What is Love?

What is Love?

This question is perhaps the easiest to answer and the most difficult to expound. Early this afternoon at the Pathfinders' Commune we began to explore this subject . And I found out after spending 3 hours, there are more questions spawning than answers.

I began to ask this question when I was 17, in the middle of a romantic relationship. I started it driven with fiery emotions. It felt good, but at one hand I felt there was more to learn. I thought that emotions are like typhoon, which attacks destructively and leaves after sometime. I felt the evanescence of these emotions. And I wondered that any relationship born out of emotions is bound to vanish. But how can anyone find a permanent Love?

I stumbled with a hypothetical definition 5 years ago after talking to an old friend during my college days. Love is Enlightenment. A very strange definition. I always associate the word "enlightenment" with the Buddha, because that is the meaning of His name. I just thought that this definition was the greatest definition I ever conceived, for it helped me redefine the concept of Love. But still, the experience of Love has eluded me.

In the process of finding the meaning of Love, I have been also looking for the meaning of God. The greatest illusion is to see these two elements separate. I had lived that kind of illusion until the time I heard a meditation teacher who mentioned something about Jesus. A skeptic asked him if he believes that Jesus is a son of God. The teacher is not a Christian, but he calmly and confidently responded that he does. After all, according to him Jesus lives with the quality of God; the quality of Love.

During that meditation retreat, we were taught of a different kind of soothing meditation. In the Buddhist teaching, it is called Metta. Metta is hard to translate, but the most commonly used equivalent is "Loving-kindness" or Love. This is a meditation where one generates intentions of loving-kindness to oneself and to others. I have learned this word some months before the retreat, after a friend gave me a CD copy of guided Metta meditation. After learning this, it opened me a door to endless possibilities of experiencing Love.

One November night, a year ago, on my way home from Cubao, I was riding a bus when a baby started crying so loud that everyone in the bus felt irritated. The baby loudly cried for an hour. I'd got this thought to stand up and carry the baby, but I knew I won't be assured that the baby would stop. Understanding the nature of suffering and intentions, I had begun to accept that the baby was crying, so I sent her the intentions of Metta. I imagined her sleeping well. After doing that, I napped for a moment. Later, I hadn't noticed how long after I meditated, but perhaps after several minutes I was surprised that I heard no cries at all. Well, it may sound too conclusive, since anyone can assume that a baby would stop crying anytime. Nonetheless, my experience tells me otherwise: that the power of Love can transcend beyond barriers of physical reality.

I was able to duplicate this experience, sending intentions to some of my firends and loved ones, and I found immediate results. I shared the practice to old and new found friends, and as they practice it, they were able to change the course of their lives, enriching their experience with simple Loving intentions that started the paradigm shift on their lives. Because of this, I thought I have to begin sharing this understanding of the meaning of Love. It's about time to answer some of the biggest questions of humankind, questions that I have been hearing from my students, friends and strangers.

I have felt the need to initiate a study group on spiritual topics since February, after a series of experience on the power of Love. For the first time in my life, I have come to my senses that Love is never just a concept read in books, nor any good feeling arising after watching romantic films, nor a dry belief in may religious doctrines. It has unfolded as an illuminating experience, which fails many words and explanations. I would admit that, at first, I had needed to learn Love through books I read. And then the answer began to dawn, as if in enlightenment.

It has become clear to me that for all the questions we have in life, the only answer is LOVE.