pick the one that resonated
most for you. Let us say it was the first one: feeling a sudden sense of safety
and protection in the midst of crisis or danger . Close your eyes and put
yourself back into that situation ; see all the details of where you were, who
you were with, what time it was, and so on. Try to relive the moment, but
instead of being the person who was reacting at that moment, ask to be
given a larger perspective. Ask to see the meaning of what was happening,
and request that the meaning be as specific as possible. Take a deep breath
and listen to whatever response comes. If you do not get a specific answer , ask for all blocks to the truth to be
removed, and take another deep breath. Does an image come  to mind, a
story , a phrase? Whatever come s, take it to be your answer . If you get only
confusion or resistance, relax and wait a moment. Now interpret your answer . Do any of the following meanin gs come
through? I am loved. I am safe. A part of my self watches over me. I know . I am. The light is with me. God is real. God is. Nothing is wrong. I am at peace.Things are OK. I can love. Everything is one. These are the messages that love is trying to send you at every moment. Each is extreme ly simple yet eternally true. You do not have  to have an
extraordinary or peak experience to receive such messages, but peak
experiences do bring sudden clarity . The walls of old conditioning, habits,
and expectations drop away at such moments. None of these messages has to come through literally as described above. Perhaps at the bedside of a dying person you felt a warm glow in your heart
and a sense of calmness. This can be interpreted in many ways—pick the
one that fits your experience most closely . Go through your most vivid experiences of spirit, soul, God, or love, and
again look for messages that they may have contained for you. Having done
this with your memories, you are now ready to apply the same technique to
the present. Attune yourself to spirit, and it will speak to you in love. Spirit isn’t a phenomenon; it is the whispered truth within a phen omenon. As such, spirit is gentle, it persuades by the softest touch. The messages
never get louder , only clearer . If you have the slightest hint of
communication from spirit, ask for clarification; look at the preceding list if
you need to. At first the links to spirit may seem tenuous and fragile, but as
you grow more confident, you will find that your life is full of meaning,
that every moment has an aspect that goes beyond if you have the vision to
find it. OceanofPDF .comIN OUR LIVES
. . . But Never the Bride
CLARE IS ONE  of the few people you’ll meet who has never complained about
her love life. The truth is that she is rarely not in love. As a teenager she
covered the walls of her bedroom  with glossy photos of Hollyw ood leading
men, falling in love with each in turn. After she grew up she continued to be
easily smitten, and her attitude toward any man she had fallen for—warm,
admiring, a bit timid, yet eager to find out all about him—won her a great
deal of attention in return. But Clare was also ruthless. She would tear down the photos of any
heartthrob who slipped from her high expectations, and this is true of her
today . A man has to be powerfu l, well off, handsome, and self-a ssured even
to attract her notice. Few have been able to live up to her ideal of a
“perfect” lover . In college Clare had a few discreet affairs with her
professors, preferring older men who had achieved academic recognition. This was not difficult to do, since she was attending a prestigious Boston
women’ s college, but afterward she continued to gravitate toward married
men. Within a few years Clare found that not many women approached her
with anything but feelings of distrust and suspicion. She barely noticed. While circulating as a young journalist among the
politicians and power brokers of Boston, she was in a perpetual glow of
infatuation. Clare had a knack for bringing out the best in any man she was
smitten by—wh ich made her a top-notch interviewer . Her subtle surrenders
brought the charm out in men who actually possessed very little. The only flaw in her love life was that it wasn’ t real—few of these
powerful men ever came home with her, and no relationship extended
beyond a few months of hit-and-run hotel stays. Ten years passed. All of
her frien ds from college had gotten married. Clare continued to live in
fantasies that faded once her “perfect” men turned out to be fallible after all.“Is it my fault if they all let me down?” she mourned. Increasingly she
became aware of a lingering sense of loneliness; after getting burned by an
older man in public office whose wife detected their affair, Clare sought
fewer opportunities for seduction, except in fantasy . Fantasy can be exciting and diverting, but it is almost never associated
with insight. In fact, Clare seem s to use her fantasies of a perfect lover to
preclude any possibility that she might see into herself. Her obstacle in life
appeared to be that the right men were all unavailable, but in truth she
picked them because  they were unavailable. Ensuring in advance that there
is a fatal flaw in your partner makes it easy to reject before you get rejected
yourself. In this regard Clare was a master . When I met with Clare, as part of a teaching workshop on healing, she
was full of opinions about how men have lower spiritual vibrations, about
how uncomforta ble she is in the presence of lowerchakra energies, and the
like. “Then why do you fall for so many men in the first place?” I asked. She looked taken aback. “I don’t think this is so much about what’ s going on with men as it is
with you,” I said. Clare has a genuine commitment to her healing work, and
I felt we could talk frankly about her fears and inner wounds. I suggested
that we explore the issue of fear and fantasy , since the two are so closely
intertwined. “In your situation fear of commitment seems to be critical, especially
since your chief complaint is that men don’ t commit to you,” I said. “I can’t be responsible for that,” Clare protested. “They come  and they
go. It’ s their choice.”
“But this is a reflection of a fear you may not be facing in yourself. Fear
of commitment comes in many forms. But what does it say spiritually?”
Fear of commitment mirr ors a belief that spirit is unr eachable. Thus, love becomes hopeless. Clare’ s situation speaks of underlying isolation and despair . From her I
got the impression of a woman in a double bind, constantly asking for love
but making sure that those she asked were not in a position to respond on
any but the most superficial level. It didn’ t surprise me that Clare’ s father
was extremely unavailable. Born into a working-class family in SanFrancisco, he had risen from being a dockhand on the Embarcadero
wharves to being president of his own shipping company . He had become a
hero to four generations of his family , from his Italian immigrant
grandparents to his own children. But the qualities that made him “great”—
his power , drive, magnetism, and shrewdness—also made him very
forbidding. None of these quali ties is lovable, yet they were all Clare had
when she was growing up. Her solution was to make  them lovable. The first person she had a crush  on was her father , and in essenc e she has
repeated that romance over and over , finding men to “love” for their success
and statu s when  in fact she has been mortally afraid of approaching anyone
who has real love to of fer. “When a powerful man takes notice of you,” I asked, “how do you feel?”
“Special. Cared for . Important,” Clare shot back without hesitation. “But isn’t this importance and specialness coming by proxy?” I asked. “What you need is to have your ‘ordinariness’ deemed special.” Clare
looked confused. I asked her to write down this sentence: Spirit loves me
for simply being here. “If you can begin to believe this one thing,” I said,
“the man you attract as a lover will hold the same attitude.”
Ironically , Clare is a glutton for love if it comes with the charge of power ,
but mom ents of quiet, gentleness, solitude, intimate rapport, and murmured
endearments secretly bore her, leaving her feeling that something is
missing. Spiritually these are the moments when each of us has a chance to
find love in all its splendid simplicity; but for Clare the emptine ss she feels
whenever things quiet down allows the grief of an abandoned child to rise
too near the surface. Reading Clare’ s story in symbolic spiritual terms is very helpful. In her
father we see a powerful, remote God who demands to be worshiped. This
image has been easily transpose d onto the men in Clare’ s life. It’s not hard
to see that she is in a spiritual  predicament, mirrored on all sides by the
situations she keeps creating. The fact that Clare seizes on every opportunity to fall in love tells me that
she craves a spiritual opening; only when madly infatuated does she feel
wanted in this world, cared for by a higher power . Everything else is a
disappointment. The problem is that the opening to spirit keeps closing,
since Clare actually resents and fears higher power . How can she replace
her old, unsuccessful pattern?“You’re here this weekend to talk about healing,” I said, “and in your
case, physical and emotional healing would be superficial. Your need is for
a healing at the level of belief.”
“Meaning what?” she asked. “I suppose we could say you need a better love life with God. First your
concept of ‘higher ’ power has to be reexamined. God or spirit stands beside
us in every aspect of our everyday lives. Second, the belief that God is
masculine must  be exchanged for a genderless alternative, given how
threatening masculine energy is to you. If you can begin to see how your
notion of spirit has been shaped  by your early childhood, you can start to
look at love as a mirror of the present instead of the past.” This last is a key
concept:
When you fall in love, you fall for a mirr or of your own most pr esent needs. The intense desirability of another person isn’t innate in that person. Desire is born in the one who desires. In Clare’ s case, since her underlying
self-image is that of a helpless, unloved girl, any show of power arouses
incredible yearning in her . There is nothing wrong with this—we all project similar needs in our
search for love. Nor is there anything wrong with the bedazz led state of
infatuation that Clare has so often sought. Each affair, real or imaginary , has
a repeated message to offer her: “You are loved.” It is the simplest of
messages, but often the hardest  to absorb. For spirit isn’t saying, “You are
loved as long as your passion for this man lasts.” It is saying, “You are
loved,” without any qualifications. If Clare does begin to gain insight and
remove the obstacles that block her vision, spirit’ s message will be awaiting
her. There is infinite patience in spirit, infinite willingness to wait upon our
attention. And one day , in her own time, Clare will notice. “I think that each man you have loved is a tiny reminder of who you are,”
I told Clare. “This isn’t solipsistic but a natural reflection of your needs. You aren’ t judged by the love life you choose, since no one is outside
yourself to judge—there is only you as the Self, looking at you from a
different angle.”
“I don’ t see how that helps,” Clare said.“The Self looki ng at you is the primary relationship you bring into all
situations,” I said. “Realizing that, you will start to reduce expectations for
other relationships. In your case you expect a lot from fantasy , but you
could transfer those expectation s to yourself. What do you really want from
men? Security , well-being, a sense of belonging? These are all available to
you from  your own Self, and your healing will be to fall in love with that
Self.”
The secret to spiritual healing is that its foundation is already laid. In his
exalted poetry , Walt Whitman speaks of the ever -presentness of love:
There was never any more inception than there is now ,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now ,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now ,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now . I read this passage to Clare, who sat silently for a moment. “I’ve been
around for a while,” she said, “and I’m not unconscious. I see that I’m
stuck, and for a long time this concept of learning to love yours elf has been
prescribed to me. But I honestly cannot see how it works.”
“The reason for that,” I said, “is that you are bringing the wrong  model to
your notion of what self-love is. In duality , love connects two separate
people. If that is your model of love, you will have no choice but to see
self-love in much the same way. That is, you’ll try to separate off the parts
of yourself that you value and direct appreciation toward them. But
fragmentation is the problem, not the solution. Self-love and self-division
don’t go togethe r. Self-love isn’t on the level of personality; it’s on the level
of being. Being is whole, and when you recognize that, every part of
yourself rejoins its true status as totality . Learning to love and accept the
powerless, lonely little girl inside you, giving her permission to be part of
you, will lessen her role in directing your love life.”
If you strip away  the details of Clare’ s story , her search for love in all the
wrong places stands for a much more general condition. Love between
“you” and “me”  is a dualistic conception. People have been falling madly in
love for centuries, but that hasn’t solved the deeper problem of inner
division. If anything, such divisi on has been exacerbated as generation after
generation tries to resolve separation through others. What heals inner
division is a change of perception.You are not just a small piece of divine essence that was create d to exist
separately . At the level of your soul you are the whole of spirit. Your
connection to God is complete and seamless; your loving relatio nship to the
universe is total. The mind cannot conceive of this all-inclusiveness,
however , while being caught in its own dualism. We think of ourselves as
father or mother , son or daughter , man or woman, here or there, this or that. Separation is built from our own self-image. Thought cannot restore wholeness because by definition thoug ht is also
fragmented. Yet everyone’ s mind contains the essence of spirit; silence and
intuitive knowle dge come naturally to us. The fact that we have drastically
devalued these aspects of our inner life doesn’ t abolish them. Already you
can touch on valuable parts of your life that you can know only by setting
thoughts aside. How do you know if you are happy , or intelligent, or
awake? These aren’ t issues you reason with; they are self-evident. You do not have to think in order to see and hear; you do not have to
have an active dialogue inside your head to know that you exist. Awareness is awar e of itself befor e it gains knowledge of anything else. The deep er reaches of intuitive knowledge, however , feel foreign because
our cultu re hasn’ t shown us how to explore the inner world. When we turn
to privileged outsiders—to seers and poets, for example—we discover
many truths that only the silent voice of spirit can reveal. If we could rise
above our narrowness of vision,  we would perceive our higher Self directly ,
as W alt Whitman did:
There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me. . . . Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness. The fact that we cannot sustain Whitman’ s vision means that our growth
from duality to unity is still under way, which is why the path to love exists. The ability to live in the Self must be relearned—this is what walking the
path is all about. TENDER COUR TSHIP
The next stage of romance, courtship, is more than just the time for winning
one’s love. At a subtler level it brings together two people’ s perceptions.Beneath the lovers’ talk and tender emotions, the fragile birth  of spirit is
being tested. Its survival depends not just on how exalted and transformed a
man and woman may feel. An act of interpretation must also take place, in
which the right words are found for a shared experience. Courtship is a tender , tentative stage in which two lovers decide whether
to pursue a new reality or return to the old. It is the first phase in which two
futures are at stake, not just one. In ancient India the spiritual equivalent of this phase was called Satsang,
a word that can be translated as “the company of truth,” or more loosely ,
“the sharing of spirit.” When disciples sat at the feet of their master ,
listening to his wisdom, they were taking satsang, but any communion of
spiritual seekers is given the same name. Before departing this world, Christ
told his disciples, “Where two or three of you gather in my name, I will be
there.” That is satsang without the master ’s physical presence. Turning your
conversation in the direction of spirit makes a casual chat with a friend a
form of satsang as well. The link with courtship is very clear , for courtship
is about  speakin g your heart to another , sharing your spirit in a way you
cannot do alone. The satsang of lovers often takes place in silence, which holds true for
some of the greatest saints also; simply to be in their presenc e infuses us
with the spirit of God. People who feel genuinely comfortabl e with each
other are able to talk about their fears, wishes, and hopes, but the
communion of lovers is far more intense. Courtship is a shared birth, a rare
opportunity to exchange what is most innocent in each partner . Intimacy
allows a man to tell a woman things he did not know existed within himself,
and the same for a woman. What becomes shared may have never existed in the past. The past is
based on memor y, which will always remain personal. Up to the point when
they merged, two lovers walked separate paths. Together they create a new
path that has no past, where every step moves into the unkno wn, and no
amount of experience can light the way . The following are the insights brought about in love’ s first communion:
Awareness can be shar ed. What God gives you out of love, you can give to someone you love. Communion is the basis of trust.The unknown is the territory of lovers. A S TRUGGLE  BETWEEN  LOVE AND  EGO
When two people meet in satsang, they can bring the fullness of their higher
Selves, yet what most of us bring to courtship is not fullness but need. When need dominates over love the fragile thread of spirit is broken. Need
implies a lack in oneself, a missing piece that someone else must supply . Women are generally asked to supply the softness, nurturing, comfort,
beauty , and affection that men cannot otherwise find within. Men are
expected to supply the strength, protection, power , and will that women
cannot otherwise find. Both feel that the other has made them complete. Need is a power ful thing, capable of creating powerful illusions. No one
can really enter you and replace a missing piece. The softness or tenderness
or nurturing a man finds in a woman is only borrowed unless he can be
taught to. develop those same qualities. A woman may bene fit from the
power , will, and strength she finds in a man, but that is not the same as
having these qualities become her own. In court ship we decide whether to borrow from another or actually
become what the other represent s. In communion you can become what you
perceive, if your satsang is deep enough. It is all a question of intent. Will
you bandage your inner needs or actually heal them? Only the long journey
ahead can answer this, but courtship clears the way . Given our cultural conditioning , most couples lose the fragile thread of
spirit in this phase. As the heigh tened emotions of infatuation begin to cool,
what replaces them is ego, the main component of the false self. We all rely
upon our egos to lead us through the known world. “I” is not a fixed entity
but a constantly accumulating set of experiences. The ego always seems to know what it needs. An ego need can be
defined as anything that bolsters “me.” By feeding your isolated identity ,
you continue the most familiar mode of existence you have known, which is
the pursuit of self-image. The fact that romantic passion can take a person
beyond ego doesn’ t abolish the ego’ s needs. Typically , the courtship phase is when most lovers begin to have doubts. The issue of commitment arises, and the first hints of incompat ibility make
their unwelcome appearance. Courtships generally break off when one orthe other person feels that his or her needs aren’ t going to be met. The man
may feel that the woman is not sufficiently deferential or suppo rtive of his
self-image; the woman may feel that the man is not sensitive or caring
enough to nourish her feelings. Although it is typical for both a man and a woman to have potent
fantasies about each other befor e they become intimate, once they begin to
spend time together , fantasy is not strong enough to restrain the ego. There
is now a precarious balance between love, which makes communion
possible, and need, which doesn ’t want to sacrifice selfishness unless forced
to. It is unfair to blame any single person for lack of trust given our social
experience. We have all been conditioned to obey ego needs blindly . We are
a society that has grown suspicious of intimate contact. Some intrusions of
personal space are horrifying, such as rape and murder , but the betrayal of
space is extremely disturbing even when violence isn’t done. Two people
engaged in an alimony fight or a bitter custody dispute are in essence taking
advantage of the intimate knowledge they gained in marriage, turning trust
into aggression. It is no wonder that allowing another person past your well-
guarded defenses causes deep conflict, for the person who might deliver
you from threat might also prove to be the enemy inside your gates. Being in love isn’t going to abolish crime, war, homelessness, racial
strife, and the multitude of other threats around us. The ego uses these
outside dangers to convince you that the world is hostile and uncaring. To
all appearances the ego is right, but only according to its isolationist
perspective. In truth, to see anything without love is to see it fearfully . Threat doesn’ t arise “out there.” Its origins are “in here,” where we first
establish our beliefs. Defenses exist to ward off threat. They are like an
early warning system that can be tuned so sensitively that no one could be
unthreatening enough to disarm them. The real question, then, is how to defuse the sense of threat enough to
allow love to be trusted. What feeds threat and keeps it going? The answers
are many, but they can be simplified. Every threat is a shadow from the
past. In reality ther e is nothing to fear in the pr esent. Fear is pr ojected onto the pr esent by memory .Newborn infants, because they have no past, lack all defenses; a baby is
completely vulnerable to any intruder or harmful influence, utterly
dependent upon outside protecti on to survive. Yet, paradoxically , no one is
more invulnerable than a newborn child, because it has no fear. Experience
has yet to create  its imprint on the nervous system, and withou t a frame of
reference there is no threat. (It is true that babies have instinctive fears, such
as fear of falling, but these are physical rather than psychological. Physical
fear contributes  to survival, whereas psychological fear can be crippling. The one promotes fast, sure reactions; the other can create paralysis.) Threat is a subjective interpretation that must be taught; it often bears
little relationship to the actual danger surrounding a person. That is why a
sport like mountain climbing can turn instinctive fear—the fear of falling—
into a joyful experience; everything depends upon interpretation. The enterprise of learning how to defend oneself in the world takes a
long time. We all cherish our survival skills, having long ago abandoned the
fearlessness of a newborn. When courtship asks us to commit ourselves to
another person, we unconsciously see this as a decision that could affect our
survival—that is what giving up your defenses feels like. Your doubt and
mistrust toward someone you love is a mirror of your own belief that fear is
necessary , that survival isn’ t possible without defenses. SEPARA TING TRUE FROM  FALSE
Courtship allows trust to grow despite old wounds. Given how many years
we’ve all spent building our defenses, this healing doesn’ t happen quickly . In fact, the first phase of healin g brings up old wounds to be felt afresh. Only when you begin to feel safe does your psyche permit you to look at
fears that were too intense to confront before. It is common for either
partner to relive, in contemporary form, the traumas and survival threats of
childhood. It isn’t surprising, then, that a man and woman may not permit
themselves to be in a healing relationship at first. They need the courage to
see that the doubt and fear that surface at odd moments is comi ng up to be
examined and released, not blindly acted on. The most destructive effect of feeling threatened is to cut off the flow of
love. If you were not taught about love from childhood, being able to beundefended with another perso n is much more difficult. Loving parents
must teach their children that reality isn’ t simply harsh. All of us wer e imprinted one of two ways: either the world is danger ous with moments of safety , or
the world is safe with moments of danger . No matter how hostile the world appears, a loving family remains secure
as a place of nurturing and protection. Children don’t need to trust
everyone, only someone who will never let them down—thus the original
balance between love and need is established. A strong positive imprint
from infancy can last a lifetim e. Even though only two paren ts taught a
child to love, it is as if the whole world loved that child, and the belief “I
am loved” endures as part of his or her reality . When you have a rock-
bottom belief that you are loved, your needs won’ t be so desperate; there
will be room to allow another person into your inner space. The worst impri nt you can have  from childhood is that your models for
love were also models of betrayal. This happens in cases of abuse—
physical, sexual, or emotional. With any sort of abuse in your background,
you will secretly regard every lover as an enemy . The gentlest caress
contains the possibility of being struck; the softest endearment resonates
with potential degradation. Ironically , it is just these childr en who grow up to crave love the most,
but being insecure, feeling the need for defense beyond what is reasonable,
they also pull away from commitment the fastest. Such people are not
certain deep down that they can feel love, despite their craving for it. Even
the most intoxic ating romance will not be able to overcome a history that
places ego needs much higher than those of relationship. Getting to true love is a growth  process, and the first requirement is to
become aware of when you are not being true. Courtship provides an
opportunity for creating this awareness, since this is when a couple work
out their own definition of what being in love means. Many things pass for
love that are something else. These forms of false love can be behaviors,
beliefs, expectations, or conditi oning from the past. We all tend to accept
versions of “love” that we are used to, without stopping to examine their
validity . Much unloving behavior gets past us in this way .Perhaps no sentence in the English language contains as many hidden
meanings as “I love you.” Very often we say these words and silently add
expectations that underline them. What we really are saying may be
I love you as long as you stay the way you are now . I love you if you love me. I love you if you don’ t scare me too much. I love you as long as you do what I want. Because these sentences all carry expectations, they are not really about
love. “I love you” is often not a simple declaration but with unspoken
conditions—“I love you if.” People who make conditional promises are not
wrong, they are usually doing the best they can. No doubt someone in their
past said, “I love you,” when what they really meant was “I love you if.” To
a greate r or lesser degree we all place expectations upon the people we
love. But these expectations, however reasonable they may seem to us,
inject an element of falseness that true love doesn’ t contain. False love can also take the form of lack of realism. Some one who
expects to be swept away by a mysterious stranger and rescued from all
problems is indulging in unreality . Unreality has many disguises, of which
fantasy and projection are the two most prevalent. Fantasy creates a false
image that love is expected to live up to. We fantasize about an ideal lover ,
and anyone who does not match this ideal becomes unfit for our love. Being
too old or too young, too tall or too short, too dull, too poor, too
unprofessional—too anything that does not pass the test—this is how other
people come to be seen as lacking potential for love. The root of this
unreality clearly lies in the perceiver , however , not the perceived. The
fantasy that supposedly pictures our ideal in fact puts on blinders. Projection disto rts our perception in a different way: it attaches our
beliefs to other people. Someon e who believes that no one will ever love
him is projecting  his own lack of acceptance onto others. The internal belief
“I’m not lovable” is so painful that it cannot be faced, and one way to
lessen that pain is to stop claiming it as your own. Instead you decide that
other people are at fault. They  have let you down, they don’t think you are
good enough, they have no wish to love you. In reality there is no they, only
projection.False love can take more forms than active fantasy or projection. It may
simply be expressed as something missing in one’s experience. If you have
not been shown loving behavior , you will have no positive images to fill the
heart. The cruelest impression that can be made on a young child is
indifference, and it may be the most common. To ignore a child’s need for
love conveys to the heart that its need is not essential. Upon growing up
such a child will find it very difficult to express real love. In place of a
warm outflow of feeling, he or she will feel a cooler , more  moderated
emotion that too easily flickers and fails. Indif ference has a long legacy . All these versions of false love are extremely common. We exhibit false
love whenever we pretend to love someone beyond what we actually feel,
whenever we fail to trust or be honest, whenever we push away someone
else’s offered emotions. Like the thousand-headed serpent, false love has
too many heads  to name. Defea ting it requires that we discove r what true
love is. It takes the real to drive out the unreal. Recognizing a fantasy or
projection puts distance between  you and it; once you have obtained some
distance, you can begin to renounce the power of the false. If in the past you haven’ t experienced love’ s purity and unde rstood its
innocence, then the foundation of relationship hasn’ t been laid. Longfellow
spoke truly when he said, “Love gives itself; it isn’t bought.” If a man or
woman feels there is a price to pay for being loved, their whole sense of
love is damage d. It has beco me confused with a transaction between
winners and losers in a game of competing needs. Our society makes the problem worse by claiming that selfishness is
justified, for the easiest disguis e for fear and doubt is selfishness. What
good do “higher” values really bring the “me” who has a hard enough time
surviving as it is? A cynic might say, “When people fall in love, they
indulge in an escapist fantasy . There is a much more powerful force than
love, called desire. Desire comes down to the pursuit of sex, money , power ,
security , and comfort. These are what people really want .”
On the surface the cynic appear s to be absolutely right. Life doesn’ t lie,
which means that although all of us may espouse love, we don’t live it. Selfishness has too strong a claim. Too often courtship serves to lay the
groundwork for mutual selfishn ess. A man and woman bypass the pain of
exposing their deepest fears and insecurity . Instead of pursuing the delicatework of weaving  the threads of love into a fabric that will be strong enough
to hold, they concentrate on what the relationship will do for “me.”
The courtship phase succeeds to the extent that a man and woman can dismantle their defenses; it
fails to the extent that they build new defenses together . How many couples bond together by forming a “we” that is just a
stronger , tougher version of “me”? We can’t be surprised when this
happens. If survival is paramount in a dangerous world, two are better at it
than one. Like an individual, a couple can pursue power and money , or at
the very least security and comfort. Love gets left behind because it won’ t
bring material rewards, at least not as clearly as unloving tactics will. Money and power require toughness, the willingness to fight for what you
want. You are better off having  a killer instinct, not a loving heart, if you
pursue these things. Security and comfort also require looking out for
number one. In this case one has become two; nothing else has changed. Undoubtedly mutual ego needs  have a place in every relationship. The
real problem occurs when they obliterate the tender growth of love in its
spiritual aspect. Long before we fall in love, we know more than enough
about our needs. Acquiring an ally to fulfill them isn’t the same as getting
free from  them. Only love can free us, because its truth is an antidote to
fear. The cynical claim that what people really want is money , power , and
security falls apart once we look deeper . The exhilaration of falling in love
is an escape from ego, its sense of threat, and its selfishness. This escape is
what we really  want. Whatever rewards it brings, the ego cannot do two
things: it cannot abolish fear, since ego is founded on fear; and it cannot
create love, since ego by definition shuts out love. The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you
cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. If you
follow love, your life will become uncertain, and the ego craves certainty . You will have to surrender to another person, and the ego prizes its own will
above anyone else’s. Love will make your feelings ambiguous, and the ego
wants to feel the certainty of right and wrong. Many other experiences that
cannot be comprehended by ego apply to love—a lover is confused,
spontaneous, vulnerable, expose d, detached, carefree, wondrous, and ever
new.Love’ s journey would be terrifying if we didn’ t have passion to give us
courage—the blind courage of lovers, it is often called. It would be truer to
call it the blind wisdom of lovers, because the ego’s certainty is an illusion. Uncertainty is the basis of life. OceanofPDF .comLOVING  PRACTICE
Unpeeling the Layers of Love
ONE OF THE most valuable things you can learn about yourself is what you
mean by the words “I love you.” The meaning you impart is complex
because it contains you. Your past associations with love, your childhood
imprints, your unspoken expectations and beliefs are all packaged in
language. Thus “I love you” expands into
“I love you the way my father loved my mother before they got divorced.”
“I love you as long as you don’ t get too close.”
“I love you more than Romeo loved Juliet, but please don’ t ask me to die.”
“I love you the way the high school football captain didn’ t love me.”
Words become more personal the more emotional they are. Since “I love
you” is the most emotional phrase in our language, it includes many
feelings that you might never openly refer to, particularly painful ones. The
meanings that get overlooked in everyday speech can be brought to the
surface through the technique of association, which is the basis of this
practice. PART ONE
Sit down with a pencil and paper and record your answers to this question. What’ s the first name that comes to mind when you think of each of the
following words? Saintly
Passionate
Kind
Adventurous
Beautiful
Courageous
Tender
LoyalHandsome
Selfless
Strong
Funny
Genius
Innocent
Admirable
Talented
Generous
Adorable
Naturally no two people produce anything like the same list of answers,
but there are definite profiles of how lists are formed. Out of eighteen
possible choices
If mor e than eight of your r esponses wer e fictional , you have a strong
fantasy component to your definition of love. This also holds true if
movie and TV stars figure prominently on your list. Y ou probably see
a “perfect” lover as unattainable but intensely desirable. Y ou look for
external beauty before intrinsic qualities. Y ou probably do not see
yourself as beautiful, fascinating, or very worthy of the attention of
people you admire. If mor e than eight of your r esponses wer e people you’ve never met ,
you have a strong streak of idealism in your definition of love. Y ou
may be dependent on hero worship to give you strength; you
unconsciously see a lover as a rescuer , provider , tower of strength,
father figure, or authority . If mor e than five of your r esponses ar e your father or mother , you have
not formed a strong sense of love on your own but look to childhood
models. If mor e than five of your r esponses ar e “me ,” you are not honestly
answering the quiz, indicating fear or insecurity about being loved. If mor e than five of your r esponses ar e the same name , you are
probably in love with that person. If your spouse doesn’ t appear in your answers at least thr ee times , you
haven’ t fully confronted your doubts about your relationship. Opening
new lines of communication is in order . PART TWOAssociation is a remarkably telling thing. In a classic experiment from the
1920s, a Russian filmmaker named Lev Kuleshov projected some simple
images—a bowl  of soup, a coffin, and a baby playing with a teddy bear—
and after each image the blank face of a man looking at the camera. When
this sequence was shown, audiences “read” all kinds of meaning into the
man’ s expression. When it appeared after the bowl of soup, they thought he
was hungry; after the coffin, he was afraid of dying; and after the baby , he
felt love. These interpretations show just how powerful association can be. The way your mind ties things together by association is often just as
misleading. The fact is that we rarely see people for who they are; we see
them by association with people from our past. For exampl e, we carry
around in our heads the physical images of our parents and match them to
everyone we meet. Too close a resemblance provokes associations, good
and bad, that have nothing to do with these new people and everything to do
with our own mental processes. I mentioned earlier that false love operates by projection, displacing your
own feelings upon another . In the Kuleshov experiment, if a viewer of the
film said that the man with the blank face hated the baby , proje ction was at
work. But there is also a different kind of projection, based on your own
desires. You might see someone as trustworthy , for example, because you
need him to be that way (a reflection of having been betrayed in the
formative past), and no matter how many times that person proves that he
cannot be trusted, you will continue to project your need upon him. Jealousy involve s extremes of projection and is difficult to dispel, since an
innocent look or an innocent word can so easily be misinterpreted. If you resort to projection a lot, you will tend to exhibit the following
behavior:
You finish people’ s sentences for them. You act defensive before being accused. You use verbal formulas such as “He’ s the kind of person who” and “I just know she’ s going to.”
You ask someone’ s opinion and then get angry if it disagrees with yours. You have a hard time reading other people’ s faces. You frequently feel misunderstood. You see threat in the faces of authority figures like policemen, or feel that your boss secretly
dislikes you, even though she has never said so. You believe that when your spouse looks at another man (ot woman), sexual interest is being
shown.
The_Path_to_Love_by_Deepak_Chopra.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Status, money, a big house, all become in some way a reflection on
“me. ” We also do this with other people. To be attached to someone young
and good lookin g becomes an important part of “me” if I feel I lack those
qualities. Any lack we feel can be filled in this way, by projection, but as
soon as the connection is broken, projection fails. “When romantic  love is at its height,” I told Jeanne, “it’s only natural to
want to sustain it. Romance is selfish, in that you become absorbed in yourfeelings. When you fell in love with Alan, his attractiveness—or yours—
had nothing to do with the inner experience. Delight in another person, the
feeling that you have met a perfect being, is only a reflection of what you
have suddenly remembered in yourself. ”
“But there are beautiful people,” Jeanne said. “Are there peop le who are not. ”  I asked. “Setting certain peopl e aside as
beautiful is simply image-making, which actually obscures the larger truth
that, in the eyes of spirit, no one is excluded from the highest state of
perfection. How do you feel when you look at an extremely attractive
person. ”
“More than one thing,” replied Jeanne. “If he was mine, I’d feel proud,
but there’ s also a good deal of insecurity involved—that’ s no secret now. ”
“The whole strategy of being beautiful by proxy can never work,” I said. “Not only are you living vicariously, which is always fragile at best, but you
are not coming from a place of love. Using another person isn’t loving; it’s
treating that person like an object. Objects always wear out, or the joy we
take in them fades. More important, using someone as an object forces you
to miss his value as a human being. ”
I asked Jeanne to examine what this incident said about her. She might
begin with this lesson: You are only as attractive as you feel you deserve to
be. Deservedness is the deep issue that beauty hides. Someone who is
deserving can be open to love in all its spiritual significance; someone who
is not will be limited to love that includes fear, since what you don’ t deserve
can always be taken from you. “This issue of what you deserve arouses insecurity,” I said, “only if you
put it in isolated terms. Spiritually, we are all totally deserving because we
are all whole. If your being includes everything, how can you deserve one
thing less than another. This sense of completeness isn’t materia l. It doesn’ t
consist of being absolutely beautiful, infinitely rich, or impeccably virtuous. The miracle of love is that you can be imperfect and still be completely
whole. ”
This last point isn’ t easy to grasp. But if you consider how a mother loves
her child, it is immediately obvious that the imperfections of the child do
not coun t in her eyes. This isn’t blindness but the vision of love. Love is
extremely sensit ive to weaknesses. It responds by wanting to support and
lend strength in any way possi ble. But there is no judgment in it againstweakness or defect. A mother helping her toddler to walk isn’t thinking, “If
you were compe tent, you’d be walking on your own by now. ” She accepts
that growth moves by stages and takes it as her joy to nurture each stage. The question is, how can she do this for herself. Jeanne could have just let her anxiety in this one instance pass—that was
always an option—but the beginning of wisdom would be to take this
opportunity to learn how to reconsider her insecurity. Every time she thinks,
“I’m too old,” she should follow  it with “That doubt isn’t me. ” Every time
she thinks, “Ala n is too young for me,” she should follow it with “That
insecurity isn’t me. ” Every time she thinks, “Another woman is interested
in my husband,” she should follow it with “That suspicion isn’t me. ”
Bringing the issue home to herself instead of projecting it onto an external
object will make  it easier to face her responsibility for creating all her false
beliefs. “Situations mirror beliefs,” I told her. “Removing other people from the
picture and bringing every moment of self-doubt back to its real source is
the best way to stay focused on the truth. ”
Having found the truth, Jeanne can begin the inner work of solving her
concealed issue s. Being an “older woman” has never been entirely
comfortable for her, and living in proximity to Alan’ s nonchalance about
their age difference hasn’ t really helped. “You should make it clear to
Alan,” I said, “that you need reassurance. He is the right person to ask for
this, not your best friend. ”
Clearly Jeanne desperately wants her husband to say “I love you” at
times, yet she forces herself not to ask. She therefore pushes herself further
into self-doubt, by forbidding herself to ask for what she wants. This self-
denial is a resul t of shame, an emotion closely connected to deservedness. “You need to realize that askin g to be loved is not only not shameful,” I
said, “it’s exactly what one shou ld do to get love. Shame tells us that love is
a small,  preciou s commodity that we have to beg for, like Oliver Twist
begging for another bowl of soup. But love is abundant, and asking for it
only reflects that you already perceive it to be yours. ”
Whenever Alan  says that he loves her, Jeanne also needs to trust his
assurance, and if this proves difficult, she should resist the temptation to ask
for more reassurance on the spot—it will be more productive to work on
how she can learn to trust. Here the story comes to a parting between psychology and spirituality. In
psychological terms Jeanne’ s lack of self-worth is bound up in dark
memories from her past. As a small girl she was imprinted with experiences
that told her she wasn’ t good enough—we all have similarly painful
memories. Years later these were transferred to looks, age, and sexual
desirability. Jeanne would never accept herself as long as she was attracted
to men who she believed were more desirable than she, because any
comparison would put her in the shade. Being with Alan was a “solution”
born out of past conditioning that had to fall away. Having gotten this far in her analysis, I told Jeanne that she could open
the trapdoor under which many secret hurts and shadowy fears lurk. Confionting secret shame and guilt is a valid psychological approach to her
sort of problem. The unanswered question, however, is whether it is
possible to release every demo n and doubt, every painful memory and
negative energy. Few who have attempted such a massive under taking have
succeeded without the aid of spirit. “I think it’s a good idea for you to work through personal issues,” I told
Jeanne, “but a lasting solution to whether you are deserving or not will only
come spiritually. Here’ s something useful to write down as a reminder:
“Spirit is always with me. It wants to lift my pain. It does this not by
abolishing painful memories but by putting me totally in the present, wher e
the past doesn’ t exist. “The spiritual answer to any problem is immediate,” I said. “It’s our own
perception that is slow to catch on. God’ s ability to love us is limited only
by our ability to receive that love here and now. Since our loved ones
represent manife sted portions of God in our lives, the same could be said
for them. To receive God’ s love we need only increase our abilit y to receive
the love being reflected back in our intimate relationships. ”
As for many people, what really lay at the heart of Jeanne’ s difficulties
was a tendency to pre-reject herself. Instead of assuming that she must be
imperfect, she could start noticing how her husband really feels. In my
experience, if you are getting stuck in negativity, you’re likely to assume
that other people feel the same way about you, and mostly that’s not true. People who really love you keep on loving you, even when you’re not
loving yourself. At an unconscious level Jeanne’ s pre-rejection of herself has kept her on
the lookout for the slightest reason that someone else should also reject her. The more accepting others are, the more she believes she has to be vigilant. The hidden belief here is that the more loving her husband is, the smaller
the slip needed to destroy that love. In reality, love doesn’ t work this way. Alan’ s deepenin g love for his wife would make him accept and forgive
more and more of what she sees as unworthy in herself. Thus the spiritual
truth is validated: the love you get is limited only by your ability to receive
it. “It’s amazingly easy to shut someone else down,” I said. “Without
thinking about it we let pass countless occasions during the day when love
makes a tentative appearance—in other words, we turn our backs on spirit. Your beloved may start to say something nice or give you an affectionate
touch or ask how you are feelin g. Notice how often this seed isn’t allowed
to grow, how quickly you simply cut the gesture of f or take it for granted. In
this way you limit the love you are receiving, rather than nurturing its faint
beginnings. ”
“But I want Alan to love me,” Jeanne said. “Why would I cut off the very
thing I want. ”
“Because negati vity inside says no when love is offered. Look at your
body language as well as your words, for you don’t have to say the word no
to shut Alan down. Do you detect a tendency to shrug, contract, bow your
head, or turn away when he tries to be loving. Keep the follow ing thought
in mind for similar situations:
Being shown a gestur e of love is like being offer ed a portion of God. “Look into the eyes of your beloved and learn to believe that love is
really there. The ego, with all its fears and self-interests, blocks your ability
to perceive the portion of God that your beloved is offering you. Eventually
your expectations become self-f ulfilling; the more you shut down gestures
of love, the less motivated your beloved will be to make them. “It isn’t easy to stop sending these automatic turnof f signals, but you can
take the first step by refusing to believe that no when someone else sees you
as lovable. Once you stop shutt ing love down, it will become easier to let
no be replaced by yes. This change shouldn’ t be forced. Allow Alan to payattention to you as much as he wants, without manipulation or rejection. Start talking more about love in general with all those who are loving
toward you—they will enjoy this topic more than you realize. ”
We were near the end of our time together, but Jeanne was a different
person from the woman who had walked in—she had the look of someone
much happier with herself. In parting I said, “When you find a genuinely
loving person, as you have, you will see that you are in his heart not
because you look a certain way or act a certain way, but because he is
following his own nature—loving others is just the easiest way he knows
how to be. Whe n you realize this, the whole problem of not deserving is
exposed for the illusion it really is. ”
INFATUA TION
When attraction  reaches its peak, the phase known as infatuation begins. It
is the most delirious stage of love—immortalized by Romeo and Juliet,
Cyrano de Bergerac, and a thousand screen lovers—but it is also the most
controversial. It is a time of extravagant emotions and wild optimism. Awareness of boundaries and limitations collapses, replaced by impossible
idealism, at least as seen by an outside observer. To her family Juliet was
not the sun or the moon, and Romeo’ s obsession with her was a danger to a
young girl’ s virtue and safety. But outside standards matter not at all in this phase. Infatuated lovers
dwell so single-mindedly on their intoxicated emotions that they can hardly
eat or sleep, their work becomes only a distraction from their consuming
love. Infatuation may be so extreme because it is a release from the loveless
constriction we call normal. In spiritual terms, being infatuated means
seeing another person as God, a divine being to be worshiped. In ancient
India, to truly see the divine and be bathed in its radiance was called Bhakti,
or devotion. From the devotional hymns of the Rig Veda, the oldest record
of human worship, to. the present, bhakti has been far and away the most
popular means of approaching  God. Religious worship, in the form of
prayers, offering s, and celebrations, is an all-consuming affair for a true
bhakta, who asks nothing more than to be intoxicated by the Lord. In the Old Testament, when the poet of the Song of Solomon rhapsodizes
about his love for God, his words gush as romantically as if he were
swooning over a woman:
You split me, tore my heart
open, filled me with love. You poured your spirit into me;
I knew you as I know myself. The parallel between a lover ’s intoxication and a saint’ s is impossible to
miss. It is in this phase of infatuation that lovers say they worship each
other. “I am in love with loving,” St. Augustine declares, echoing the
passions of a million secular lovers. What makes romantic love seem so religious is this sense of merging. The pouring of one spirit into another produces a ravishing ecstasy at its
most intense. Perhaps no word is more recurrent during the delirium of
infatuation than new. The release from old boundaries is like a birth that
makes all things new. The source of this newness is not a new person, however, but a shift in
perception. The sensation of merging with another person comes about in
the brain. To date we have no biochemical explanation for the suddenness
and strength of this shift, although researchers have found that
neuropeptides associated with intense pleasure, in particular serotonin, are
elevated in lovers. Enhanced immune response in lovers is also well known
to medical researchers. Yet the scientific paradigm is hardly able to account
for the way romantic love can abolish the walls of separation that define the
self. There is an irreversible trend from early infancy to create a stronger
and stronger distinction between  entities called “me” and “you. ” Normally
we don’t think of the natural separation between “me” and “you” as a
source of suffering. Yet no agony is worse for the bhakta, or devotee, than
to be away from God. In romance too the release from separation is so
liberating that it has the power of a religious illumination. This is not to say that everyone who falls in love falls this hard. Sometimes attraction builds slow ly, and other times the infatuation may be
one-sided. When the object of love doesn’ t respond, infatuation becomes a
self-centered preoccupation with fantasy. Spiritual masters have declared,
however, that even when love is returned one is truly inspired by one’s ownhigher Self. The reason that the word Self is more  appropr iate than the word
soul is that it accen tuates how love’ s journey is totally contained  within
one’s own being. The insights of this phase center on the ecstatic mer ging of self and Self:
Merging with another person is illusion; mer ging with the Self is supr eme r eality. If infatuation is madness, sanity pales beside it. The infatuated vision of lovers is like the holy vision of saints. BETWEEN  TWO WORLDS
Curiously, falling in love has a poor reputation among psycholo gists, going
back to Freud, who fiercely ridiculed the spiritual meaning of romance. He
viewed it as a primitive regression—his term for any retreat from adult self-
control to infantile instincts and drives. Regression had previously been
exalted as sacred, at least in literary circles. The greatest of English
Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, articulated a common belief that
childhood is the holiest time of life. Wordsworth describes a divinely
inspired conditi on of infancy, when we are still bathed in light from the
celestial world before birth:
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home. By being born, Wordsworth believed, an infant drops into a darker world,
but for a while the perception of holiness lingers; as he goes on to say,
“Heaven lies about us in our infancy,” meaning that the state of innocence
itself turns earth into a paradis e. By some fortunate chance Wordsworth
himself could still recall that earliest time when his surroundings were
“apparelled in celestial light. ” But the loss of this radiant innocence had to
come, as it does for all: “At length the Man perceives it die away,/and fade
into the light of common day. ”
The condition described here pertains equally as well to new-born love. Ordinarily, a form of spiritual amnesia blots out the knowled ge that we
were ever in the light; this forgetfulness parallels the growth of a tough skin
called ego that screens out knowledge that cannot be verified  by the fivesenses. Until, that is, the second birth of innocence, called infatuation. Like
a newborn child, the infatuated lover sees through eyes that make the world
holy. Modern child psychology supports this notion. As far as
neurophysiologists can tell, infants do feel awash in a sea of oneness. Without boundaries or ego restraints, they are little gods in their worlds,
their every need met simply by crying and reaching out, their self-
centeredness so complete that every other person and thing is a mere
extension of an all-pervading awareness of themselves. Feeling totally merged with your environment would seem to serve no
evolutionary purpose for a species, since it eliminates the possibility of
defending yours elf. Recently it was discovered, however, that humans are
born with much more complete brains than we possess in adulthood. The
threadlike conne ctions, called dendrites, that branch off from every neuron
are far more numerous just after birth than in any later stage of life. Dendrites are filaments of communication between brain cells, and
presumably their oversupply at birth contributes to a baby’ s sense of being
enveloped in a sea of sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells. From
billions of bits of sensory data, the infant begins to select, to discriminate. As the range of reality gets narrowed down, like a radio band instead of one
wash of noise, multitudes of dendrites are no longer needed. In short, we pare down reality until we can handle it in rational terms, as
neat slices of sensory data. Wordsworth was probably entire ly accurate
when he remembered a world bathed in light, for a baby’ s eyes could very
likely see that way. But this does not explain why lovers—and saints—revert to such a
“primitive” perception. What makes infatuation so dubious to a rationalist
—many psychologists won’ t even grant it the dignity of being called love—
is that lovers return to a state devoid of useful discriminations. But’from the
spiritual perspective what seems like a primitive regression may be a primal
one instead. Love’ s gift is to strip away a lifetime of imprints in the psyche
that condition us to believe in separateness, returning us to the reality we
were born in, which contains only love. All of us have been conditioned  since childhood to believe in a material
world that can be verified by the senses. Lovers, being no different from the
rest of us in this regard, often report that they live in two worlds, sweptaway by an overwhelming sense of merging and at the same time
rationalizing that it can’t be real. The beloved isn’t an enchanted being; the
world is not bathed in perfection’ s light—this must all be temporary
insanity. Now comes the most  delicate moment of all, for two opposed
perceptions are warring within, and only one will survive. The problem is that both are true. How can two perceptions of the same
event be equally  valid. This is one of the key issues in any spiritual event,
because perception is a choice. The psychological description of falling in
love is so opposed to the spiritual that they hardly seem to fit the same
phenomenon. Falling in love is
   Psychological Spiritual
   Temporary Timeless
   Illusory Transcendent
   Excited Peaceful
   Attached Freeing
   Hormone-based Soul-based
   Imaginary unity Real unity
   Childish regression Enhanced evolution
You do not have to go much further than this list to understand why even
the most timeles s of experiences, one that exposes the soul and opens the
heart to bliss, doesn’ t survive very long. Arrayed against it is an entire
worldview in which such things  are not acknowledged as real. Not only are
most people unprepared for the opening of spirit but they have been
actively conditio ned against it by the materialism that gave rise to modern
psychology, stripping love of any “higher” meaning. Love, however, has the power to unite our two worlds. Metaphysics says
that the world is both immanent and transcendent. Immanent  means
“material, changing, subject to time. ” Transcendent  means “eternal,
timeless, and beyond the material. ” The lover sees a more  real world
because he or she looks at ordinary things and finds the spiritual light that is
actually there. The rest of us miss the transcendent and therefore claim itdoesn’ t exist; we are doing the best we can, yet we cannot claim truth for
our side. The mystery is not whether you will begin to transcend your old reality
when you fall in love, for that is certain. What is mysterious is that being
engulfed in your beloved is also divine. But the visitation of spirit is a
subtle phenomenon, and a very impatient one. Either spirit takes  you with it
or it quickly departs. Transcendence comes in many forms. Astronauts awed by the sight of the
earth, a blue pearl hovering against the blackness of the universe, have
transcended; the first mountaineers to scale the Alps recorded the
transcendent exaltation of their experience. In other words, falling in love is
not as unique as it may feel; in fact it is the most common of transcending
experiences, given how few of us go up in space or ascend the Matterhorn. Common insigh ts link all these  peak experiences: one feels that life is a
blessed state, that fear is unreal because death is not an extinction but
merely a transiti on, that love surrounds and nourishes us all, and that some
part of ourselves lives beyond the world of struggle and care, in the domain
of pure existence. From a spiritua l point of view, infatuation opens us up to these same
insights—the beloved serves as a trigger, like the mountain, the space walk,
the near-death encounter. This is not to diminish the allure of the beloved,
for the transcendent wonder of infatuation has no difficulty shining through
the physical delight—in love, the immanent and the transcendent are one. OceanofPDF. comLOVING  PRACTICE
Seeing Beyond
NOT ONL Y INF ATUA TED lovers have a sense of living in two worlds. The literal
meaning of transcending  is “going beyond,” and at moments of clarity it is
possible for anyone to be aware that reality isn’t confined to the five senses. Peak experiences open up windows to spirit. Yet “going beyon d” is not an
accurate descrip tion of the experience of transcending, since there is no
distance to cover; spirit never leaves us, it is only overlooked. This practice trains you to stop overlooking the spirit and love that
surround you, waiting to be noticed. Although it means “going beyond,” a better way to describe transcending is
“seeing beyond. ” What can you see beyond the apparently solid facade of
life, the constant flow of time, the limitations of space, and the laws of
cause and effect. If the answer is very little, the reason is that your
perception has not been trained for such vision. Yet every day contains
clues of the second reality we all inhabit, which is timeless, unbounded,
causeless, and intimately tied to our needs on the path to love. First examine the following list to determine if you have experienced
these sorts of clues:
1. In the midst of danger or crisis, have you suddenly had the feeling of
being completely safe and protected. 2. Have you been with someone who was dying and felt a sense of peace
or a coolness in the air when the moment of passing came. 3. Have you known someone who recovered from an “incurable” illness. 4. Have you prayed and had your prayer answered. 5. Have you ever witnessed a soft light around another person or
yourself. 6. Have you ever asked for silent guidance or the answer to a dilemma
and received it. 7. When looking at a sunset, a full moon, or something of great natural
beauty, have you felt yourself expand as if you were no longer
enclosed within the physical limits of your body. 8. Have you experienced a silencing of your mind, perhaps just before
going to sleep or on first waking up. 9. Have you felt a loving presence when you most needed it. 10. Do you ever hear an inner voice you feel you can absolutely rely on. (This voice doesn’ t have to speak in words; it can also be a strong
feeling or intuition. ) 11. Have you felt wonder at the sight of a newborn child. This isn’t a quiz. You aren’ t trying to answer yes to as many questions as
possible, but if you did say yes to any of them, pick the one that resonated
most for you. Let us say it was the first one: feeling a sudden sense of safety
and protection in the midst of crisis or danger. Close your eyes and put
yourself back into that situation ; see all the details of where you were, who
you were with, what time it was, and so on. Try to relive the moment, but
instead of being the person who was reacting at that moment, ask to be
given a larger perspective. Ask to see the meaning of what was happening,
and request that the meaning be as specific as possible. Take a deep breath
and listen to whatever response comes. If you do not get a specific answer, ask for all blocks to the truth to be
removed, and take another deep breath. Does an image come  to mind, a
story, a phrase. Whatever come s, take it to be your answer. If you get only
confusion or resistance, relax and wait a moment. Now interpret your answer. Do any of the following meanin gs come
through. I am loved. I am safe. A part of my self watches over me. I know. I am. The light is with me. God is real. God is. Nothing is wrong. I am at peace. Things are OK. I can love. Everything is one. These are the messages that love is trying to send you at every moment. Each is extreme ly simple yet eternally true. You do not have  to have an
extraordinary or peak experience to receive such messages, but peak
experiences do bring sudden clarity. The walls of old conditioning, habits,
and expectations drop away at such moments. None of these messages has to come through literally as described above. Perhaps at the bedside of a dying person you felt a warm glow in your heart
and a sense of calmness. This can be interpreted in many ways—pick the
one that fits your experience most closely. Go through your most vivid experiences of spirit, soul, God, or love, and
again look for messages that they may have contained for you. Having done
this with your memories, you are now ready to apply the same technique to
the present. Attune yourself to spirit, and it will speak to you in love. Spirit isn’t a phenomenon; it is the whispered truth within a phen omenon. As such, spirit is gentle, it persuades by the softest touch. The messages
never get louder, only clearer. If you have the slightest hint of
communication from spirit, ask for clarification; look at the preceding list if
you need to. At first the links to spirit may seem tenuous and fragile, but as
you grow more confident, you will find that your life is full of meaning,
that every moment has an aspect that goes beyond if you have the vision to
find it.
Jeanne's main issue is her lack of self-worth and self-acceptance, which is causing her to seek validation and reassurance from her partner. She can address this by recognizing that she is already deserving of love and acceptance, and by focusing on her own self-love rather than seeking it from others.
What is the main issue that Jeanne is struggling with, and how can she address it?
The difference between spiritual love and romantic love is that spiritual love is unconditional and infinite, while romantic love is conditional and limited. One can cultivate spiritual love by recognizing that they are already deserving of love and by focusing on their own self-love and inner worth.
What is the difference between spiritual love and romantic love, and how can one cultivate this kind of love?
The concept of "I am loved" is crucial in the context of the text, as it highlights the importance of self-love and self-acceptance. It emphasizes that one does not have to rely on external validation to feel loved.
What is the significance of the concept of "I am loved" in the context of the text?
The text states that the ego and love are incompatible. The ego is based on fear, separation, and selfishness, while love is based on unity, wholeness, and self-acceptance. The ego cannot create love, but it can try to suppress it.
What is the relationship between the ego and love, according to the text?
Clare is trying to convey that she is seeking external validation and acceptance, which is rooted in her past experiences and conditioning. She can overcome her fear of being hurt by recognizing that she is already deserving of love and by focusing on her own self-love and inner worth, rather than seeking it from others.
What is the main message that Clare is trying to convey, and how can she overcome her fear of being hurt?