You are Love

Wherever you are is the place where you can understand Love. Whatever you do is what you need to understand Love. It is about time to learn Love. You have been called. For years, you have disregarded the call. Now is the time. This moment is the most perfect moment to understand Love. You might ask “How can I understand Love?” or “How can I Love? I don’t deserve it. I just can’t Love.” These questions challenge you to pay attention to Love. You might have doubts to begin because you see and identify yourself with these words: sinful, impure, defiled, unworthy. You have doubts because you have done a lot of undesirable things in the past. You thought that you are ought to be punished than rewarded, let alone to be Loved. You think all these prove that you cannot understand Love.

Here’s the good news: all things you have done and felt guilty about are all PROOF that you are ready to understand Love. That is the truth. We will look into that truth. Don’t worry. You are ready. No matter how the world judges you, or no matter how you judge yourself, the only proof that you are ready is the face you see in the mirror. Yes, that proof is YOU. Nobody but you. Go on, take a look again in the mirror. See that face as it is. That face, your face, is the face of Love. You are made in the image and likeness of Love.

How do you see yourself? Have you ever always judgmental against that person you see in the mirror? Do you always feel guilty of all the things you have done in the past? Have you ever felt lacking of the things you need and want, and made you feel unworthy? Do you always want to prove yourself to others and please them as much as you could, so you can say that you are Loved? Take some time to answer these questions wholeheartedly. Allow your awareness to cut through those painful answers. Those answers are, truly, difficult to accept. Your have to begin to face them, to let yourself be conscious of these truths you often deny. All of these painful thoughts and feelings are darkness of your shadow you choose to see. This darkness will immediately disappear when you cast the light of your awareness.

"To understand Love is to be aware that you are Love."

The source of the light of Love doesn’t come from outside. It comes from inside. That Love is eternal and nourishing, like that of the sun. Wake up early in the morning, right before the sun rises in the east. Look at its gentle rays peeking from the clouds in the horizon. See that same sun rising in you, beaming with brightness. See that sun as the eternal symbol of the light of Love within you. Being aware of that light allows you to shine and be the guiding light for others who are seeking the same light within them.

To understand Love is to be aware that YOU ARE LOVE. Yes, you are Love. I know, you feel so undeserving, because you have done a lot of things that did not allow you to become Loving. You feel that no one has Loved you, that is why until now you are still searching for that Love. You have tried your best to find the right person and keep and own them, yet eventually they would leave you behind and alone. You have made your best on your career, and fattened your bank account so you can find great self-worth. You have tried to buy all new things: clothes, gadgets, or anything you can possess so you can command respect from people and earn their praises and trust. You have tried to give in to people’s demand, or maybe to be always in command, so you can wield more power over their wits. But after all the efforts, you wonder, why in the world you still feel empty? You have believed, as what others have told you that human beings can never be contented.

Ask yourself, “Can we humans become contented? If yes, how can we become?” It has been bugging you that after what you have accumulated and achieved, there is still this void in the depth of your being; something that bothers you, an itch that you cannot scratch because you cannot find where exactly it is. That troublesome itch is the truth drawing your attention. The truth that cannot be touched nor held nor seen. But you can feel it deeply. That truth is the truth of you being Love. You are Love. You must begin to journey back to that awareness.

Opposites

To understand Love, we must understand the opposites.

Love is often an opposite of either fear, hatred and evil. But Love has no opposite. Fear is the opposite of courage, hatred is the opposite of forgiveness, and evil is often the opposite of good. Courage and forgiveness are both transcendent quality of Love, where they represent Love as a direct experience. Good and Evil are, on the other hand, not really opposites at all. This problem can be understood through the two kinds of opposites. In the truth of Love, we will see that there is a thin line that separates the the nature of opposites: either opposites are complementing or opposing.

Complementing opposites are basically natural: light and dark, hot and cold, high and low, hard and soft. They are all part and whole of this reality. Nothing separates them except in our minds. The experience of complementing opposite is what most spiritual teachings call Oneness.

Oneness is the ultimate sense of unity. It is deep beneath the physical reality we see. It is the essence of connectedness, no matter how different people, things and events may be. In Oneness, opposites do not oppose; rather, they are always one and the same. They are in the same spectrum. Darkness is simply absence of Light, and Coldness is simply absence of Heat. In absence, we define presence and vice versa. At first this would be mind-boggling, but we will further understand this when we understand the next kind of opposite.

Opposing opposites are distorted view of the opposite, an experience we often call Separation.The ultimate separation ingrained in our beliefs is the opposition of good and evil. From here, all natural opposites seem to be always at war with each other: Black versus white, superior versus inferior, strong versus weak, rich versus poor, man versus woman. We have always believed this illusion that it has perpetuated a culture of survival of the fittest. We destroy each other because we both believe the other is an enemy rather than a friend, or we see ourselves more righteous than others. We have become self-centered creatures that our only survival is our concern. This primal instinct has wiped the dinosaur species millions of years ago.

Seeing beyond the opposites leads us to an awakened soul. We would not see that the mind and body are separate, more so of seeing God and humanity. There is no more rift between two opposites, only understanding them as two expressions of the same essence. Deepak Chopra, the poet-prophet of mind/body medicine, says that "good is the union of all opposites; evil does not exist." As we operate on this consciousness, we would never identify evil as the great opponent of good. Good is the all-encompassing circle that includes all opposites that naturally mirror each other. No more enemies. No more evil.

But why do we still think in opposites. One reason: because the nature of Love is completely whole that it cannot be experienced without a conscious mind that can experience it.

Think of a flower. A flower is perfect in itself. It behaves on its own reality without the need of other flowers' appreciation. But a flower is not conscious of its own existence. We, human beings who are conscious of our own, cannot escape the reality of being conscious of others' existence, be it a fellow human, living beings such as plants, animals, and inanimate things such as nature, heavenly bodies. With this consciousness, we see the flower, appreciate and give name to it. This is the experience of seeing the flower, as if the flower experiences itself through us.


Because of this consciousness, we sense our reality as if separate from us, an illusion most thinkers call duality. I am here, you are there. Kahlil Gibran, the poet-mystic author of The Prophet once said: "Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?" By being down here, we can see the mountain up there. If we are up in the mountain, we cannot see the mountain at all.

This is why opposites exists, not to separate us from everything that exists, but to be conscious of all of them. Love is infinite in many ways, expresses in different forms, and how Love does it is a mystery to all of us. And these seemingly separate expressions of Love, be it in words, deeds, objects, persons, creatures, arts, etc., are all but same manifestation of this Oneness.

This is why opposites exist not to separate us from everything that exists, but to be conscious of all of them.

A man is naturally a man, and his experience is different from that of a woman. They are different forms of the same species: homo sapiens aka human beings. Can we really say that their nature is opposing? How can another human being be born without a man-woman sexual union? It is because of their difference--opposite--that they can complement each other, and their unity bears another creation, or material unfolding of Love that remains intangible and invisible.

It is in this sense of Separation that we can appreciate this sense of Oneness. And the irony is that It is because of this Separation that our consciousness seem to contradict itself. This is known to many as paradox. Christ himself has taught paradoxical teachings, of which loving your enemies is the most well-known. In the realm of separation, truth will naturally contradict in the form of paradox because each opposite can embody the truth of another. Paradoxes are so universal and natural that it traverses all systems of thought. Our notion of opposing opposites tells us to take sides, yet the realization of complementing opposites tells us that we cannot--choosing one means choosing the other. As one meditation teacher puts it, you cannot choose the right wing of a bird more important than the left one. Both of them are important.

Now, we can refresh our ways of seeing opposites. In a paradoxical manner, I am you, and you are me. We both have this same human experience and both of us seek to embody what Love is. So long as we seek for Oneness, through intentions of cooperation, collaboration and participation, rather than competition, domination and manipulation, we are materializing the possibility of Love to exist in our lives, not just a concept, but a true and tangible existence.

The Hero Within

We are in a never-ending search for a hero. Or rather, a superhero. We often visualize a hero like our comic book characters. A hero must be as invincible as Superman, as ingenious as Batman, or as innocent as Harry Potter. Our movies are teeming with these superhero themes and they excite us as we watch them in silver screens, feeling the adrenaline fueled by mind-blowing action and special effects. Superheroes fantastically demonstrate their supernatural powers: flying, dodging bullets, lifting heavy objects, firing lasers, jumping from one building to another, reading another person's mind, accurate reflex, camouflaging, telekinesis, excellent martial art moves, etc.

And often, like kids, we still dream the same fantasies, asking ourselves how we can literally have the same power. Is there any way to cast the same spells, or wield the same sword, or wear the same mask and cape? We also often tell ourselves, given the opportunity to become superheroes, we would promise to give the world the most elusive peace and harmony by busting crime, war, terrorism, helping people who are suffering because of poverty and sickness, and annihilating all forms of corruption. Perhaps it is a dream that has kept aflame in our hearts: unleashing the passionate hero for humanity.

So when Presidents Barrack Obama (for America and the whole world), and Benigno Aquino III (for most Filipinos) were elected, the ideals of a hero in the political arena have been materialized. We have suffered years of blaming and sacrifice, and putting someone in the pedestal to give light to a new change and renewed hope is such a consecration of a hero.

At the same time, we still continue to mythologize our sacred heroes. The heroic personas radiated by ancient sages such as Jesus Christ, The Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna Lao Tzu, Socrates and others are still magnified in our consciousness. Their examples have influenced an expanding universe of belief systems and spiritual revolutions. They have inspired new heroes throughout histories, those whom we call saints, wise men, teachers, geniuses and enlightened beings. They are the face of the immense influence of heroic nobility. This blend of eternal and temporal perspective on heroes both characterize our timeless search for the true meaning of heroism, and our desire to become heroes ourselves.

The insights explored by Joseph Campbell has revealed the face of the hero: he/she is always in the journey of leaving and rediscovering oneself. The striking accuracy of similar patterns in all legends, myths, and even in themes of popular culture can never be denied portraying this archetype of the hero within us. But until we see ourselves as heroes, we would continue the pupal stage of inner chaos in our metamorphosis to become heroes. We would still resist the process, and deprive ourselves the chance to fulfill our heroic destiny. This destiny begins when we decide to let go of our old selves wallowing in fear, anger, doubt, and guilt, and begin to lift up our new selves in the light of Love, peace and harmony with the rest of humanity and the Universe. It is a difficult transition, but the rewards are beyond measure.

"Being a hero is not wiping the enemies out, but Loving them."

We are all in a hero's journey. In one deliberate, and often seen as disjointed premise, our hero's journey is nothing but the discovery of the Love within us. This Love that bears the vast potential, of our supernatural tendencies to create our reality, by moving mountains with just a seed of our faith. But we are still missing this truth. Our insatiable appetite of blaming others, of not taking responsibility for the choices we create whether conscious or subconscious, we continue to halt the emergence of our heroic selves.

Being a hero is not wiping the enemies out, but Loving them. Being a hero is not commanding others to do want we want, but connecting and collaborating with them to share our innermost selves in becoming part of grander solutions for humanity's global problems. Being a hero is not having supernatural powers and use them literally, but how we can symbolically empower ourselves with our lofty and realistic intentions for a better world. We cannot anymore displace our capacities to those who have political, economic and social powers.There is no authority above us when we see the hero within us. Everyone of us is a hero, and we can contribute great change by using our inner power. Coming from a famous line in Spiderman movie: "With great power comes great responsibility." This power is the power of Love.

We can all become heroes. In fact, we are heroes. We must acknowledge our intelligence not to compete or to destroy, but to offer our genius to Love more, in ways we know best within our domains and potentialities. Stop blaming and start acting: this is the dictum of a hero. In the light of Mother Teresa's words, our simple actions must be done with great Love. We have seen great examples, like Mother Teresa, as well as all people behind the global renaissance that awakens the Love within us. Gandhi reminds us again and again, and it echoes in our hero's perspective: the heroic change we want to see will happen only when become that heroic change.

Mariah Carey's song "The Hero" perfectly captures this heroic wisdom: "There's the hero, if you look inside your heart...And you finally see the truth, that the hero lies in you." Within our hearts, there lies the Love that longs to resurrect the hero that we can become. As we Love ourselves, our families, our friends, our enemies, and our whole humanity, our Loving hero within is now reborn.

Dancing Dragons

photo by Christophe Schmid (Photoxpress)

I am not a martial artist. In fact, I am a frustrated one. Just like many kids of my generation, I lived my fantasies in many movies and Japanese TV shows called tokusatsu, which mostly feature a super sentai , a squadron of heroes in colorful cyborg-like costumes fighting crimes and monsters using weapons and hand to hand combat. As a teenager, I long to be someone like Jackie Chan, Jet Li or Chow Yun Fat. I love to see their seemingly paradoxical stunts, gentle moves with forceful strikes. I had this longing much stronger after an encounter with a boy's gang who almost hit me on my head. Because of this, I wanted to be "the deadly man" on the streets, so nobody can dare to harm me.

But this thought of becoming ruthless and deadly has become feeble, since I have been much more resonant with the characters of a wise sage in many movies and stories, such as Yoda in Star Wars. Commonly, this character exudes an extraordinarily calm demeanor while teaching a brazen apprentice. Then, in times of distress, he exhibits his skillfulness in combat no villain can match. Yet he remains alert, focused, and serene like an unperturbed pond. What makes this master a powerful yet tranquil force? Why do they learn something that harms another yet be so much at peace with their skill? Pacifist by nature, I haven't had any street fights with anyone (the worst perhaps was my verbal attacks and some mischievous actions against a high school classmate) I always have faith in peace, yet I still have this archetypal yearning of gaining some mastery in martial arts. It was certainly a koan of sorts, for the paradox of peace and war is present in this very yearning.

Then, like a swift blow in my mind, a sudden insight came. The sages, both in ancient history and in fictional depictions, are not masters of martial arts. They are, in truth, masters of mental arts. During their warring era, they have developed skillful ways in living through their war-torn society. They have learned the arts not to harm others. They keep their inner awareness that everything is in harmony, and their fighting skills are actually to restore the balance and harmony of the universe.I know that most martial artists would disagree, since evil, war, violence and hostility are all present in our society, and that we must develop self-defense in order to keep ourselves safe from any attack. Yet, from the perspective of peace, we need not to defend ourselves. No one attacks us but ourselves. Our true enemy is our fear and anger within. So this is not just self-defense. In spite of these negative forces, we still become aware of the peace within us, of choosing it and becoming the source of it. This is how a real master thinks and feels.

"Dancing dragons face death squarely in a total surrender not to their enemies, but to the harmony of Life. They pass through this difficult test of their experience, attaining the insight that they and their enemies are all but one being."

In so doing, the masters of the arts do not just box, kick, or kill anyone to survive. They have acquired the movement of animals, such as how the crane spreads its wings, how the mantis prays, how the snake slithers, how the tiger leaps. They have imitated the flowing of water, the swaying of bamboo, the falling of leaves. They have learned this great harmonic dance of the Universe, bearing the tremendous strength and nonviolent spirit, and therefore have become the dancing dragons.

As these dancing dragons fight, they neither harm nor kill for the sake of their lives or for bloating their egos. Unless they do so, they cannot master the art. For each move, blow, kick against the attacker is not done with anger nor with fear. It is the way they dance in the rhythm of violence and war that tears apart the sense of Oneness. As their enemies rip off peace, these dragons mend them back together. They face death squarely in a total surrender not to their enemies, but to the harmony of Life. They pass through this difficult test of their experience, attaining the insight that they and their enemies are all but one being.

A friend who is a long-time martial artist told me that sakura, or cherry blossom, a pink flower tree indigenous in Japan, is a common symbol for a samurai, or an ancient Japanese swordsman. Quite contrary to a seemingly macho image of a warrior. But as the symbol speaks for feminine beauty, gentleness, and evanescence of Life, a samurai embodies and reminds himself to see that all around him is pristine and peaceful; that no matter how violent his life may be, he wields his sword not to kill but to see honor and compassion all one with the Universe. This is the mind of a dancing dragon.

To master the dance of the dragons is not about gaining physical power over a weakling, nor about destroying an enemy. It is about seeing that both the weakling and the enemy are partners of the dragon's soul as they dance together in the music of spheres and savagery. They all dance together as they sense their profound connections, the truth that they are not separate.

A martial art known as aikido directly embodies this principle. It literally means "the way of joining with the spirit." It seeks not to be harmed nor harm anyone, but to find peace in the midst of war. A stark paradox, indeed, yet a truth worth understanding. So the nature of martial arts is beyond the literal concept of fighting, yet it is about doing things and treating people. It echoes what Mr. Han (Jackie Chan's character in Karate Kid remake) said to his young student: "Everything is kung fu." The word kung fu applies to all martial arts, as long as we choose to see it that way. Eating, working, sleeping, talking, walking, and almost all verbs that nourish Life can lead us to the essence of the art.
We can be dancing dragons ourselves. To be one is to sustain an awareness that we are all One, that we don't have an enemy. As we dance with anger and fear, we master this art that teaches us to Love those who injure us. As another friend puts it, through martial arts we are led to get deeper in the gentle yet strong force of Love, and move in concomitance with its energy. As you get better and better, you get kinder and kinder. As a mastery of all mastery, Love is the very core of what the true masters have achieved.

Virtual Illusions

(conclusion)

I can't help but be overwhelmed by the power of media and information technology in persuading people to believe that their picture of reality is the basis of Life. The advent of broadcasting and filmmaking has revolutionized the way we view the world. The magic of our boob tubes and silver screens continue to shape our perceptions about how to live our lives, from handling money to keeping relationships, from denying truths to perpetuating lies. They have shown us many ways to entertain ourselves and escape from the harsh reality of our routines. We have witnessed great stories, have seen the world in an all-seeing eye, flashing kaleidoscopic scenes before our eyes. This power has gone from analog to digital, when the internet has offered us not just the opportunity to watch, but to have full autonomy upon it, making us to choose whatever we want to watch, to control, or to create one.

This power has brought us tremendous possibilities in terms of connecting the whole world, and horrible phantasms that delude us from discovering our true nature. How to wield this power is a matter of concern. Our fear-based tendencies will force us to wallow in this virtual illusion, or to begin arising from the consciousness of Love that interconnects us into Oneness.

I'm using media and internet as examples of virtual illusions, of fantasies we keep on craving and believing as the only reality there is. I am not saying that the technology is bad; after all, nothing is really bad. The point, however, is our way of using it. If this ground of autonomy and power causes us to isolate and cut off ourselves from each other, then we reap the consequence of alienation and indifference. These technologies are not just result of ingenuity of science. They are symbolic tangibility of our own collective consciousness. Our beliefs, desires, dreams, goals, idealogies, rules, and ethos are all interwoven in the tapestry of our outer illusions, concealing the inner knowing of our Soul. We have kept on veiling the truth by maintaining the unyielding status quo that the reality outside is the only truth, and be oblivious to the invisible intelligence that permeates the whole Universe.

In this light, we can see that our desire to gain full control of the erratic and unpredictable nature of Life make us desperate because we can see that every effort we exert is futile. The outside world, no matter how solid they appear to be, is an incorporeal molding that feeds our external senses. How about observing every stuff that surrounds you at this moment? Imagine how an artisan, an inventor, or a skilled worker worked on that from separate materials and supplies. Imagine how they designed it first using a blueprint, a parchment, a pen or a pencil. Imagine how everything that have thought is shaped by their minds. Imagine that those that you see as solid are everything but nothing.

In this evolutionary era of human consciousness, our challenge is to transcend the fourth universal attachment: craving for our ingrained fantasies and beliefs. These fantasies are the "matrix" that we keep in our thoughts as fixed states, such us our sense of materialism and consumerism that everything we acquire is the source of our meaning. Or perhaps those fantasies that to gain Love and respect from others, we should project ourselves based on how the society wants us to be. This process leads us to believe that this is the only truth, that we must conform to the whims of our society, as we continue to deny our inner, loving connection with ourselves, others and with the Universe. We fear that we might not belong, so we prevent at all cost not to be outcast from the tribal mind. This belief creates our consciousness and steers our destinies into rigidity and bondage.

Our young monk, afraid of their reputation as monks to be judged of defying their vows of not getting near any women, burst into anger and blamed his old companion. He has been living in that fantasy that such good monks must follow the rules, and not to follow them means humiliation. He has been living in a belief that actions such as the old monk did are embarrassing and does not fit a monk like them. What he forgot, though, is the essence of the old monk's deed. That first, the old monk did not do it to break any vows and rules he has committed to keep, but to be of service to the needy at a very fitting moment. And second, this service is an act of Love, the very essence of Zen, in which he saw his inner connection with a fellow human being, rather than be afraid of keeping a certain reputation or escaping any humiliation, even the anger that might conjure up from his young colleague. His very action can be nonconforming to their strict rules, yet his very intention conforms to the spirit of the Universe. He has able to let go of his anything, and just act right at the present moment. He does not trap himself of any consequence, and allowed himself to gain the wisdom by being compelled with the power of Love.

Therefore, as we see ourselves gaining much control over the virtual dimension of our technological reality, may we never forget to not to be succumbed by the illusion of living within its rules. We accept and honor whatever we see outside our inner spiritual realm, yet we also keep our own freedom of choosing to live with limitations of our fantasies and beliefs. We must let go of craving for material things, power, and fame alone. Nonetheless, we keep on achieving consciousness of Love as we forge our connection with our Soul, and let this force direct us into manifesting our material needs and unique expressions to contribute more to the betterment of our world.

As we let go of these universal attachment, we become more attached to the universal power within us, the indestructible power of Love.