For some lovers it is
possible to use orgasm as a means to reach elevated states of consciousness,
yet even in these cases the visions, sensations, and emotions being evoked
are not necessarily ecstasy . They are whatever the lovers have made them
into.To make things shining and new has everything to do with perception. This brings us to the second broad definition of ecstasy , which is mythic  or
archetypal . In ordinary perception we see ourselves in unmythic terms,
overshadowed as we are by so much mundane activity . Ulysses didn’ t have
to commute through tangled traffic every morning; Athena’ s mind wasn’ t
filled with worri es over meeting the mortgage this month. But as Carl Jung
long ago pointed out, beneath the turmoil of daily activity our unconscious
motivations dwell in the mythic world. Inside each of us are primal gods and goddesses. We know this without
knowing it, insofar as we obey  our mythic drives without bringing them
into conscious awareness. Striving to succeed in a corporate takeover bid
partakes of the heroic quest as much as the Argonauts seeking the Golden
Fleece; climbing Everest is driven by the same ambition to reach the abode
of the gods as Icarus flying toward the sun. In mythic terms ecstasy is a
sacred journey into the unconscious as underworld, heroically portrayed in
countless ways, from Persephone’ s abduction by Pluto to Orph eus seeking
his bride among the shades of Hades. If the physical definition of ecstasy falls short because it lacks meaning,
the mythic definition flirts with being too intellectual. Through the arduous
process of bringing the unconsc iousness to light, a person may be able to
reach his mythic roots, but whether this will bring ecstasy is questionable. In the language of archetypes ecstasy has been traced back to the Greek god
Dionysus, whose devotees engaged in ritual orgies, using wine and
sexuality to attain altered states. At the sacred site of Delphi, a secret cult of
women called maenads (deriv ed from the Greek word for “madness”)
worked themselves into ecstatic frenzies in their rites, which included
skinning animals alive with their bare hands and devouring them. We still look askance at Dionysiac revels, supposing that their
participants reached wild excesses of drunkenness and promiscuity . To
mythic thinkers , though, nothing could be further from the truth. The
worship of Dionysus, they tell us, was not about excess and violence but
about the attainment of divine ecstasy . The darkness of this journey is what
made the frenzi es necessary; they were not an end in themselves. In any
event, orgies are now really grand metaphors for smashing the shell of
waking consciousness to arouse the sleeping divinity within.Perhaps this is true. Many ancient traditions use extreme states to push
through to sacred visions. Native shamans who pierce their bodies or
seclude themselves in the harsh wilderness are attempting to contact primal
forces within. Their rites and the orgies of Dionysus are not that far
removed from lovemaking by lovers who hope to push sex into the intensity
of ecstas y. The transports of priests and devotees through devotional rituals
can be very meaningful to them. The unconscious is a rich landscape;
archetypes tell us much about our primal selves. Yet the messages of myth
often seem prefabricated, I think, lacking the immediacy of true ecstasy . It
is rare to meet a mythic thinker who has recaptured the divine states of the
ancïent ones he or she has thought about. TRUE ECSTASY
This brings us to the third definition of ecstasy , as a spiritual  release. Spiritual ecstasy is not a feeling or an idea but a shift of perception in which
direct contact with spirit is made. Being in ecstasy does not have to express
itself through intensity of any kind. The biblical injuncion “Be still and
know that I am God” is an invitation to ecstasy . I prefer the spiritual definition because it is inclusive of the physical and
the mythical. The most famous example of spiritual ecstasy is probably that
of Saint Teresa, who dreamed that an angel came and pierced her heart with
a golden  arrow . She describes this experience in intensely physic al terms, as
a burnin g pain that was almost unendurable until it wondrously transformed
itself into equally intense pleasu re. The mythic ingredients of the angel and
the arrow are unmistakable once we think back to the god Eros with his
quiver and bow. In her ecstasy  Teresa felt nothing less than the intimate
embrace of God, and the erotic and mythic overtones of her experience
make it no less divine. Being supremely spiritual, her ecstas y is able to
include every level of interpretation. What usually makes ecstasy so intense and extreme is not the experience
itself but getting to it. The common images of God or an angel coming
down from heav en to pierce, shatter, and penetrate the ecstatic one do not
have to be taken  literally; they serve to remind us that many layers shield us
from contact with spirit. To receive the gift of ecstasy is an exquisiteexperience, as told in a rema rkable passage from a Greek Orthodox
manuscript written a thousand years ago:
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’ s body
where all our body , all over ,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly , real. These sensual lines, which aroused shock and controversy at the time,
were written by an obscure monk known to us as Symeon the New
Theologian. His description of spirit as a penetrating, transforming love that
turns our very cells to divine essence still may sound too intimate for
comfort:
We awaken in Christ’ s body
as Christ awakens our bodies. . . . I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him. . . . I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning. Symeon was well aware that his loving intimacy with Godhood would be
considered blasp hemous—he spent his last years exiled in a remote Turkish
village, condemned by church authorities—but now we can recognize in his
writing the complete sincerity of a true lover . For Symeon “everything that
seemed to us dark, harsh, shame ful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, is
in Him transformed and recogn ized as whole, as lovely , and radiant in His
light.”
This of course sounds like the voice of a saint, and a very ecstatic one. But I believe the same vision is open to us all—we are all lovers trying to
reach perfection. We do this, as Symeon teaches, when “we awaken as the
Beloved in every last part of our body .” In Symeon’ s time these words
violated the dogmatic belief that the body was wicked and corrupt. In our
age the opposit e prejudice applies: a lover is someone whose appeal isbasically physic al, sexual. In both cases the fusion of spirit and body has
been missed. Yet at moments the piercing joy of love does appear , despite dogma. The
touch of your beloved or simply the sight of her can seem  suddenly
amazing, appea ring like lightning, just as Symeon says. But the same
feeling can penetrate the heart from nowhere, because love is inherent in
life itself. Emily  Dickinson, whose lovers were all in her imagination, is to
me a true lover nonetheless. She writes:
Not “Revelation”—tis—that waits
But our unfurnished eyes—
This is a message of compressed wisdom, which says that we are waiting
not on the day of redemption but on our own perception. The exquisitene ss of true ecstas y cannot dawn unless we can contain it;
our minds are so absorbed in relentless activity that quietness rarely lasts
more than an instant. The body by its nature is also active and restless. Since activity and stillness are opposites, the body generally registers some
degree of agitation or even discomfort as it moves into alignment with
spirit. The reputation that ecstasy has for being physically intense
contributes to the frenzy and mutilation that devotees have resorted to in
order to duplicate the opening to ecstasy—they are mistaking the symptom
for the cause. The divine has nothing to do with pain. Because it stands outside—
ekstasis —the envelope of time and space, spirit cannot be sensuous. Our
five senses cannot take us to where ecstasy dwells. But as true ecstasy
begins to manifest, our senses definitely react. The reaction is entirely
individual and unpredictable, since one person’ s intense erotic opening is
another ’s frightening collapse of defenses. What feels like the expansion of
the soul into infinite space to me may seem like a terrifying fall into the
void to you. When we say that ecstasy is like the drop melting back into the ocean, it
must be made clear that we are the drop and the ocean at the same time, just
on dif ferent levels. Ecstasy is the r elease of individuality back into wholeness. Whatever brings you closer to
wholeness brings you closer to ecstasy .Here I think we’ve reached the secret of ecstasy . Most of us do not see
ourselves as supreme sexual technicians, nor can we relate easily to the
extraordinary mysticism of a saint. Ecstasy will never be ordinar y, yet it can
be brought within our reach once we realize its real nature. Although often
experienced in the most extrem e situations, ecstasy is a quality  of spirit as
natural as any other . We do not have to sojourn into the darkness of the
mythic past to retrieve it. The patient work of inner growth is all we need. To promote stillness inwardly is to promote ecstasy . The inner being
doesn’ t have to be tricked or manipulated to achieve this stillness. Our
minds are like runners that only have to slow down in order to walk, then
slow down from a walk to standing still. This process of shifting from
activity to stillness is a simple yet very deep description of meditation. We
could modify the biblical injunction to “Be still and know ecstasy .” There is
no single road to this quietness of meditation, yet to be genuine any
meditation must take the mind beyond its superficial nature, which is
restless and chaotic, to its deeper nature as the peace that passes all
understanding. REACHING  ECSTASY
The emer gence  into stillness can take place under any conceivable
circumstance. Arjuna achieved his moksha on a raging battlefield after the
bloody onslaught of family against family . Medieval saints found theirs in
complete retreat  from the world . At this very moment someone is finding it
in a bustling city or staring out to sea. The release is never incidental or
accidental. Tastes of ecstasy come and go, yet attaining compl ete stillness
of the mind means walking the spiritual path to its concl usion, with
discipline and faith. Expansion of consciousness is the r oad to ecstasy . Expansion of consciousness is a broad term that covers almost everything
I have discussed up to now, for the path to love is all about such expansion. Love pulls you out of ego boundaries, and when you are dedicat ed to acting
from love, you are able to live in spirit. Many of the most important themes
have already been covered:Seeing your beloved as a mirror of your higher Self. Surrendering to love as a guiding force. Letting go of attachment to the false self and its needs. Devoting every day to achieving true union and healing the wounds of separation. Countless people live with their beloved without following any of these
principles; their love doesn’ t provide a strong enough basis to escape their
old conditioning . Until they discover the spiritual path, few are able to heed
the voice of spirit, which speaks intuitively . If only you perceived it, you
are alrea dy in a state of ecstasy that is permanent and unshakab le. But only
at moments when your boundaries fade away do you have flashes of reality . Then direct intuitive knowing becomes possible, and you can see yourself
for who you are, sublime and ecstatic. Thousands of years ago the
Upanishads expressed our twofold nature in a beautiful metaphor:
Two birds, one of them mortal, the other immortal,
live in the same tree. The first one pecks at the fruit,
sweet or bitter; the second looks on without eating. Thus the personal self pecks at the fruit of this world,
bewildered by suf fering, always hungry for more,
but when he meets the true Self, the resplendent God,
the source of creation, all his cravings are stilled. The two birds in the tree, self and Self, are inseparable; both sit in the same
tree (the body) faced with the same fruit (the material world). Yet for all
their closeness the bird who craves the fruit does not know its mate. It takes
an awak ening to reveal the Self, and although in one sense it is awesome,
being “the resplendent God,” in another sense it is just one’s intimate
beloved, who has faithfully kept watch through all time, waitin g only to be
seen. Once it is seen everything in life changes. As the Upanish ads declare,
the life of the self, once united with the Self, rises to a blessed level:
Good and evil both vanish;
delighting in Self, playing like a child with Self,
he does whatever is called for , whatever the result. When self-realiz ation dawns, there is no longer any question of struggle
or effort. The spirit guides you to do whatever is called for, according to
your own makeup. In reality universal love requires only one thing, that the
sweet point in the heart expand until bliss and peace become the nature of
our life. This first happens within individuals, then it happens torelationships based on spirit, finally it extends to whole families and
societies. A single point in the heart can expand to liberate the world. Ecstasy is therefore not an individual feeling at all but a glimpse of the
wholeness waiting to be seen everywhere. The Upanishads state this very
explicitly:
Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings,
vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, nearer than breath, than heartbeat. Our senses tell us that we are breathing and that our hearts beat,  but there is
a breath within the breath that is spirit (in Christian terms it has been called
afflatus , the breath of God). Near as spirit may be, centur ies of cultural prejudice have made it
necessary to rediscover our intuitive, direct knowledge of it. Many
disciplines and techniques can be employed here, particularly meditation. In
this book I have concentrated on the expansion of conscious ness that is
available throug h love, motivated by the tragic absence of love we see all
around us. Yet the road to the Self is not closed on any side—the
transcendent is “nearer than breath, than heartbeat”—and fortunately a
multitude of teachings exist to put our feet on the path. In the end the path does not actually ascend anywhere in time or space. The self is still the self, the ego is still the ego, the senses are still the
senses. How can you go anywh ere to capture what is already so close to
you? The mystery is that this “pathless path,” as the masters refer to it,
causes immense  transformation . There is a world of difference between
those who live in love and those who only touch upon it fitfully . Perhaps the
greatest differen ce is this qualit y called ecstasy , which is the actual feeling
of breathing God’ s breath and beating with His heart. I do not want to betray the intimacy of ecstasy; it is the most private of
love affairs. Being becomes your beloved, and the merging of yourself with
another person follows with complete ease and naturalness. If one had to
lay down some  kind of pattern for how ecstasy is attained, it would be
extremely general, as follows:The time comes when seeking is over and realization begins. First the
mind becomes aware of its own activity while standing apart from it. Ordinarily we are immersed in our own inner dialogue; the stream of
thoughts, wishes , fears, and fantasies running through our heads keeps us
fixated. We buy into a mental drama that has no conclusion. The mind gains
its restless energy from our participation. Being fixated on your own ment al
drama is all it takes to cause the drama to work itself up. At certain moments, however , the fixation is not so alluring. Some part of
ourselves detaches from the mind’ s activity—the first stage of ecstasy is
just this faint awareness of being a witness to the drama rather than an
engaged participant. The observer has begun to put a slight distance
between itself and the observed. The second step is the stilling of the mind. This is not achieved by force
or indeed by any action at all. Doing anything is the opposite of being still. Because we have spent our whole lives in activity , non-doing is extremely
unfamiliar . Most of the time it occurs by accident—out of the blue, one
notices that the stream of consciousness has ceased, like turning  off a water
tap. Sexual activity is so often associated with ecstasy because it is one of
the few times that most people can be fully distracted from their minds. Whether a person tries to make it happen or not, what creates stillness in the
mind is simply that the observer  is able to continue to stand apart for longer
than a moment. Gaining some distance between the observer and the observed is so rare
that the second stage of ecstasy occurs quite infrequently . For most of us the
excursions away  from mental activity last only a few seconds . But if we
manage to achieve the second stage, stillness takes on a surprising aspect. Our attention reveals to us that silence has its own dynamism . The still
mind, though devoid of thoughts, quivers and vibrates all the same. There is
a kind of trembling anticipation  that can go one of two ways. Either a new
thought will be born to bring back the internal dialogue or the faint
trembling of silence will lead to even deeper silence. Poised here at the edge of ecstasy, you cannot make your mind choose
one way over the other . Even people who have experienced silent mind
many times, such as in prolonged practice of meditation, do not go past the
front room of silence at will. But if the mind chooses to plunge into deeper
silence, the third stage has been reached. This deeper silence doesn’ t quiver;it cannot be disturbed by even the faintest activity . One experiences it like
the softest black velvet or the deepest dark cave. Anyone who has come this
far is now truly “standing outsid e.” Of course it would be just as accurate to
say that you are standing inside, because inside and outside have lost their
difference. Y ou are merely there where ecstasy is. The fourth and final stage requires nothing new on your part—once your
attention has been captured by deep silence, the inner transformation is
complete. What ever is to happ en next dawns of its own accord. One is
brought face to face with pure Being, pure awareness, pure joy. In ancient
Sanskrit terms, sat chit ananda,  eternal bliss consciousness, reveals itself. A
Christian saint might call the same experience “the face of God.” The poet
of the Song of Solomon put it in lover ’s terms:
My eyes are radiant with your spirit;
my nostrils fill with your fragrance. My ears delight in your music,
and my face is covered with your dew . But these are images only. The fact that ecstasy exists is the promise that
kindles our faith on the path to love; tastes of it are the water that refreshes
our quest. We take faith from those living masters who have reached the
goal. They stand apart from us, yet they are clothed in the same flesh and
bones; they move, act, breathe, and live as the rest of us do. Only secretly ,
in their realized  souls, do they know with utter certainty that, like the two
birds in the tree, they are Self while we are self. I often turn to a few pages of dialogue between an Indian discip le and his
master that bring this contrast to life for me. The disciple is resisting the
idea that there is anything beyond the world of the senses. He is the
questioner; the answerer is the South Indian master Sri Nisar gadatta
Maharaj:
Q: Is your world full of things and people as is mine? A: No, it is full of myself. Q: But do you see and hear as we do?A: Yes, I appear to see and hear and talk and act, but to me it just happens,
as to you digestion or perspiration happens. . . . Q: If you are the world, how can you be conscious of it? A: Cons ciousness and the world appear and disappear together , hence they
are two aspects of the same state. . . . As long as the mind is there, your
body and the world are there. Your world is mind-made, subjective,
enclosed within the mind, fragmentary , temporary , personal, hanging on
the thread of memory . Q: So is yours. A: Oh, no. I live in a world of realities, while yours is of imagi nings. Your
world is personal, private, unsha reable, intimately your own. Nobody can
enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear, feel your emotions and think
your thoughts. In your world you are truly alone, enclosed in your ever-
changing dream , which you take for life. My world is an open world,
common to all, accessible to all. In my world there is communit y, insight,
love, and real quality; the individual is the totality . . . . All are one, and
the One is all. As many times as I have read this passage over the years, it never fails to
move me at a level deeper than emotion or memory or even insight. I feel
brought face to face with the real, and I stand in awe of a person who can
say of the mate rial world that it is the merest speck fleeting through his
mind. But it is also heartening to realize that such great masters began as
ordinary people. The only difference between them and any one of us is that
the masters set foot on the path,  beginning the journey of soul- making that
leaves time behind. Eventually  the path ends, and the foundation of our
world, which stands upon mem ory and mind, crumbles, leaving a new
world of unimaginable realness. Understandably , Maharaj’ s disciple was
intensely curiou s about what this new world is like, but his master could
only answer him from a place beyond words:
Q: How do you know that you are in the supreme state?A: Because I am in it. It is the only natural state. Q: Can you describe it? A: Only by negation, as uncaused, independent, unrelated, undivided,
uncomposed, unshakeable, unquestionable, unreachable by effort. . . . And yet my state is supremel y actual, therefore possible, realizable,
attainable. There may be those who would find this a discouraging description,
riddled with paradox. How can the unreachable be reached or the
indescribable be real? I can only turn to those arrows of light that hurtle at
us from that world, the moment s of ecstasy that quiet all doubt and still all
questionings. It takes a long time before such experiences born in the
deepest silence can be translat ed into time and space. A life filled with
chaos is extreme ly difficult to fill with ecstasy . While you are caught in the
ecstatic moment , however , all of reality seems like a miracle. The very root
of the word miracle  reminds us that it derives from the Latin mirar e, “to
behold with rapt attention.” No better definition of ecstasy has ever been
given. To those  who have gained entry  to ecstasy there is no reason to ask for
more. No transformation is as all-embracing, and after returning to the
everyday world,  the great gift seems to be not the intensity of remembered
joy but the revelation of truth. One moment of genuine ecstasy removes a
lifetime of doubts—you realize once and for all that spirit is real. You know
from firsthand experience that you are the divine essence. In that sense
ecstasy is the most immediate and yet the most far off of experiences. It is
immediate because it is unden iable; it is distant because it will take a
lifetime to secure ecstasy as a permanent reality . Fortunately this journey ,
itself creates ecstasy , being the path to love. OceanofPDF .comLOVING  PRACTICE
Cultivating Inspiration
ONE OF THE most beautiful proofs of ecstasy is delivered in a moment of
inspiration. I have already discussed signals from spirit which hint at a
reality beyond that perceived by the five senses. But inspirati on is much
more than a hint—when you feel inspired you find yourself thrust into a
world where ordinary objects and events are full of light, as if illuminated
from within. This inner light is truth, and when we suddenly see the truth,
we gain insight, clarity , and objectivity . Insight enables you to know your own heart. Clarity enables you to accept without illusions. Objectivity enables you to view any person or situation with compassion. At triumphant moments when you say to yourself, “That was really
inspired,” all three qualities come together , and the feeling  of that union is
ecstasy . Sadly , most people do not attain even a few of these qualities until
late in life, when the maturation of experience allows the obstacles to
inspiration, particularly fantasy , projection, and judgment, to fall away . Even then moments of inspiratio n may be rare. But the root word of inspir e
means “to breathe in,” which implies that inspiration should be a simple
thing—as natur al as breathing. When we say that someone has been
inspired to write a love poem, we mean that it flowed naturally from his or
her feeling; nothing stood in the way. There was no struggle between mind
and heart. Inspiration is that state in which mind and heart ar e connected. The following exercises show you how to summon inspiration and make
it your own long before you reach the end of the path.PART ONE: AN INFINITE  MOMENT
Every spiritual master has declared that the present moment is the home of
spirit; nothing to be attained in the form of wisdom, love, and vision has to
be postponed Y et we all postpone the day when we will be loving, wise, and
inspired by our own vision. This implies that the present moment is a very
difficult place to reach, despite the obvious fact that we are already there. Every second is a door to eternity . The door is opened by per ception. What makes each second infinite is its potential; what makes it finite is
your view of that potential. Think of an inspired moment in your life, when
you made the perfect move, said the perfect thing, had the perfect idea. What made you so dif ferent in that moment? You were open to something new . You weren’ t reliving the past or anticipating the future. You felt optimistic and open; you were not defended. You let it happen, whatever it was. You felt connected. Now ask yourself if you feel that way now. If you did you would be in a
very simple, though extraordinary state: you would be in the moment. The same preconditions take everyone into the moment, whether
Leonardo, William Blake, or just an ordinary person like me or you. A
genius like Blake may see “infin ity in a grain of sand,” whereas an ordinary
person might only feel uplifted and carefree. The differences, however , are
much less important than the similarities. If you doubt that you could
actually see infinity in a grain of sand, try the following medita tion (which
can be. done imaginarily without sand, in case none is handy). Hold a grain of sand—ordinary  aquarium or beach sand will do—in the
palm of your hand and let your eye rest upon it. Notice its color  and facets,
any hint of glitter , the sharpness of its edges. Roll it between your fingers;
hold it up to your tongue to taste if there is saltiness or earthiness in it. This
is the grain of sand presented to you by your five senses, and most people
would say that there is not much to see in this humble object. Now think of your grain of sand as a point surrounded by space. How
much space can you imagine? There is the room you are sitting in, whichexpands out into your house, the house into your neighborhood,
neighborhood into town—allow your mind to see this expansion suddenly
explode. Now there is the space of the whole planet, the solar system,
galaxy , and blackness beyond . Let this space also expand,  and allow
yourself to see that there is no edge to outer space, no boundary in time. Space cannot have a boundar y because the cosmos is expanding at a
tremendous rate, hundreds of thousands of miles per minute, which is
barely slower than the speed of light in human terms. You cannot take a
stop-motion picture of the cosm os to find out where it is right now, because
at the leading edge of expansion, the universe curves back onto itself. It
must do this; otherwise there would be something outside  space, which
cannot be. This means that your grain of sand is the center of the universe. Now repeat the meditation using time instead of space. Look  at your
grain of sand and check the exact time. Imagine the earlier part of the day
stretching befor e and the rest of the day stretching after. Now expand the
time frame to include a day before and after, a week, a month, a year. See
time as an expa nding circle and allow it to expand as fast as it wants. Is
there a limit to this acceleration? In your mind you can instan tly envision
the moment of the Big Bang; I don’ t mean the literal event, which is beyond
mental compreh ension, only the time it takes you to bring the event to
mind. Likewise, if you want to imagine a star as it exists 10 billion years
from now , your mind can go forward to that point instantly . Your grain of sand is the center of time, expanding infinitely in all dir ections. If time and space both are centered on one grain of sand, then you have
seen infinity—o r as close as your present perception can carry you. The
next step is to perform this meditation without the idea of time and space. Let your mind go blank and allow the sensation of time and space, a single
expanding circle , race away from  a point. Hold in your mind both extremes
—the point and the circle —without letting go of either . Don’ t strain or try
to visua lize too hard; this shou ld be as natural as possible. Let the circle
race away from the point until it disappears and you can no longer hold
both things in your awareness.Sense the state of your mind:
Is it open, watching, and alert? Is it reliving the past or anticipating the future? Is it undefended? Did you let your meditation happen, without turning it into something? Do you feel connected? You may notice  any or all of these things—or none. This isn’t a test but a
way to go beyond boundaries. The value of seeing infinity in a grain of sand
is personal: you may feel like laughing or you may feel profoundly quiet,
you may have a beautiful imag e come to mind or a silky emptiness, you
may be ecstatic or inspired. Give it some time—this meditation opens the
mind, easing your old ego boundaries without your having to address them
psychologically . The grain of sand is important. You are using this point of focus to slip
out of the net of time and space. Beyond the net lies openness, which is
pure potential. In that potential everything is possible. It is the door of the
present moment, which leads to eternity . PART TWO: THREADS IN THE  FABRIC OF  LOVE
On the path to love, inspiration  grows. The moments of insigh t that mark
the early  stages of the path are not as profound as those that come with
mature vision. This reflects a change of consciousness, but at the same time
there is a change of reality . Being infinite, spiritual reality is infinitely
flexible. It can accommodate any perspective. All perspectives are valid, yet
those that approach nearer to God contain more of His qualities: truth,
compassion, acceptance, and love. Your consciousness is your contribution to r eality . What you per ceive as r eal becomes r eal. When two people come together in love, they weave a fabric of
consciousness. If the fabric is strong, then both lovers have made it so; each
loving thought and action is a thread added to the fabric. In Sanskrit the
word for “thread” is Sutra,  which also has a metaphysical meaning. A sutra
is an aphorism or formula that expresses some fundamental truth about
consciousness. When Rumi says, “Love is the sea where intelle ct drowns,”he is uttering a sutra. It expresses a truth from his level of aware ness, and at
the same time it weaves truth by adding a thread no one else has added
before. In a mom ent of clarity and insight, Rumi felt within himself that his
intellect no longer struggled against love but was absorbed into it, as if
being drowned in the sea. His sutra reflects that experience and at the same
time evokes it in us as we read it. You and your beloved have privileged moments in which you understand
what your love is. No one else has ever had exactly the same revelations,
because you are unique people. Your inspirations are yours alone, even
though similar insights have been occurring for thousands of years. To
make your revel ations your own is important. You need to know what you
believe, how far you have come on the path together , how much growth you
have shared. Sutras can tell you all these things. The exercise here is to write down your inspirations as they come to you. Love grows the more you talk about it, think about it, and express it. Even
though moments of insight last only an instant, they are touchstones of
something eternal, the relations hip between self and Self. At this moment
your Self wants you to know about love but also about truth, compassion,
trust, acceptance, and devotion. These are the threads from whic h the fabric
of consciousness is woven. Writing sutras. Get yourself a notebook in which you will put your sutras, as well as
record those of others that inspire you. Do not wait to enter only your
inspired thoughts. At any moment spirit is ready to teach you about itself;
you only have to set aside some  time when you feel receptive— taking five
or ten minutes in the early morning works for most people. Sit down  with your pen and paper, and let your mind relax. Do not force
yourself into a state of inspiration, but have the intention to express what
you know . I don’t mean the information in your brain but what you know
from your heart—a spark of truth, a message from your Self. If words don’t
come so easily at first, you may want to start with a standard opening, such
as “Love is . . .” or “My Self wants me to know that. . . .” After a little
practice, howeve r, you won’ t be able to stop writing—once communication
starts, it tends to pour out.The purpose of your sutras isn’t to sound poetic or wise but simply to
express where you are. Most of us cannot equal the brilliance of Rumi, but
our state of awareness is just as true for us as his was for him. The beauty of
recording your spiritual vision is that you will have the immense pleasure of
watching it grow . Each thread is valuable; none can be taken out of the
fabric of love without loss. Therefore keep in mind the preciousness of your
own awareness, and let your inspirations be a way to claim your spiritual
life as your own. THE P ATH to LOVE
The following are some sutras I have written over the past year in my own
notebooks. I wrote them in spare moments, on airplanes, waiting for lost
luggage, or sitting outside by the sea on sunny days when I wanted to be
with my Self and hear its voice . There are nearly a hundred sutras here, a
good harvest from a very busy year, and I was surprised, once I read them
all, how comple tely they express the material in this book. Thus they are
like crystals from which whole pages sprouted and grew . I do not of fer them
for you to read in one sitting, but all are given here to mark the progress of
one soul as it unfolded over a short span of time. If I could wish one thing
for myself, it would be that I weave this fabric of consciousness forever—
what is more thrilling than the prospect of truths you do not yet know? LESSONS FOR  LOVERS
Three things are absolute and cannot be destroyed: awareness, Being, and
love. You will be in love when you know that you are love. Love is the impulse of evolution that expands life. Any desire to grow is following the flow of love. If you block your desires, you block your natural avenue of growth. Growth is the willingness to let reality be new every moment.Love is the beginning of the journey , its end, and the journey itself. The path of love is everywhere and nowhere. There is no place you can go
that is devoid of love and no place you can leave that is not already love. Love is based not on how you act or feel but on your level of awareness. In duality love comes and goes; in unity there is only love. Personal love is a concentrated form of universal love; universal love is an
expanded form of personal love. Loving another person is not separate from loving God. One is a single
wave, the other is the ocean. The mind judges what is good or bad. Love brings only good. All prayers are answered. The ones answered the fastest are prayers for
understanding. Desires are fulfilled according to your level of awareness. When awareness
is pure, every desire is fulfilled completely . A prayer is a request made from a small part of God to a lar ge part of God. Dreams come true when they are held quietly in the heart. Don’ t tell your dreams to the world—whisper them to love. From a pure heart, anything can be accomplished. If you ask what the
universe is doing, it is eavesdropping on your every desire. Everything is the same spirit watching itself through the eyes of dif ferent
observers. Love is everywhere, but in some places it is blocked by fear . What does not contain love must contain an illusion.Pierce through all your illusions and you will discover that you are only
love. Other people are mirrors of your own love. In reality there are no others,
only the Self in other forms. Separation is merely an idea. At its core, reality is unity . When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about
yourself. Everything in the outer world contains a message about the inner world. The sights and sounds of nature are reminders of a loving creation. Real change is accompanied by a new insight. Insight is an impulse of love dissolving some old imprint. Insights bring truth, which is love in action. Love is like water . If it doesn’ t flow , it stagnates. If you create any open space within yourself, love will fill it. Contemplate love every day . Loving reflections make the heart grow . Love takes many forms—it is up to you to choosewhich you wish to
express. The highest expression of love is creativity . Innocence is the ability to give and receive love without holding on. To love innocently is to allow others to express who they are. No one is wrong. In the eyes of love, all people are doing the best they can
from their own levels of consciousness.Other people seem wrong when their perspective doesn’ t match yours. All disagreements are results of misunderstanding someone else’ s level of
consciousness. All obstacles are created by ourselves, through a belief in non-love. You will have no enemies once you decide to surrender . Surrender means not giving in to another but giving in to love. All desires are spiritual when seen to their deepest level. Love is not the opposite of hate. Being whole, love has no opposites. Negativity is born in the gap where love has been excluded. Gaps occur in places where we are afraid to see ourselves. Life appears random on the surface, but at a deeper level it is completely
organized. Love’ s organizing power is infinite. The cosmos is structured to bring about growth, and growth is always in the
direction of greater love and happiness. The solution is never at the level of the problem—the solution is always
love, which is beyond problems. Bad things don’ t happen to us; we bring them to us so we can learn a
lesson. Love grows on the basis of giving. God’ s ability to give is infinite. W e limit it by our own unloving perception. Love never forces. Love is intelligent and brings only what you need.There is no divine punishment. What seems like God’ s punishment is a
reflection of our own resistance. Forgiveness is born of increased awareness. The more you can see, the
easier it is to for give. Forgiveness in the heart comes about when the walls of separation in the
mind fall. Love is attention without judgment. In its natural state, attention only
appreciates. The person you call an enemy is an exaggerated aspect of your own shadow
self. The shadow self seems to be the opposite of love. Actually it is the way to
love. Spirit is passionate; without passion no one can be truly spiritual. The awakening of true love lies in finding peace within passion and passion
within peace. Sexual ener gy is neutral. It can be loving or unloving, depending on how
you use it. Sex can be used to expand love or to shut it out. The highest eros is to take
God as a lover . When sex is fully loving, you experience the divine through your partner . Sexual love, ener gized by absolute love, is ecstasy . Ecstasy is the most primordial ener gy state. Why is sex so powerful? Because we are constantly in search of the state of
original ecstasy . The whole of reality is contained in the present moment.True love is here and now . Whatever you can remember or anticipate is
only a shadow of love. To see love in the moment you must clean the windows of perception. If you have your full attention in the moment, you will see only love. When love is replaced by an object, the result is addiction. If you are addicted to someone else, you are treating that person as an
object. Time is the ego’ s enemy , not love’ s.
Love changes with the passage of time, but it never diminishes. It is always present in its fullness. Love is the eternal Being at the core of individuality . Love can create a world that is healed and holy . The two are the same thing. To feel beauty is to know the truth. T o know the truth is to be in love. Love dances in the freshness of the unknown. Love doesn’ t need reason. It speaks from the irrational wisdom of the heart. A heart that has learned to trust can be at rest in the world. OceanofPDF .comIN OUR LIVES
A House of Light
“I THINK EVER Y couple starts out wanting to belong to each other—it’ s only
natural, isn’ t it? I mean, we’re born belonging, until we wander of f.”
Elise’ s voice spoke through the half darkness. The three of us—Elise, her
husband, Kent, and I—were sitting outside in New Mexico. The long light
of sunse t had made the hills stand out in blue shadows, ridge after ridge that
filled with gold and then emptied again. “The whole question of love is finding where you belong,” Elise went on. “It’s never been easy for me, and even when I met Kent I wondered where
we would end up.”
“Not a hopeful way to begin,” I said. Elise laughed. “We started out with a hideous honeymoon. That’ s what we both called
it. Rush ed plans , total disagreement over where to go, and when I finally
gave in to Kent’ s dream honeymoon, which was in Paris, we spent the first
two nights stranded in a snowbound airport outside Chicago. After such a
start, wouldn’ t you worry?”
“It must have gotten better ,” I said. “Yes and no.” It was Kent’ s voice this time coming through the darkness. “We had anticipated working together at our own small business, but when
we got out here, the economy slumped. I wound up spending most of my
time uselessly at home while Elise worked a counter job in town. It was the
worst time to be apart, and the longer I found myself out of work, the more
depressed I got. It was all pretty unlivable.”
“They say you can’t live on love alone,” Elise remarked. “God knows we
tried, but you bring so much emotional baggage with you when you marry . Particularly us, since we’d both been single until our forties. We were
extremely hard to please, like the grocery store cat.”They both laughed. You would never suspect, five years later, that
anything like a hideous honeym oon or the troubles that followed had ever
happened to this couple. I have rarely met two people who seem so
genuinely to belong to each other. The first thing that strikes an observer is
that Elise and Kent have learne d to turn love into play. Their eyes sparkle
when they look at each other; they laugh easily and find endless sources of
interest in their life. Their home in the New Mexico desert is crammed with
folk art, each piece purchased from an artist Elise and Kent personally
trekked to find in an exotic country . It was disarming to enter this home, so full of light that at times I could
hardly tell it had walls. Every object had a story or a name. Ambrose was a
carved wooden armadillo six feet long from the highlands of Guatemala;
Matilda, a shaggy coyote sewn  from brown velvet, sat at the dinner table
looking absurdly gentle. Everything in their environment represents an
extension of how these two people love. “If I tell anyone about you,” I said, “you will come off as dangerously
close to the perfect couple.”
“We’re not afraid to claim what’ s good about us,” Elise said. “Being fifty
entitles you to that.”
“We just know how to survive,” Kent put in. “Meaning what?” I asked. “Like Elise, I went through a lot of years when belonging to someone
else was hard. Part of this was personal—I really had no idea what an
intimate relationship meant, and getting close to anyone frightened me. But
I was also caugh t in the cross fire of a culture that expects a man to be hard
when he’s outside his home and soft and romantic when he comes back at
night. Love and power are hard to mix.”
We took this as a line of depar ture and talked about it for the next few
hours. “I agree,” I said. “But I think it’s about more than just being hard or
soft. There’ s a spiritual issue here. Human beings are the only creatures
born with a higher nature and a lower nature. At different times one may
suit the situation better than the other .”
“Define higher  and lower . Those terms make me nervous,” Elise said. “In the West higher  and lower  are equated with sacred and profane, that
part which is close to God, and its opposite, which lives among the animals.Sex, being profane, is lower; love, being sacred, is higher . But in fact sex
and love are processes—they are ways of feeling and doing. “In India it’s taught that the same life force, or Prana , runs through
everything. In Christian terms Prana is the ‘breath of God,’ which
transforms dead , inert matter to life. But even though Prana is the same
energy whereve r it flows, it gets colored. As sex the life force is not the
same as when it is love.”
“But why call these higher  and lower? ” Kent asked. “Is it lower to make
love to someone than to give alms to the poor? Love is love.”
“Ideally , yes. If you could just be in the flow of love, distinctions
wouldn’ t matter . But as everyone finds out, if a man loves his job and
devotes every waking hour to it, his wife doesn’ t consider that enough to
compensate for his absence; the lack of love on one side is still painful. So
the question is, how do you restore love on all levels? “First, you’d have to know which levels we are talking about. For
thousands of years in India it has been taught that humans live on seven
levels. These are visualized as seven wheels or chakras  arrange d up the
body , starting from the lowest chakra at the base of the spine and ending
with the highest at the top of the head.”
None of this came as news to Elise or Kent, who had read a good deal of
metaphysics. “Will this really get us to love?” Kent asked. “Not many
people in the W est are going to plunge into esoteric knowledge, are they?”
“That’ s not where we have to head with this,” I said. “If you skip the
details, all that is being described here is a simple division between the
higher and lower energies. The bottom three chakras are locate d below the
heart. They have to do with survival, sexual drive, and a sense of power . If
we only lived in these three chakras, human beings would be fierce, self-
protective, instinctual creatures. “Above the heart are the three higher chakras, devoted to will, intuition,
and freedom. If we only lived from these centers, human beings would see
themselves as divine. We would  never go to war, struggle for survival, or
create enemies. So why is our nature divided in such a radical way? “The answer lies in the heart, the chakra that stands midway  between
higher and lower . The heart is the mediator , the chooser , the center of
feeling. It looks upon the higher and lower energies, and its response is
always the same: it loves both. The function of the heart isn’t to labelanything good or bad; it doesn’ t judge or reject. Out of love it blends high
and low until something new is created: a complete human being, totally at
ease with every aspect of himself.”
“So why do we struggle so hard?” Elise asked. “Your scheme has a
beautiful symmetry to it, which in my experience means it is probably
totally unworkable.”
“Who can really say?” I replied. “The problem is that so few people ever
get to test whether they can marry higher and lower . Our society , to be
brutally frank, is stuck in the bottom two chakras. Sex and survival
dominate our awareness. We laud the power brokers but rarely  the men of
peace; we judge  the powerless as weak and inferior , and we hand out few
rewards for spiritual achievement.”
“That sounds pretty accurate to me,” Elise said wryly . “This imbalance is reflected in the way aggression and violence still
come forward to solve problems , which means that the lower chakras have
been threatened,” I said. “When anything is threatened, it gets activated;
that’s just how life works. So how does a person activate the higher
energies? What would it take to end a war with compassion? The answer is
actually simple: human beings will act out of their higher nature when they
become complete. What we call human today is really half a person. “The only way to become complete is to call upon your heart to start
blending higher and lower . It won’ t do any good to shove violence and
aggression out of sight, or to pretend that we can be loving without facing
those dark areas in the psyche where fear and insecurity constantly prowl.”
It was night now, and the sky was full of stars in brighter splendor than I
ever see from the city. I stopped  talking, waiting to see how this perspective
would be received. “I think I know where you’re  going,” Kent said. “The heart brings
together two opposite energies, as you call them, until they have no choice
but to face each other . Then what happens?”
“Only one thing,” I said. “You have a relationship. Instead of living in
two separate worlds, the high and low must look at each other . Isn’t this
what happens in marriage? You bring all of yourself under another person’ s
gaze, and you see the same in return. Y ou become mirrors to each other , and
when you look in those mirrors, what you see is sex, survival, will,emotion, purpos e, and love. It’s all there, but it isn’t whole. The fragments
don’t completely fit, therefore you get conflict and pain.”
“Isn’ t that inevitable?” Kent asked. “Love is about surviving the wounds
another person can inflict and feeling bad about the ones you inflict in
return.”
“Of course that is inevitable,” I said. “But the question is why we want to
expose our vulnerable, fragile, conflicted selves to someone else. Why look
in the mirror? The view , after all, can be quite brutal.”
“You look because you want to love,” Elise said. “Exactly . The mirror of relationship gives back love, not all the time or in
all love’ s purity . But the reflect ion is there, every day. Here’ s what I think
happens in every relationship where love is alive. The energies that make us
act out of anger , fear, insecurity , and doubt are extremely familiar . They are
like an old, dark house we return  to whenever things get too hard to handle. It feels risky to leave this house and see what’ s outside, yet we have to
leave if we expect to be loved. “So we take the risk. We walk out into the light and offer ourselves to a
beloved. This feels wonderful; it’ s like nothing we ever imagined in our old,
dark house. But when things get tough, we run back inside; we choose the
familiarity of fear and lovelessness over the vulnerability of love, until
finally we feel safe enough to go back and try love again. “This is essentia lly the rhythm of every intimate relationship—risk and
retreat. Over and over we repeat this rhythm, accepting love and pushing it
away until finally something miraculous happens. The old, dark house isn’t
necessary anymore. We look around, and we have a new house, a house of
light. Where did it come from? How did we build it? It was built from the
love of the heart . It has silently been weaving our higher and lower natures,
blending fear, anger , survival, and protection into the energies of devotion,
trust, compassion, and acceptance.”
“And that’s when you belong to someone else,” Elise said. “You feel safe
enough to live in love together , without retreating into the old, dark places.”
“Yes,” I said. “If two people come from love, no matter how much they
have to overcom e, eventually the house of light will be finished. This is the
project silently undertaken in all intimate relationships. The tragedy is that
our culture doesn’ t teach us to see love and marriage in this way, so not
enough people ever finish their house.”We sat quietly , our talk nearly done. I had never really spoken like this
before. I felt a warmth of gratitude that these two people had created a safe
place for such words to emer ge. Words are fragile when tied to tender
emotions, and to find oneself in a place that nurtures the fragility of love is
rare. “If you really love someone else,” I said, “you are not afraid to let that
person look in the mirror you hold up. There is no other way to grow . And
you are not afraid to claim your share of love in return, because you have
looked in the mirror too. The ultimate mystery of love is that by looking
deeply into yourself, you find out who you are, but then that self is given
away , offered in love. “I do not want to give half of myself to my beloved. Therefore I must
find my completeness. To find who I really am, I must get in touch with
spirit in everything—in mome nts of silent meditation, in the beauty of
nature, in the practice of nonjudgment, in appreciation of this precious
instant in time. I must see my life as a work in progress. Nothin g about me
is ever final. “Knowing that my path is the search for love, I have to devote some time
every day to this search. I must place my beloved above myself in order to
deserve a vision of her sacredness. I must tread lightly on the path, having
patience with setbacks and harming no one who seems to block me. I must
experience my shadow and learn from it in order to go beyond it. “I must see all things in myself, rejecting nothing out of fear or disdain. I
must remind myself always to look a little bit beneath the surface of things,
for a flower is not just a flower —it is rain and rainbow , clouds , earth, and
the immensity of space. Then I must look at myself the same way . “All of this is how we build a house of light. A faint voice calls us from
outside our old, dark house. It says, ‘Can’ t you see the vastn ess in your
heart? Don’t you perceive that you are enough, needing no one and
nothing? What could be more desirable than being here and now, savoring
the infinite in the moment?’ Just to heed this voice for a second is to
experience love. To listen to it forever is to experience all of life in the light
of love. Then what we lay at the feet of our beloved is a treasure, the
treasure of who we really are.”
“I’d like to think that we have built a house of light,” Elise said. She had
gotten up to go to the kitchen. Kent caught her hand in passi ng, and I’msure they exchanged smiles in the gently gathering night. They were not
afraid to own the best part of themselves, which is always true of people
who have learned to live from the heart. OceanofPDF .comIN CONCLUSION: “YOU ARE LOVED”
“CAN I HELP  you?”
Hearing the woman’ s voice, I looked up from the mess of glass, water ,
and sogg y paper  littering the floor. Hundreds of people had been  rushing by
to catch their planes, and I didn’ t even want help. “I can take care of it,” I
said. “No bother , it’ll only take a jiff,” the woman said. She opened her purse
and produced, miraculously , a towel. She knelt down and started dabbing
around on the floor . I had dropped a carry-on bag in the airport and smashed
a bottle of mine ral water . The exploding glass had ripped the flimsy nylon,
spilling the bag’s soaked conten ts onto the floor . All I could find to clean up
the mess was toilet paper from a nearby men’ s room. “That’ s getting it,” the woman said. “It wasn’ t as bad as all that.”
“You’re English, aren’ t you?” I asked. She nodded and smiled. “My
name’ s Laurel.” As she efficiently finished up, I had time to take a long
look at Laurel. She was plain-looking with pockmarked cheeks  and frowsy
brown hair, wearing no makeup  and a gray stretched-out cardig an. We both
stood up, and I saw her wince slightly . I took the towel and threw it in a
trash receptacle by the men’ s room. Laurel nodded slightly as I thanked her,
and when I offered to walk her to her gate, she hesitated, again very
slightly . “That would be nice,” she said. We gathered our things and headed up
the concourse. I couldn’ t help but notice that she had a decide d limp. “A
very unbeautifu l woman,” I thought, “and very kind.” I wondered what
made Laurel the way she was. When she got to her gate, it turned out that
the flight to London had been delayed for half an hour . We began to talk. “I’m just going home to see my mother ,” Laurel said. “She’ s getting on,
and she’s not so cheerful as before. Osteo and the rain. It’s what she must
live with, I suppose.”
“Do you go home often?” I asked.“Me? No, not in twenty years , if I count right.” I must have looked
surprised. “Well, they didn’ t really want me at home. I left the first day it
was legal to drop out of school . My family’ s working class, and after my
leg was hurt—I was riding on my boyfriend’ s motorbike—they just found it
too hard having me around. Natural, I guess.”
Something in me was feeling very pained. “They threw you out, you
mean, because you were crippled?” I asked. “That’ s a bit dramatic. I just use a cane when I have to.” Laurel’ s
recitation of these events had been given in a calm voice, free from
bitterness. “So what made them decide to take you back now, after all this time?” I
asked. “They didn’ t, exactly . I just want them to know , well, what everyone
needs to know .” I looked at Laurel, whose face became eager; she had
decided to tell me something special. “A very remarkable thing happened to
me recently . I went to a women’ s conference being held up in the
mountains. I live in New Hampshire, doing child care and the odd thing or
two to make ends meet. A wom an whose child I take care of couldn’ t go to
this conference,  which was at quite a lovely resort, so she offered me her
place. I decided to go, just on the spur of the moment. So you see, I didn’ t
even belong there with the others.”
“That’ s important to what happened next?” I asked. “You’re a good guesser . I liked being in the mountains and having such a
nice room, but the rest of it, the discussion groups and such, frankly went
over my head. Only the last night did I work up the courage to go to one,
and what do you think? They asked us to close our eyes and imagine a very
sad day in our past. It was some kind of emotional therapy , I think you’d
call it. So I closed my eyes and imagined the first day I was sent to school. I
must have been five, and I cried so hard they couldn’ t get me to let go of
my mother ’s skirt. She was fussing and telling me not to be such a baby . I
think she was quite embarrassed by my carrying on like that. “Then they told us to open our eyes and pick out any strang er in the
room. We were to walk up to her and exchange experiences. I plucked up
my nerve and picked out a woman about my age in the corner . I told her my
experience, and her eyes grew wide and strange.”I had a sudden premonition about how this story would turn out. My skin
tingled, but I held my tongue. “She almost stammered telling  me her own experience,” Laurel said. “And what do you suppose? It was exactly the same as mine . Then I asked
her, ‘You’re from  England, too, aren’ t you?’ and she nodded. ‘I’m Vicky,’
she said, all excited. ‘Don’ t you remember me, Laurel?’
“I stood back, quite amazed. Then I did remember: there had been
another little girl just as frightened as I was that day, crying her eyes out. ‘Do you mean to say we had the same experience? You were going to find a
stranger to tell it to?’ I asked. V icky nodded, and we didn’ t know whether to
laugh or cry . Imagine!”
“It’s an amazing coincidence,” I said. “No, it’s an amazing reminder .” Laurel replied. “You see, I had been
getting discouraged, being alone and without my family . You can see how it
is. And here this astonishing thing happens, and I realized that I couldn’ t
possibly be alone. Y ou do see?”
I had to suppres s the emotion in my voice. “Yes,” I said. “As amazing as
your experience was, the really remarkable part to me is that you know
what it’ s about.”
“Oh yes,” Laurel said. “It’ s about God. It has to be.”
There is nothing more moving than a reminder that spirit is with us. This
woman had been gathered into a web of delicate caring that encloses all of
us, though we do not notice it. Rumi was being quite literal when he said,
There is someone who looks after us
From behind the curtain. In truth, we are not here. This is our shadow . The tragic illusion of everyday life is that we mistake shadow for reality . It
is impossible to be outside the web woven of love, and at moments when
events throw us too far into oblivion, a message comes to say, “You are
loved.”
“So you’ve decided your mother would like to know that she’s not
alone,” I said. Laurel nodded. “But you don’ t owe her anything,” I said. “I owe her everything,” Laurel said. “It’s just that people forget if the
debt lasts a long time.”“Does it matter that she’ s had so little care for you?”
“How do I know that?” Laurel asked, surprised. “Perhaps she can’t show
it.”
It still amazes me how often spirit sends us clues about the real nature of
life. This I took to be a clue about compassion, the closest value to love
itself. To be compassionate is not to take pity; it is to extend care to others
simply because you see their need. Most of us give because doing so
increases our self-image or because we expect something in return,
although it’s difficult to be entirely honest about that. Laurel gave because
she had to—this is love in action, having no doubt about itself. There is no
question of anyone else having to deserve your compassion. If you have it
to give, you will give it where it is needed. The path to love doesn’ t end with ascension, as if that were a fixed and
final stage. Ascension continues as long as you live. Through ascension the
ideals of trust, forgiveness, devotion, and compassion ripen into a golden
harvest whose seed was planted  years before in our first lessons on love. And whatever aspect is revealed at a given moment, they ripen because they
have to. “A lot of peopl e would say that you have a right to be bitter,” I told
Laurel. “They’re probably people who are bitter themselves,” she said casually . We parte d company at her gate,  and for some reason I noticed that she was
carrying one of those dilapidat ed paperback thrillers the British dote on. “That book says a lot about you,” I remarked, smiling. “It does?” she asked. “Yes. It says you like to look for clues.”
I went off to my flight, but this unusual woman has stirred me to write
about compassion as the last thing I have to say in this book. I don’t think compassion is very well understood. In the West we have
been misled by the word itself—the Latin roots of compassion  mean “to
suffer with.” Yet compassion does not have to entail suffering alongside
someone else. To be in touch with God’ s love is the root of compassion. Trying to exercise compassion without this connection will only lead to
failure. If I see you in extrem e distress, putting my attention on your
suffering is the same as partici pating in it, and the amount of love I can
actually direct to you will therefore be diminished.Compassion, to be full, has to be founded on unconditional love, which is
not attached to suffering of any kind. I think of all the condition s that could
have held Laurel back—her physical limitation, the injustice of how she
had been treated , her obvious lack of money . But she was on that flight
nevertheless, to deliver the message “Y ou are loved.”
The remarkable thing was how equally Laurel saw herself to others she
might have resented. Compassion, besides being connected to God’ s love,
sees everyone as connected to it in the same way. Even if you are presently
in pain, you are not without love. Since God is compassionate, no one’s
experience of pain is a punis hment. There is love somewhere inside. Suffering is hard to perceive as love when it is occurring, and many times it
isn’t perceived as a lesson for growth either . This is where compassion has most value; it allows me to step in and
remind you that you are loved, not in theory but in the flesh. All of us feel
our pain keenly while the pain is present; there is little room for reflection
on the spiritual value, if any, of what we are going through. But the fact that
the mind  is dominated by pain doesn’ t negate love’ s purpose.
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:

        For some lovers it is
possible to use orgasm as a means to reach elevated states of consciousness,
yet even in these cases the visions, sensations, and emotions being evoked
are not necessarily ecstasy. They are whatever the lovers have made them
into. To make things shining and new has everything to do with perception. This brings us to the second broad definition of ecstasy, which is mythic  or
archetypal. In ordinary perception we see ourselves in unmythic terms,
overshadowed as we are by so much mundane activity. Ulysses didn’ t have
to commute through tangled traffic every morning; Athena’ s mind wasn’ t
filled with worri es over meeting the mortgage this month. But as Carl Jung
long ago pointed out, beneath the turmoil of daily activity our unconscious
motivations dwell in the mythic world. Inside each of us are primal gods and goddesses. We know this without
knowing it, insofar as we obey  our mythic drives without bringing them
into conscious awareness. Striving to succeed in a corporate takeover bid
partakes of the heroic quest as much as the Argonauts seeking the Golden
Fleece; climbing Everest is driven by the same ambition to reach the abode
of the gods as Icarus flying toward the sun. In mythic terms ecstasy is a
sacred journey into the unconscious as underworld, heroically portrayed in
countless ways, from Persephone’ s abduction by Pluto to Orph eus seeking
his bride among the shades of Hades. If the physical definition of ecstasy falls short because it lacks meaning,
the mythic definition flirts with being too intellectual. Through the arduous
process of bringing the unconsc iousness to light, a person may be able to
reach his mythic roots, but whether this will bring ecstasy is questionable. In the language of archetypes ecstasy has been traced back to the Greek god
Dionysus, whose devotees engaged in ritual orgies, using wine and
sexuality to attain altered states. At the sacred site of Delphi, a secret cult of
women called maenads (deriv ed from the Greek word for “madness”)
worked themselves into ecstatic frenzies in their rites, which included
skinning animals alive with their bare hands and devouring them. We still look askance at Dionysiac revels, supposing that their
participants reached wild excesses of drunkenness and promiscuity. To
mythic thinkers, though, nothing could be further from the truth. The
worship of Dionysus, they tell us, was not about excess and violence but
about the attainment of divine ecstasy. The darkness of this journey is what
made the frenzi es necessary; they were not an end in themselves. In any
event, orgies are now really grand metaphors for smashing the shell of
waking consciousness to arouse the sleeping divinity within. Perhaps this is true. Many ancient traditions use extreme states to push
through to sacred visions. Native shamans who pierce their bodies or
seclude themselves in the harsh wilderness are attempting to contact primal
forces within. Their rites and the orgies of Dionysus are not that far
removed from lovemaking by lovers who hope to push sex into the intensity
of ecstas y. The transports of priests and devotees through devotional rituals
can be very meaningful to them. The unconscious is a rich landscape;
archetypes tell us much about our primal selves. Yet the messages of myth
often seem prefabricated, I think, lacking the immediacy of true ecstasy. It
is rare to meet a mythic thinker who has recaptured the divine states of the
ancïent ones he or she has thought about. TRUE ECSTASY
This brings us to the third definition of ecstasy, as a spiritual  release. Spiritual ecstasy is not a feeling or an idea but a shift of perception in which
direct contact with spirit is made. Being in ecstasy does not have to express
itself through intensity of any kind. The biblical injuncion “Be still and
know that I am God” is an invitation to ecstasy. I prefer the spiritual definition because it is inclusive of the physical and
the mythical. The most famous example of spiritual ecstasy is probably that
of Saint Teresa, who dreamed that an angel came and pierced her heart with
a golden  arrow. She describes this experience in intensely physic al terms, as
a burnin g pain that was almost unendurable until it wondrously transformed
itself into equally intense pleasu re. The mythic ingredients of the angel and
the arrow are unmistakable once we think back to the god Eros with his
quiver and bow. In her ecstasy  Teresa felt nothing less than the intimate
embrace of God, and the erotic and mythic overtones of her experience
make it no less divine. Being supremely spiritual, her ecstas y is able to
include every level of interpretation. What usually makes ecstasy so intense and extreme is not the experience
itself but getting to it. The common images of God or an angel coming
down from heav en to pierce, shatter, and penetrate the ecstatic one do not
have to be taken  literally; they serve to remind us that many layers shield us
from contact with spirit. To receive the gift of ecstasy is an exquisiteexperience, as told in a rema rkable passage from a Greek Orthodox
manuscript written a thousand years ago:
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’ s body
where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real. These sensual lines, which aroused shock and controversy at the time,
were written by an obscure monk known to us as Symeon the New
Theologian. His description of spirit as a penetrating, transforming love that
turns our very cells to divine essence still may sound too intimate for
comfort:
We awaken in Christ’ s body
as Christ awakens our bodies. I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him. I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning. Symeon was well aware that his loving intimacy with Godhood would be
considered blasp hemous—he spent his last years exiled in a remote Turkish
village, condemned by church authorities—but now we can recognize in his
writing the complete sincerity of a true lover. For Symeon “everything that
seemed to us dark, harsh, shame ful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, is
in Him transformed and recogn ized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in His
light. ”
This of course sounds like the voice of a saint, and a very ecstatic one. But I believe the same vision is open to us all—we are all lovers trying to
reach perfection. We do this, as Symeon teaches, when “we awaken as the
Beloved in every last part of our body. ” In Symeon’ s time these words
violated the dogmatic belief that the body was wicked and corrupt. In our
age the opposit e prejudice applies: a lover is someone whose appeal isbasically physic al, sexual. In both cases the fusion of spirit and body has
been missed. Yet at moments the piercing joy of love does appear, despite dogma. The
touch of your beloved or simply the sight of her can seem  suddenly
amazing, appea ring like lightning, just as Symeon says. But the same
feeling can penetrate the heart from nowhere, because love is inherent in
life itself. Emily  Dickinson, whose lovers were all in her imagination, is to
me a true lover nonetheless. She writes:
Not “Revelation”—tis—that waits
But our unfurnished eyes—
This is a message of compressed wisdom, which says that we are waiting
not on the day of redemption but on our own perception. The exquisitene ss of true ecstas y cannot dawn unless we can contain it;
our minds are so absorbed in relentless activity that quietness rarely lasts
more than an instant. The body by its nature is also active and restless. Since activity and stillness are opposites, the body generally registers some
degree of agitation or even discomfort as it moves into alignment with
spirit. The reputation that ecstasy has for being physically intense
contributes to the frenzy and mutilation that devotees have resorted to in
order to duplicate the opening to ecstasy—they are mistaking the symptom
for the cause. The divine has nothing to do with pain. Because it stands outside—
ekstasis —the envelope of time and space, spirit cannot be sensuous. Our
five senses cannot take us to where ecstasy dwells. But as true ecstasy
begins to manifest, our senses definitely react. The reaction is entirely
individual and unpredictable, since one person’ s intense erotic opening is
another ’s frightening collapse of defenses. What feels like the expansion of
the soul into infinite space to me may seem like a terrifying fall into the
void to you. When we say that ecstasy is like the drop melting back into the ocean, it
must be made clear that we are the drop and the ocean at the same time, just
on dif ferent levels. Ecstasy is the r elease of individuality back into wholeness. Whatever brings you closer to
wholeness brings you closer to ecstasy. Here I think we’ve reached the secret of ecstasy. Most of us do not see
ourselves as supreme sexual technicians, nor can we relate easily to the
extraordinary mysticism of a saint. Ecstasy will never be ordinar y, yet it can
be brought within our reach once we realize its real nature. Although often
experienced in the most extrem e situations, ecstasy is a quality  of spirit as
natural as any other. We do not have to sojourn into the darkness of the
mythic past to retrieve it. The patient work of inner growth is all we need. To promote stillness inwardly is to promote ecstasy. The inner being
doesn’ t have to be tricked or manipulated to achieve this stillness. Our
minds are like runners that only have to slow down in order to walk, then
slow down from a walk to standing still. This process of shifting from
activity to stillness is a simple yet very deep description of meditation. We
could modify the biblical injunction to “Be still and know ecstasy. ” There is
no single road to this quietness of meditation, yet to be genuine any
meditation must take the mind beyond its superficial nature, which is
restless and chaotic, to its deeper nature as the peace that passes all
understanding. REACHING  ECSTASY
The emer gence  into stillness can take place under any conceivable
circumstance. Arjuna achieved his moksha on a raging battlefield after the
bloody onslaught of family against family. Medieval saints found theirs in
complete retreat  from the world. At this very moment someone is finding it
in a bustling city or staring out to sea. The release is never incidental or
accidental. Tastes of ecstasy come and go, yet attaining compl ete stillness
of the mind means walking the spiritual path to its concl usion, with
discipline and faith. Expansion of consciousness is the r oad to ecstasy. Expansion of consciousness is a broad term that covers almost everything
I have discussed up to now, for the path to love is all about such expansion. Love pulls you out of ego boundaries, and when you are dedicat ed to acting
from love, you are able to live in spirit. Many of the most important themes
have already been covered:Seeing your beloved as a mirror of your higher Self. Surrendering to love as a guiding force. Letting go of attachment to the false self and its needs. Devoting every day to achieving true union and healing the wounds of separation. Countless people live with their beloved without following any of these
principles; their love doesn’ t provide a strong enough basis to escape their
old conditioning. Until they discover the spiritual path, few are able to heed
the voice of spirit, which speaks intuitively. If only you perceived it, you
are alrea dy in a state of ecstasy that is permanent and unshakab le. But only
at moments when your boundaries fade away do you have flashes of reality. Then direct intuitive knowing becomes possible, and you can see yourself
for who you are, sublime and ecstatic. Thousands of years ago the
Upanishads expressed our twofold nature in a beautiful metaphor:
Two birds, one of them mortal, the other immortal,
live in the same tree. The first one pecks at the fruit,
sweet or bitter; the second looks on without eating. Thus the personal self pecks at the fruit of this world,
bewildered by suf fering, always hungry for more,
but when he meets the true Self, the resplendent God,
the source of creation, all his cravings are stilled. The two birds in the tree, self and Self, are inseparable; both sit in the same
tree (the body) faced with the same fruit (the material world). Yet for all
their closeness the bird who craves the fruit does not know its mate. It takes
an awak ening to reveal the Self, and although in one sense it is awesome,
being “the resplendent God,” in another sense it is just one’s intimate
beloved, who has faithfully kept watch through all time, waitin g only to be
seen. Once it is seen everything in life changes. As the Upanish ads declare,
the life of the self, once united with the Self, rises to a blessed level:
Good and evil both vanish;
delighting in Self, playing like a child with Self,
he does whatever is called for, whatever the result. When self-realiz ation dawns, there is no longer any question of struggle
or effort. The spirit guides you to do whatever is called for, according to
your own makeup. In reality universal love requires only one thing, that the
sweet point in the heart expand until bliss and peace become the nature of
our life. This first happens within individuals, then it happens torelationships based on spirit, finally it extends to whole families and
societies. A single point in the heart can expand to liberate the world. Ecstasy is therefore not an individual feeling at all but a glimpse of the
wholeness waiting to be seen everywhere. The Upanishads state this very
explicitly:
Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings,
vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, nearer than breath, than heartbeat. Our senses tell us that we are breathing and that our hearts beat,  but there is
a breath within the breath that is spirit (in Christian terms it has been called
afflatus, the breath of God). Near as spirit may be, centur ies of cultural prejudice have made it
necessary to rediscover our intuitive, direct knowledge of it. Many
disciplines and techniques can be employed here, particularly meditation. In
this book I have concentrated on the expansion of conscious ness that is
available throug h love, motivated by the tragic absence of love we see all
around us. Yet the road to the Self is not closed on any side—the
transcendent is “nearer than breath, than heartbeat”—and fortunately a
multitude of teachings exist to put our feet on the path. In the end the path does not actually ascend anywhere in time or space. The self is still the self, the ego is still the ego, the senses are still the
senses. How can you go anywh ere to capture what is already so close to
you. The mystery is that this “pathless path,” as the masters refer to it,
causes immense  transformation. There is a world of difference between
those who live in love and those who only touch upon it fitfully. Perhaps the
greatest differen ce is this qualit y called ecstasy, which is the actual feeling
of breathing God’ s breath and beating with His heart. I do not want to betray the intimacy of ecstasy; it is the most private of
love affairs. Being becomes your beloved, and the merging of yourself with
another person follows with complete ease and naturalness. If one had to
lay down some  kind of pattern for how ecstasy is attained, it would be
extremely general, as follows:The time comes when seeking is over and realization begins. First the
mind becomes aware of its own activity while standing apart from it. Ordinarily we are immersed in our own inner dialogue; the stream of
thoughts, wishes, fears, and fantasies running through our heads keeps us
fixated. We buy into a mental drama that has no conclusion. The mind gains
its restless energy from our participation. Being fixated on your own ment al
drama is all it takes to cause the drama to work itself up. At certain moments, however, the fixation is not so alluring. Some part of
ourselves detaches from the mind’ s activity—the first stage of ecstasy is
just this faint awareness of being a witness to the drama rather than an
engaged participant. The observer has begun to put a slight distance
between itself and the observed. The second step is the stilling of the mind. This is not achieved by force
or indeed by any action at all. Doing anything is the opposite of being still. Because we have spent our whole lives in activity, non-doing is extremely
unfamiliar. Most of the time it occurs by accident—out of the blue, one
notices that the stream of consciousness has ceased, like turning  off a water
tap. Sexual activity is so often associated with ecstasy because it is one of
the few times that most people can be fully distracted from their minds. Whether a person tries to make it happen or not, what creates stillness in the
mind is simply that the observer  is able to continue to stand apart for longer
than a moment. Gaining some distance between the observer and the observed is so rare
that the second stage of ecstasy occurs quite infrequently. For most of us the
excursions away  from mental activity last only a few seconds. But if we
manage to achieve the second stage, stillness takes on a surprising aspect. Our attention reveals to us that silence has its own dynamism. The still
mind, though devoid of thoughts, quivers and vibrates all the same. There is
a kind of trembling anticipation  that can go one of two ways. Either a new
thought will be born to bring back the internal dialogue or the faint
trembling of silence will lead to even deeper silence. Poised here at the edge of ecstasy, you cannot make your mind choose
one way over the other. Even people who have experienced silent mind
many times, such as in prolonged practice of meditation, do not go past the
front room of silence at will. But if the mind chooses to plunge into deeper
silence, the third stage has been reached. This deeper silence doesn’ t quiver;it cannot be disturbed by even the faintest activity. One experiences it like
the softest black velvet or the deepest dark cave. Anyone who has come this
far is now truly “standing outsid e. ” Of course it would be just as accurate to
say that you are standing inside, because inside and outside have lost their
difference. Y ou are merely there where ecstasy is. The fourth and final stage requires nothing new on your part—once your
attention has been captured by deep silence, the inner transformation is
complete. What ever is to happ en next dawns of its own accord. One is
brought face to face with pure Being, pure awareness, pure joy. In ancient
Sanskrit terms, sat chit ananda,  eternal bliss consciousness, reveals itself. A
Christian saint might call the same experience “the face of God. ” The poet
of the Song of Solomon put it in lover ’s terms:
My eyes are radiant with your spirit;
my nostrils fill with your fragrance. My ears delight in your music,
and my face is covered with your dew. But these are images only. The fact that ecstasy exists is the promise that
kindles our faith on the path to love; tastes of it are the water that refreshes
our quest. We take faith from those living masters who have reached the
goal. They stand apart from us, yet they are clothed in the same flesh and
bones; they move, act, breathe, and live as the rest of us do. Only secretly,
in their realized  souls, do they know with utter certainty that, like the two
birds in the tree, they are Self while we are self. I often turn to a few pages of dialogue between an Indian discip le and his
master that bring this contrast to life for me. The disciple is resisting the
idea that there is anything beyond the world of the senses. He is the
questioner; the answerer is the South Indian master Sri Nisar gadatta
Maharaj:
Q: Is your world full of things and people as is mine. A: No, it is full of myself. Q: But do you see and hear as we do. A: Yes, I appear to see and hear and talk and act, but to me it just happens,
as to you digestion or perspiration happens. Q: If you are the world, how can you be conscious of it. A: Cons ciousness and the world appear and disappear together, hence they
are two aspects of the same state. As long as the mind is there, your
body and the world are there. Your world is mind-made, subjective,
enclosed within the mind, fragmentary, temporary, personal, hanging on
the thread of memory. Q: So is yours. A: Oh, no. I live in a world of realities, while yours is of imagi nings. Your
world is personal, private, unsha reable, intimately your own. Nobody can
enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear, feel your emotions and think
your thoughts. In your world you are truly alone, enclosed in your ever-
changing dream, which you take for life. My world is an open world,
common to all, accessible to all. In my world there is communit y, insight,
love, and real quality; the individual is the totality. All are one, and
the One is all. As many times as I have read this passage over the years, it never fails to
move me at a level deeper than emotion or memory or even insight. I feel
brought face to face with the real, and I stand in awe of a person who can
say of the mate rial world that it is the merest speck fleeting through his
mind. But it is also heartening to realize that such great masters began as
ordinary people. The only difference between them and any one of us is that
the masters set foot on the path,  beginning the journey of soul- making that
leaves time behind. Eventually  the path ends, and the foundation of our
world, which stands upon mem ory and mind, crumbles, leaving a new
world of unimaginable realness. Understandably, Maharaj’ s disciple was
intensely curiou s about what this new world is like, but his master could
only answer him from a place beyond words:
Q: How do you know that you are in the supreme state. A: Because I am in it. It is the only natural state. Q: Can you describe it. A: Only by negation, as uncaused, independent, unrelated, undivided,
uncomposed, unshakeable, unquestionable, unreachable by effort. And yet my state is supremel y actual, therefore possible, realizable,
attainable. There may be those who would find this a discouraging description,
riddled with paradox. How can the unreachable be reached or the
indescribable be real. I can only turn to those arrows of light that hurtle at
us from that world, the moment s of ecstasy that quiet all doubt and still all
questionings. It takes a long time before such experiences born in the
deepest silence can be translat ed into time and space. A life filled with
chaos is extreme ly difficult to fill with ecstasy. While you are caught in the
ecstatic moment, however, all of reality seems like a miracle. The very root
of the word miracle  reminds us that it derives from the Latin mirar e, “to
behold with rapt attention. ” No better definition of ecstasy has ever been
given. To those  who have gained entry  to ecstasy there is no reason to ask for
more. No transformation is as all-embracing, and after returning to the
everyday world,  the great gift seems to be not the intensity of remembered
joy but the revelation of truth. One moment of genuine ecstasy removes a
lifetime of doubts—you realize once and for all that spirit is real. You know
from firsthand experience that you are the divine essence. In that sense
ecstasy is the most immediate and yet the most far off of experiences. It is
immediate because it is unden iable; it is distant because it will take a
lifetime to secure ecstasy as a permanent reality. Fortunately this journey,
itself creates ecstasy, being the path to love. OceanofPDF. comLOVING  PRACTICE
Cultivating Inspiration
ONE OF THE most beautiful proofs of ecstasy is delivered in a moment of
inspiration. I have already discussed signals from spirit which hint at a
reality beyond that perceived by the five senses. But inspirati on is much
more than a hint—when you feel inspired you find yourself thrust into a
world where ordinary objects and events are full of light, as if illuminated
from within. This inner light is truth, and when we suddenly see the truth,
we gain insight, clarity, and objectivity. Insight enables you to know your own heart. Clarity enables you to accept without illusions. Objectivity enables you to view any person or situation with compassion. At triumphant moments when you say to yourself, “That was really
inspired,” all three qualities come together, and the feeling  of that union is
ecstasy. Sadly, most people do not attain even a few of these qualities until
late in life, when the maturation of experience allows the obstacles to
inspiration, particularly fantasy, projection, and judgment, to fall away. Even then moments of inspiratio n may be rare. But the root word of inspir e
means “to breathe in,” which implies that inspiration should be a simple
thing—as natur al as breathing. When we say that someone has been
inspired to write a love poem, we mean that it flowed naturally from his or
her feeling; nothing stood in the way. There was no struggle between mind
and heart. Inspiration is that state in which mind and heart ar e connected. The following exercises show you how to summon inspiration and make
it your own long before you reach the end of the path. PART ONE: AN INFINITE  MOMENT
Every spiritual master has declared that the present moment is the home of
spirit; nothing to be attained in the form of wisdom, love, and vision has to
be postponed Y et we all postpone the day when we will be loving, wise, and
inspired by our own vision. This implies that the present moment is a very
difficult place to reach, despite the obvious fact that we are already there. Every second is a door to eternity. The door is opened by per ception. What makes each second infinite is its potential; what makes it finite is
your view of that potential. Think of an inspired moment in your life, when
you made the perfect move, said the perfect thing, had the perfect idea. What made you so dif ferent in that moment. You were open to something new. You weren’ t reliving the past or anticipating the future. You felt optimistic and open; you were not defended. You let it happen, whatever it was. You felt connected. Now ask yourself if you feel that way now. If you did you would be in a
very simple, though extraordinary state: you would be in the moment. The same preconditions take everyone into the moment, whether
Leonardo, William Blake, or just an ordinary person like me or you. A
genius like Blake may see “infin ity in a grain of sand,” whereas an ordinary
person might only feel uplifted and carefree. The differences, however, are
much less important than the similarities. If you doubt that you could
actually see infinity in a grain of sand, try the following medita tion (which
can be. done imaginarily without sand, in case none is handy). Hold a grain of sand—ordinary  aquarium or beach sand will do—in the
palm of your hand and let your eye rest upon it. Notice its color  and facets,
any hint of glitter, the sharpness of its edges. Roll it between your fingers;
hold it up to your tongue to taste if there is saltiness or earthiness in it. This
is the grain of sand presented to you by your five senses, and most people
would say that there is not much to see in this humble object. Now think of your grain of sand as a point surrounded by space. How
much space can you imagine. There is the room you are sitting in, whichexpands out into your house, the house into your neighborhood,
neighborhood into town—allow your mind to see this expansion suddenly
explode. Now there is the space of the whole planet, the solar system,
galaxy, and blackness beyond. Let this space also expand,  and allow
yourself to see that there is no edge to outer space, no boundary in time. Space cannot have a boundar y because the cosmos is expanding at a
tremendous rate, hundreds of thousands of miles per minute, which is
barely slower than the speed of light in human terms. You cannot take a
stop-motion picture of the cosm os to find out where it is right now, because
at the leading edge of expansion, the universe curves back onto itself. It
must do this; otherwise there would be something outside  space, which
cannot be. This means that your grain of sand is the center of the universe. Now repeat the meditation using time instead of space. Look  at your
grain of sand and check the exact time. Imagine the earlier part of the day
stretching befor e and the rest of the day stretching after. Now expand the
time frame to include a day before and after, a week, a month, a year. See
time as an expa nding circle and allow it to expand as fast as it wants. Is
there a limit to this acceleration. In your mind you can instan tly envision
the moment of the Big Bang; I don’ t mean the literal event, which is beyond
mental compreh ension, only the time it takes you to bring the event to
mind. Likewise, if you want to imagine a star as it exists 10 billion years
from now, your mind can go forward to that point instantly. Your grain of sand is the center of time, expanding infinitely in all dir ections. If time and space both are centered on one grain of sand, then you have
seen infinity—o r as close as your present perception can carry you. The
next step is to perform this meditation without the idea of time and space. Let your mind go blank and allow the sensation of time and space, a single
expanding circle, race away from  a point. Hold in your mind both extremes
—the point and the circle —without letting go of either. Don’ t strain or try
to visua lize too hard; this shou ld be as natural as possible. Let the circle
race away from the point until it disappears and you can no longer hold
both things in your awareness. Sense the state of your mind:
Is it open, watching, and alert. Is it reliving the past or anticipating the future. Is it undefended. Did you let your meditation happen, without turning it into something. Do you feel connected. You may notice  any or all of these things—or none. This isn’t a test but a
way to go beyond boundaries. The value of seeing infinity in a grain of sand
is personal: you may feel like laughing or you may feel profoundly quiet,
you may have a beautiful imag e come to mind or a silky emptiness, you
may be ecstatic or inspired. Give it some time—this meditation opens the
mind, easing your old ego boundaries without your having to address them
psychologically. The grain of sand is important. You are using this point of focus to slip
out of the net of time and space. Beyond the net lies openness, which is
pure potential. In that potential everything is possible. It is the door of the
present moment, which leads to eternity. PART TWO: THREADS IN THE  FABRIC OF  LOVE
On the path to love, inspiration  grows. The moments of insigh t that mark
the early  stages of the path are not as profound as those that come with
mature vision. This reflects a change of consciousness, but at the same time
there is a change of reality. Being infinite, spiritual reality is infinitely
flexible. It can accommodate any perspective. All perspectives are valid, yet
those that approach nearer to God contain more of His qualities: truth,
compassion, acceptance, and love. Your consciousness is your contribution to r eality. What you per ceive as r eal becomes r eal. When two people come together in love, they weave a fabric of
consciousness. If the fabric is strong, then both lovers have made it so; each
loving thought and action is a thread added to the fabric. In Sanskrit the
word for “thread” is Sutra,  which also has a metaphysical meaning. A sutra
is an aphorism or formula that expresses some fundamental truth about
consciousness. When Rumi says, “Love is the sea where intelle ct drowns,”he is uttering a sutra. It expresses a truth from his level of aware ness, and at
the same time it weaves truth by adding a thread no one else has added
before. In a mom ent of clarity and insight, Rumi felt within himself that his
intellect no longer struggled against love but was absorbed into it, as if
being drowned in the sea. His sutra reflects that experience and at the same
time evokes it in us as we read it. You and your beloved have privileged moments in which you understand
what your love is. No one else has ever had exactly the same revelations,
because you are unique people. Your inspirations are yours alone, even
though similar insights have been occurring for thousands of years. To
make your revel ations your own is important. You need to know what you
believe, how far you have come on the path together, how much growth you
have shared. Sutras can tell you all these things. The exercise here is to write down your inspirations as they come to you. Love grows the more you talk about it, think about it, and express it. Even
though moments of insight last only an instant, they are touchstones of
something eternal, the relations hip between self and Self. At this moment
your Self wants you to know about love but also about truth, compassion,
trust, acceptance, and devotion. These are the threads from whic h the fabric
of consciousness is woven. Writing sutras. Get yourself a notebook in which you will put your sutras, as well as
record those of others that inspire you. Do not wait to enter only your
inspired thoughts. At any moment spirit is ready to teach you about itself;
you only have to set aside some  time when you feel receptive— taking five
or ten minutes in the early morning works for most people. Sit down  with your pen and paper, and let your mind relax. Do not force
yourself into a state of inspiration, but have the intention to express what
you know. I don’t mean the information in your brain but what you know
from your heart—a spark of truth, a message from your Self. If words don’t
come so easily at first, you may want to start with a standard opening, such
as “Love is. ” or “My Self wants me to know that. ” After a little
practice, howeve r, you won’ t be able to stop writing—once communication
starts, it tends to pour out. The purpose of your sutras isn’t to sound poetic or wise but simply to
express where you are. Most of us cannot equal the brilliance of Rumi, but
our state of awareness is just as true for us as his was for him. The beauty of
recording your spiritual vision is that you will have the immense pleasure of
watching it grow. Each thread is valuable; none can be taken out of the
fabric of love without loss. Therefore keep in mind the preciousness of your
own awareness, and let your inspirations be a way to claim your spiritual
life as your own. THE P ATH to LOVE
The following are some sutras I have written over the past year in my own
notebooks. I wrote them in spare moments, on airplanes, waiting for lost
luggage, or sitting outside by the sea on sunny days when I wanted to be
with my Self and hear its voice. There are nearly a hundred sutras here, a
good harvest from a very busy year, and I was surprised, once I read them
all, how comple tely they express the material in this book. Thus they are
like crystals from which whole pages sprouted and grew. I do not of fer them
for you to read in one sitting, but all are given here to mark the progress of
one soul as it unfolded over a short span of time. If I could wish one thing
for myself, it would be that I weave this fabric of consciousness forever—
what is more thrilling than the prospect of truths you do not yet know. LESSONS FOR  LOVERS
Three things are absolute and cannot be destroyed: awareness, Being, and
love. You will be in love when you know that you are love. Love is the impulse of evolution that expands life. Any desire to grow is following the flow of love. If you block your desires, you block your natural avenue of growth. Growth is the willingness to let reality be new every moment. Love is the beginning of the journey, its end, and the journey itself. The path of love is everywhere and nowhere. There is no place you can go
that is devoid of love and no place you can leave that is not already love. Love is based not on how you act or feel but on your level of awareness. In duality love comes and goes; in unity there is only love. Personal love is a concentrated form of universal love; universal love is an
expanded form of personal love. Loving another person is not separate from loving God. One is a single
wave, the other is the ocean. The mind judges what is good or bad. Love brings only good. All prayers are answered. The ones answered the fastest are prayers for
understanding. Desires are fulfilled according to your level of awareness. When awareness
is pure, every desire is fulfilled completely. A prayer is a request made from a small part of God to a lar ge part of God. Dreams come true when they are held quietly in the heart. Don’ t tell your dreams to the world—whisper them to love. From a pure heart, anything can be accomplished. If you ask what the
universe is doing, it is eavesdropping on your every desire. Everything is the same spirit watching itself through the eyes of dif ferent
observers. Love is everywhere, but in some places it is blocked by fear. What does not contain love must contain an illusion. Pierce through all your illusions and you will discover that you are only
love. Other people are mirrors of your own love. In reality there are no others,
only the Self in other forms. Separation is merely an idea. At its core, reality is unity. When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about
yourself. Everything in the outer world contains a message about the inner world. The sights and sounds of nature are reminders of a loving creation. Real change is accompanied by a new insight. Insight is an impulse of love dissolving some old imprint. Insights bring truth, which is love in action. Love is like water. If it doesn’ t flow, it stagnates. If you create any open space within yourself, love will fill it. Contemplate love every day. Loving reflections make the heart grow. Love takes many forms—it is up to you to choosewhich you wish to
express. The highest expression of love is creativity. Innocence is the ability to give and receive love without holding on. To love innocently is to allow others to express who they are. No one is wrong. In the eyes of love, all people are doing the best they can
from their own levels of consciousness. Other people seem wrong when their perspective doesn’ t match yours. All disagreements are results of misunderstanding someone else’ s level of
consciousness. All obstacles are created by ourselves, through a belief in non-love. You will have no enemies once you decide to surrender. Surrender means not giving in to another but giving in to love. All desires are spiritual when seen to their deepest level. Love is not the opposite of hate. Being whole, love has no opposites. Negativity is born in the gap where love has been excluded. Gaps occur in places where we are afraid to see ourselves. Life appears random on the surface, but at a deeper level it is completely
organized. Love’ s organizing power is infinite. The cosmos is structured to bring about growth, and growth is always in the
direction of greater love and happiness. The solution is never at the level of the problem—the solution is always
love, which is beyond problems. Bad things don’ t happen to us; we bring them to us so we can learn a
lesson. Love grows on the basis of giving. God’ s ability to give is infinite. W e limit it by our own unloving perception. Love never forces. Love is intelligent and brings only what you need. There is no divine punishment. What seems like God’ s punishment is a
reflection of our own resistance. Forgiveness is born of increased awareness. The more you can see, the
easier it is to for give. Forgiveness in the heart comes about when the walls of separation in the
mind fall. Love is attention without judgment. In its natural state, attention only
appreciates. The person you call an enemy is an exaggerated aspect of your own shadow
self. The shadow self seems to be the opposite of love. Actually it is the way to
love. Spirit is passionate; without passion no one can be truly spiritual. The awakening of true love lies in finding peace within passion and passion
within peace. Sexual ener gy is neutral. It can be loving or unloving, depending on how
you use it. Sex can be used to expand love or to shut it out. The highest eros is to take
God as a lover. When sex is fully loving, you experience the divine through your partner. Sexual love, ener gized by absolute love, is ecstasy. Ecstasy is the most primordial ener gy state. Why is sex so powerful. Because we are constantly in search of the state of
original ecstasy. The whole of reality is contained in the present moment. True love is here and now. Whatever you can remember or anticipate is
only a shadow of love. To see love in the moment you must clean the windows of perception. If you have your full attention in the moment, you will see only love. When love is replaced by an object, the result is addiction. If you are addicted to someone else, you are treating that person as an
object. Time is the ego’ s enemy, not love’ s. Love changes with the passage of time, but it never diminishes. It is always present in its fullness. Love is the eternal Being at the core of individuality. Love can create a world that is healed and holy. The two are the same thing. To feel beauty is to know the truth. T o know the truth is to be in love. Love dances in the freshness of the unknown. Love doesn’ t need reason. It speaks from the irrational wisdom of the heart. A heart that has learned to trust can be at rest in the world.
Is your world full of things and people as is mine? A: No, it is full of myself. Q: But do you see and hear as we do?A: Yes, I appear to see and hear and talk and act, but to me it just happens,
How do you know that you are in the supreme state?A: Because I am in it. It is the only natural state. Q: Can you describe it? A: Only by negation, as uncaused, independent, unrelated, undivided,
Spiritual release, which is not a feeling or idea, but a shift in perception that allows direct contact with the spirit.
What is the third definition of ecstasy, according to the author?
To stop the mind's activity and gain a witness-like awareness, allowing the self to be still and quiet.
According to the author, what is the key to achieving ecstasy?
The author believes that love is not an object or a feeling, but a state of being that is always present and can be accessed through the heart.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of love and its relationship to the divine?
To record one's own truth and not to be held back by the past, and to be aware of one's own growth and progress.
What is the purpose of writing down one's inspirations, according to the author?
The author does not believe in divine punishment; instead, they suggest that our perception and understanding of love and compassion can help us grow and overcome our pain and limitations.
What is the author's view on the concept of punishment and forgiveness?