It has been said that there are really only two emotions: love and fear. I John 4 from the New Testament says: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.". We may operate out of what we think is love, but our motive is fear. Fear is the biggest tool of the ego to keep us trapped, blind, and asleep to our Nature, to Love, and to the Divine. (Which many believe are all one and the same.)
We may try to mimic agape, but I feel that to truly display it takes surrender to the Divine and non-attachment to expectations and conditions. Unfortunately, in some spiritual circles, agape is seen as a command--and a mandate. Because it's often impossible to operate in agape 24/7, we feel like unenlightened spiritual failures. We want to love others, but we can't help but feel people in general are huge pains in the butt. Good on you for admitting that! (Or was that me that just admitted that? Oops.) We need to create a sacred space for forgiveness, honesty, and acceptance--and this begins with the Self. Like AA, we may need to admit "we have a problem". Allow me to volunteer and say that sometimes, I just don't find humanity lovable. In any of the 3 realms. Instead of feeling condemnation, though, I can remind myself that everyone "out there" is really a reflection of myself. I can then press further, gently, and ask myself "What part of myself don't I love? What part of me needs healed? Why don't I feel deserving of love?"
When I begin to address the root, and to welcome the love of the Divine and others--realizing that I deserve it "just because" (without conditions)--I then open up a channel to love myself and others with more freedom...and less fear. The more we dwell in love, the more fear loosens its grip on us. We begin operating out of our spirits--out of that bright, beautiful Divine spark--as opposed to the ego that seeks to keep us small, frightened, and isolated.
Many mystics, such as Rumi, speak of Divine love. Erotic love and Divine love seem to overlap with Rumi's beautiful poetry. I believe that eros and phileo reflect a portion of agape. Our spirit yearns for God much like a person years for his or her lover. In the Bible, the Psalms and the Song of Solmon are full of beautiful scriptures about longing for the Divine. Psalm 42:1-2 is one such portion:
As the deer pants for streams of water;
so my soul pants for You.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
Rumi says:
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.
Ultimately, I believe love is a verb. In some New Age circles, we seem to have forgotten the Christian idea that "faith without works is dead." I mean, it's easy to have agape in theory because it's never tested! Love is tested, tried, and displayed through relationships. If we isolate ourselves, our buttons can't be pushed. If they can't be pushed, we don't have the opportunity to see our wounds that they may heal--or gather up those fractured parts of ourselves. We can surround ourselves with crystals, chant mantras until the cows come home, travel from city to city to hear the latest channelling, read the newest New Age book, check the astrological transits of our natal chart, and consult Tarot three times a day. But if those practices do not bring us closer to awareness of the Divine and love itself, what's the use? If we are not moving towards love (as oppposed to just running from fear) what's the point? If the illusions of ego and separateness are not dissolving, then what in the world are we doing?
For so many things, I have only questions. I suppose that's a good place to be. I've heard it said that only empty vessels are filled, and that the words "I don't know" are the most powerful ones you can speak. Being a Mother, I get a taste of agape and Divine love. I love my son no matter what. What the world may consider "deficiencies" (like a speech delay), I consider a beautiful part of this precious soul that has allowed me to be his mother.
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."
With all my questions, I remind myself that as I love my son as an "arrow", the Divine loves me with infinite and unconditional love. I am thrust out of the bow of God and into the world.
I am loved.
I am love.
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