Of Life and Love - September 2021
What makes a human being? One may argue that it is the immortal soul, the self, the dweller within the form who is the true human being and that all else is the not-self, the vehicle, or merely a projection of that self. Such a time-honored truth is undeniably correct but remains incomplete in so far as it neglects the beauty, wonder, and livingness of the human experience. Only through the process of human living and evolution can each become who they are, and always were in essence. Only once the challenges of the human experience have been surmounted and the beauty, wonder, and divinity of the three worlds is seen and heard can the soul stand revealed.
The fact of relationship underlies the whole human experience. As the child grows from adolescence to adulthood and then into old age, teachers, mentors, lovers, family, friends—all powerfully condition and shape who one becomes. Within the evolving psyche of the human being, virtue and vice, triumph and failure, aspiration and depression, and any number of other pairs of opposites wax and wane until a right relationship is established and the way between them is found. Such internal relationships work out simultaneously within one’s external relationships evoking bravery, compassion, empathy, creativity, intelligence, vision, steadfastness, sacrifice—the qualities of the highest human altruism. Such manifestation is made possible by the overshadowing soul, who is itself the quintessence of the most perfect harmlessness, utter sacrifice, and highest knowledge. The soul is light itself, produced through the bringing together of spirit and matter. It is the principle of relationship or Love.
Love is much more than human sentiment. It is the force of evolution that draws all things onwards towards a perfected consummation. It builds, disrupts, and eventually destroys all forms which obstruct the expression of the soul’s life. It is the force that maintains all things in order. Love unites the worlds—the world of human living and the world of the soul. The more one loves, the more this cosmic force can pour through one’s very being to others.
How can we transform ourselves into vibrant centers of radiant love? Through self-effacement, sacrifice, will, knowledge, empathy, compassion, through the cultivation of joy in all things, and through living the human experience to its fullest. This leads eventually to soul consciousness and in time to the development of the intuition. The intuition is “a comprehensive grip of the principle of universality” and when active produces an identification with all beings and a complete loss of the sense of separateness. For the human being, the highest wielding of the force of love is the evocation of the intuition. Such a high expression of love—which requires a direct and comprehensive grasp of the principle of relationship itself—demands all that one has to give. Such giving leads one through the human experience and on into the glory of even greater life.