*Joan Tollifson. Bare-Bones Meditation.

Pure Love ~ Love arising freely, spontaneously from Presence prior to person, or self, and manifesting in and through person, or self. Being a means of Pure Love is not only a grace available to the human species, but other beings of Nature, also.

The late Toni Packer, in her book, The Wonder of Presence, tells the following experience, while visiting her parents in Switzerland ...

I had always had a difficult relationship with my mother. I had been afraid of her. She was a very passionate woman with lots of anger, but also love. Once during that visit I saw her standing in the dining room facing me. She was just standing there, and for no known reason I suddenly saw her without the past. There was no image of her, and also no idea of what she saw in me. All that was gone. There was nothing left except pure love for this woman. Such beauty shone out of her. And our relationship changed; there was a new closeness. No one changed it. It just happened.

The above story reminded me of a similar experience with a man I will call Joe. I was pastor for Joe, a progressive, intellectual, inclusive pastor. Indeed, I was barely hanging on to my Christian confession. Joe was a fundamentalist, living in a little town in central Florida. Joe and I, see, were somewhat opposites. I was not close to Joe, he had aligned with an opposing group of like-minded ones. These felt the need to defend their church and their "God." They especially opposed me for my welcoming embrace of homosexuals into the church and appreciation of other religions.

I was, likewise, friend of a dear woman I will call Margaret. She and I had like spiritual ideas and values. She was much older, having a few years prior lost her husband to death. She and I shared a lot of time together, and she provided much spiritual support during the time the group Joe aligned with worked to have me ousted from both the church and ministry in the denomination, the United Methodist Church.

Joe took it upon himself to do something weird and unexpected, even alarming, one Sunday morning. A group of parishioners and I were in a room to the side of the altar and choir area. Each Sunday we would join in prayer there, before start of the worship meeting. We were praying, with hands holding. We heard yelling, angry yelling. Faces showed perplexity. Someone was doing what we called in my childhood ranting-and-raving. Soon, we were clear this was Joe. Joe had stood in the pulpit, behind the lectern and began a tirade against the congregation for supporting this heretical pastor, heretical in his estimation. Joe, likewise, had shouted some unkindly things to say about Margaret. This Joe did before everyone, including visitors. I guess they were shocked at the show they never signed up for that Sunday.

Joe left the building, with head down. He returned during the worship meeting, to my surprise, and sat quietly.

Right after the tirade, I was walking among the congregation. I heard a visitor say to his wife, "Come on, let's go, we don't have to put up with this!" They left. I did not blame them; if I were a visitor, and such happened in the "house of God," I would have left. I, however, am confidant Joe intended well. And, I never addressed the matter with Joe, I could see no wisdom in doing so.

I led worship meeting that day, as each Sunday. The best I could do, I decided, was remain calm and simply act as though all was as usual. The entire congregation seemed to move through the worship meeting in the same calm manner. Possibly, they being a close-knit rural community, knowing Joe well, were not as surprised as I that he would have done what he did.

Several years later, I was in meditation. I received a big surprise. Out of nowhere arose a spontaneous feeling of joyful love for Joe. I could not even recall when Joe had been in my thoughts. I embraced this arising as a grace not coming from Brian. This was one of my first lessons in Pure Love.

* * *

Only Pure Love
teaches Pure Love

* * *

When we are living from the personality, the ego, we seek to be creators of love, doers of love. We aspire to be loving. We work at love. We put forth effortfulness to prove we love others. Yet, this will not work, not if we wish to enjoy the gracefulness of a Love universal.

From the true Self, or "I," the personality is no longer carrying around an agenda to love. We no longer are seeking to prove we love anyone. We are not trying to love; Love loves, that simple. Effortfulness to love dissolves in Grace by Grace. We are moving in the environment in which Love arises in effortless spontaneity. Love appears as happening, and we did not create it, and we cannot determine where it began or where it ended when the sense of that Love shows up suddenly. Over time, we learn to trust more this Being from which Love happens. Then, ironically, we become more loving by releasing the personal right to love anyone or anything. We, as person, become the environment in which Love expresses Itself.

* * *

Love has an amazing capacity
to appear, no known explanation,
to surprise us with Its power and grace.
And for Pure Love to see the other through us,
means the grace to see the Other in the other,
to see in the moment afresh, timelessly.
Love is timeless, not that Love lasts forever,
but Love is untouched by time.
The more we abdicate a claim to be able to love,
the more potential there is for Love to love.
There are loves, but only
one Pure Love, only
one Presence that sees untouched by time,
sees another apart from appearance.
We become, by Grace,
Lover and Love.

* * *

So, by living from our true Self, Presence prior to person, we see an effortless loving arising. We need to let this educate us on a way of being, of living Pure Love. We would do well to see the wisdom both Krishnamurti and Tollifson remind us of, not to seek to tame this freely arising Grace, not to seek to place it into a framework of explanation and expectation. Love freely expresses, Love surprises us. In being the Lover, we are that Love, while in being as person we learn to get out of the way and honor this mysterious working of Grace.

*The vision statement for Lotus of the Heart is Living in Love beyond Beliefs.

*All material, unless another source is cited, is authored by the presenter of Lotus of Heart, Brian Kenneth Wilcox, Florida USA. Use of the material is permitted; Brian only requests that credit be given and to be notified at 77ahavah77@gmail.com .

*Brian's book, An Ache for Union, is available through major booksellers.

*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title.

The Sacred in Me bows
to the Sacred in You