Is Love the Ultimate Pursuit for All Humans?
If the only thing people learned, was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world. ~ Sydney Banks
What is love? What is it to be loved? What is it to feel love? Why do humans search for love?
Why is so much money spent on worshipping love?
What is this love thing? Can you hold it in your hand, look at it from different angles, shape it? Can you even describe it?
Is love the ultimate objective for a human and is it something we should pursue?
This isn’t an article about how to find love, or even one that explains love in any form, rather it’s an exploration of why we might be compelled to behave in certain ways because in some sense, we don’t think we’re enough. We’re not compassionate with ourselves, and we feel some sense of lack within us that we may not be consciously aware of, and that when we brush up against it, we attempt to salve it in any way we can in an to try to feel better.
I know for me, that from time to times there is a sense or an urgent feeling that I think must address right away. It’s very strong and makes me want to reach out to people who aren’t necessarily good for me, when perhaps it would be more educational for me just to sit with the feeling and let it move through me, rather than find a distraction in communication.
I was feeling a little emotionally tender as I set out to write this piece, when it was pointed out to me, and not for the first time, ‘I wish you could like yourself in the way that other people like you’. Even seeing those words on the page it reminds of my mother saying to me when I was in my early 20’s when I was feeling very lost, ‘you’re so hard on yourself, you might want to let up sometime’.
I’m sure I’m not unique in that way, where my focus of derision was myself.
This thing, self-liking, self-love, or even just self-acceptance has been an issue for me for as long as I can remember. I expect the pattern started in my childhood, although I can’t think why. Perhaps I was just a particularly sensitive child. As my appreciation for the role of Thought plays in my experience has increased, and my understanding of our divine nature has evolved I’ve noticed a softening around the edges of how I see myself and the world around me.
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
I ask myself the question, are we even striving for love or are we just searching outside of ourselves for connection, for importance and the proof we exist? Or is it the ego-self trying not to feel alone and isolated? Or is it a bit of everything?
I’ve been told the biggest fear of the ego is its own death. But what if its next biggest fear is isolation? Of being left alone and having no one in the world ‘out there’ to connect with. Having no mirror, nothing to reflect it its own importance, its own existence?
My guess is this is the reason traditionally prisoners were, and at times still are, put in isolation as punishment. What better way to torture someone to their very core than to isolate them from all contact? The objective is to send the ego insane with insecure feelings.
And it seems to me we use goals and ‘must have’ outcomes for much the same thing. Distracting ourselves by being busy. Minds occupied to keep ourselves from being present to any uncomfortable feelings that might arise, while at the same time telling ourselves we can delay feeling good until after we’ve got the thing or had the experience, just in case we don’t get it, or it doesn’t live up to expectation.
The 3 Principles of Mind, Consciousness & Thought – Magic Elixir or Snake Oil?
Are the 3 Principles as first described by mystic Sydney Banks, helpful as a way of overcoming the urgent promptings of the ego?
From where I sit, an understanding the Principles doesn’t solve a problem or give you any superpower or technique to do anything about anything. The 3 Principles is a description that provides an explanation of our psychological functioning. The Principles doesn’t give us any magic power over our minds or creation. However, it does allow us to be better aligned to life, and then invites us in for a deeper exploration of who we are, without the noise of our own thinking. And rather than the fighting life or riding along in the passenger seat of life while someone else drives as a passive observer, we can start to move ourselves into the driver seat.
I certainly don’t think I have all the answers, but I do know insight dissolves misunderstanding. And the less I rely on beliefs, the better off I am. And ultimately, I know when I stop and sit quietly, and my mind settles, the deeper truths of life start to unfold for me, granting me greater clarity and peace.
We’re Already Perfect, We’re Already Whole
It seems to me, before Thought comes into the equation we’re already perfect. We’re a blank slate and that everything we’re looking for and trying to feel already exists within us. If it wasn’t for a misunderstanding of who and what we are, we’d experience all the love and connection we could handle, and probably more.
And maybe knowing that is enough. Maybe all we really need to do is to occasionally notice when those urgent feelings arise as a desperate need to find another human to connect with, and sit with it and let it teach us what I need to learn from it, until it passes safely by, knowing that underneath the rumbling discomfort of our mind, stillness and a deep feeling of wellbeing already exists.
One of the greatest realisations I had was that a feeling can’t hurt physically, and they are nothing more than the physical manifestation of Thought. It’s only when we lose sight of that we are at risk of emotional damage.
But is this even what I even set out to explore? I did write that I wanted to learn a bit about love, but it all started with comments about me liking myself and seeing myself as others saw me. To be fair, I don’t think I dislike myself, these days I just think about myself less.
I’ve been through the stages of referring to and treating myself like a machine, and that didn’t do me much good. Like any machine that is abused, I broke down. Both physically and emotionally.
I know that putting others before myself isn’t helpful. Putting my needs on the back burner and trying to extract good feelings by giving to others, not in the name of selfless service, but in the name of getting something in return. Good feelings, favours, status. Anything to boost a flagging ego.
And maybe that’s all there is to it. There is not any great lesson to learn, quest to be had, or secret to find, it’s just to realise you can never do enough to prop up the ego. It can never feel safe enough, secure enough or valuable enough. It starts out as insecure, and any attempt to boost it is just stacking more Thought on a shaky insecure foundation. And seeing this for yourself also takes the pressure off having to be anything, do anything, or create anything to bring about positive feelings, because absent of insecure thinking, they already exist within us.
I think one of the most important discoveries I’ve made is to think of yourself less. I’ll say that again, I didn’t say think less of yourself, but think of yourself less. It’s not a prescription but something that seems to be a natural occurrence as you place less attention on your outer world and more on your inner world.
