First of all, it’s been a while since our last post, due to working on the new book, Simply Notice. The book is still being edited, but going very well, and there should be some excerpts posted here in the next couple of weeks.
The topic for this post about Love is thanks to a wonderful comment/question that recently came in from Anna. It’s repeated here:
“Hi Peter,
It would be great if you could clarify your perspective on what Love is and why you chose that term to attempt to define Oneness (the essentially indefinable :)) Also, as you are also appearing in this seemingly physical dream, do you not connect also with Love as a vibration (the heart chakra field)? It seems there is a clear overlap here.”
As always, the response that follows is not directed exclusively to Anna because the question has provided an opportunity to address similar issues that come up for many of us.
Anna’s very remark is a helpful reminder because it points to something that is often lost sight of with the proliferation of books, audios, websites, blogs, etc. on nonduality and spirituality. All of these, of course, use words. So it’s easy to unwittingly start from words/concepts, and then keep depending on those words and concepts, as a means of hopefully working back to, or ultimately arriving at that which is wordless. It seems essential to do this at first. However, at some point it has to be completely turned around.
Life’s Aliveness—the only ONE alive—is entirely and always wordless.
This which is being presently alive here, now, never has used, or even known, a single word. This which is being presently alive NOW doesn’t need a correct concept of Itself before It will be the Now that It is Now being! Existence is not waiting for a lot of humans to all “finally get it right” before Existence will be the perfect, whole, complete Presence It cannot fail to be!
A state of thought that involves excessive, continued dependence on words also then begins to think that the perfect presence of Life Itself also depends on those words! Such thinking acts as if Life will be somewhat less than whole and perfect until that thinking gets it straight!
So what is all of the above also saying? It’s showing/pointing to the fact that there is a “Something” that is alive, and is fully, perfectly present, whether words are used or not, whether thinking thinks or not. It is not something people cause to be present. It is present on Its own.
Inquiry shows that this indefinable “Something” is always present. It is present unconditionally, un-withhold-ably. It is entirely present. It is the entirety of Presence. It is present un-judgingly. This “Something” is pure because It exists alone.
This “Something” does not think; so It never thinks in terms of, or experiences, past or future. It never experiences otherness. It never thinks in terms of, or experiences, desire, lack, regret, or guilt. It just presently “alives.” It does not have a sense of sight—so cannot see “another.” It does not feel, so cannot feel “another.”
Besides all this, this “Something” is actually ALIVE. It is not a deadness. It is an alive feeling for want of a better word. This aliveness is single; there is only One of It—not two. So It is a harmonious alive feeling because It is present without an opposite, thus no opposition. So there never is a feeling of opposition.
Most importantly, it is entirely thanks to this “alive Something” that all of this apparent writing and word-usage and pointing can be done! Ignorantly, “we” usually assume there is a “we” that is doing all of this. There isn’t! It is all thanks to the “alive Something” that it can appear to be done.
So back to the word Love.
Why that word? Well, as long as words appear to be used, Love is a word in common parlance in spirituality. It’s convenient and helpful to use because it seems most “get” its meaning. Yes, it’s only a lable, but it STANDS for something. It also actually conveys the “alive harmonious feeling” that is alive behind the words.
Whatever this indefinable-ness is, again, it is a “felt” experience, an actually alive experience—and this is not being experienced by another. The “felt-ness,” the aliveness is Love Itself being the alive Love that Love is. It seems convenient to label this felt, alive indefinable-ness as “Love,” so that’s what we do.
Again, It really is the “alive Something” or Love Itself that is “doing” all of this—so Love is what appears to give rise to all the words, including the word Love!
If words are going to be used, Love seems one of the best at the “current time” for conveying the “invisible, indefinable alive feeling” that is always present first. And again, it is entirely thanks to the “actual Something” being present and alive first, that the word Love can be used to describe the “Something.” In other words, alive Love Itself, Life, somehow appears to have inexplicably come up with the word “Love” to describe Itself.
Now for the second part of Anna’s comment. Please note that the response below is not directed only to Anna, nor is it meant to imply that Anna herself is taking any one particular point of view:
“Also, as you are also appearing in this seemingly physical dream, do you not connect also with Love as a vibration (the heart chakra field)? It seems there is a clear overlap here.”
Yes, it may appear as if that is what sometimes happens, but there is not a lot of emphasis put on it.
From a human or finite point of view, it appears as if Infinite Love can manifest or be experienced and expressed by way of a heart center. From a human point of view, it seems to be a “way in” or way to “connect” with Love. Many appear to work in this field as energy workers or healers—and it does appear to be helpful much of the time.
However, the realm of appearances, chakras, energy, vibration, of course, is the relative, the finite. (So is the writing of books, including books on Consciousness!)
If one is engaged in this kind of activity, that’s fine—because at the “current time” one is going to appear to be engaged in some kind of finite activity. The point is, just don’t get caught up in it to the extent that it is assumed to be real!
From a would-be human point of view, things such as chakra work are done in all sincerity, and they can appear to be very worthwhile on the human “level.” Infinite Love is not the least bit “anti” this kind of thing because Infinite Love is really ALL, thus leaves nothing to be “anti” toward. Again, it appears as if it were an “expression” of that Love.
But for just a moment, “see” from, or AS, Infinite Love Itself—not from a human or finite point of view.
Infinite Love-As-ALL knows of no such thing as manifesting someplace where Infinite Love isn’t already all-Present! Love-being-All co-exists with no other—so there really is no other who could manifest or channel Love!
To Infinite Love, co-existing with a chakra that also could be an outlet for Its Love would be like saying the ocean needs a faucet in order to access its own water in the middle of the ocean!
In the same sense—as pure Consciousness Itself is all the Existence there is—can you imagine this utter Consciousness needing a book titled “Consciousness Is All” before Consciousness will fully be the Consciousness It cannot fail to be?! What a joke!
As long as the allness of Reality is clear, then it doesn’t matter what appears to be done in relative experience.
A heart chakra can be both open and closed. Vibration can be either harmonious or inharmonious. So, if excessive emphasis is put on that basis, it tends to encourage and “feed” the notion that there really is a “me” besides Utter Oneness (Love) who can or cannot do these things. It definitely tends to reinforce the notion that a state of “less than Perfection” (Love)—one of change and variability, exists in addition to Oneness.
If Oneness truly is Oneness, It cannot vary. Oneness, being One, is another way of saying single or ALL. If there is the possibility of variation or a lapse in Infinite Life, Love, then there are two or more ways Life can be. That’s not One.
So right away you can see it’s a fine line, and one needs to stay alert.
To function constantly on that basis only—is to be enlivening an assumed realm of duality. But it’s all in the realm of assumption (or dream) because ONE cannot really do any such thing.
What’s more, even if speaking of the finite or human, it isn’t really that there is a “me” who is accessing more and more Love. It’s the other way around. The “me” is dissolving (as it was just a superimposed, imaginary sense of a separate self) and this dissolving is what appears as the experiencing of “more” Love—but which is really the Infinite Love that always is all-Presence.
Is there an “overlap”? Are chakras and energy the “link” to the Infinite? Again, we would have to “qualify” it and say that there appears to be an overlap when seen from a human perspective, yes. But when “seeing” from the Infinite, It knows of no such thing.
When looking at a movie screen face-on, from that side, it appears as if the movie character images and their activities have some sort of overlap or interface with the screen (even though the two never actually come in contact!) However, when seeing or looking out as the screen, the screen doesn’t see anything projected on itself, thus nothing co-existent with it, nothing that could overlap or interface.
There is much, much more that could be said on this…
I always urge people to consider the above not as “my” perspective as an author—but to investigate the nature of Life, Love, for “themselves”—and see that it’s really true of the indefinable aliveness right where “they” are.