Today, I veer from the usual format to share three short stories with some brief comments after each. I hope this will be an invitation for your own reflections.
Anthony De Mello -
I read a story the other day of a woman who said to her teenage son, "What does Mary see in you? What does she like in you?" He replied, "What Mary likes in me is, A, that I'm handsome; B, that I'm intelligent; and C, that I'm great company." And his mother asked, "What do you like in Mary?" He replied, "What I like in Mary is that she finds me, A, intelligent; B, handsome …"
*Rediscovering Life.
Many of us are socialized to live by relating with others in a transactional way, like the young man above. The spiritual sages taught a love not based on quid pro quo. For example, Jesus says, "Love others as you love yourself." He did not say, "Love others as they love you." He never said we need to like anyone, either. Love and like are not the same. Fortunately, we can love those we have feelings of dislike for. And, more, we can work to transform those feelings into compassion. Within the seed of "don't like" is the seed of "truly care."
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She asked the Sage, "You say we should love everyone. That doesn't seem possible." The Sage replied, "No, I don't teach anyone should love anyone. I teach to drop that should."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
Spiritual love is not an obligation. It is natural. It flows. It is our nature. Not to love goes against your being. So, one does not have to have a reason to love anymore than a bud has to have a reason to become a blossom. One does not have to love for a god says to do so anymore than the rain needs to rain for some deity commands it to. Love loves. Why make it more complicated than that? Love loves. Your body and mind is the vessel, while you are the love.
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A follower asked the Sage, "Sir, I sometimes don't feel love at all, and I don't feel like loving some persons. Do you ever experience this?" "Yes," said the Sage. "Then, what do you do?" "I realize love isn't a feeling, and I love anyway, for when living in love, one cannot not be love."
*Ibid.
Spiritual love, which is transpersonal, is in a whole different interior territory than the prior personal. Personal love is grounded in feeling. When loving as a person, one thinks and feels "I love." Not so transpersonal love. There is no sense of "I, the person, love" in spiritual love, even as there is no sense of "I ought to love" or "should" or "need to" ... If one were to say "I love," it would not be "I, the self, love." One would be referring to the single I. There is no one and nothing outside that I. That I has no outside - "For in One we live, move, and have our being ..." (Acts 17.28).
Transpersonal is not less than personal, as though it is impersonal; instead, it is more than personal. We can find joy in a love not grounded in the sense of the individual, one free of the constraints of body and mind. This adjustment can represent a challenging transformation on the Way, as it indicates a move from living as an isolated, separate self among other isolated, separate selves to living as a manifestation of One. That One is Love... and so much more. So are you, but not you a little self. You are the one in the One Love... and more.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
