What is Love? Part 5 of 5

Spiritual Universal Love - Part 5 of 5

A later stage in our spiritual maturation process is the development of spiritual universal love where wisdom or spiritual discrimination is now added to our love. We now perceive all forms as various manifestations of one unchanging, ever blissful, divine consciousness.

In this state we experience pure love in which we cannot distinguish between the other and ourselves. Christ referred to this state saying, "I am in you and you are in me."

Although, as in the previous stage, we continue to help and serve wherever we can, we are not so affected by the pain and suffering we encounter. We realize that the real spiritual consciousness expressing itself through that form has chosen to pass through that experience because it is exactly the next stimulus, which he or she needs for his or her spiritual growth process. We are now aware that we are all passing through the precise experiences, pleasant and unpleasant, which we need in order to wake up from our dream of this illusory material reality.

Although we are not affected by the suffering we see, we are even more wholly dedicated toward eliminating it. Thus, we love and accept all beings as they are while we direct our energies toward facilitating this process of our mutual spiritual unfoldment. Each of us moves forward in his or her own unique way.

Previously we may have tried to solve people's problems for them. Now we realize that the most effective way we can others is to love and accept them as they are and empower them to find their own inner wisdom and strength in order to overcome their problems.

We now realize that the main solution for the world's economic, political and social problems is education.

We experience such "wise love" or "loving wisdom" from the highest spiritual teachers. It is sometimes difficult to understand their love and caring, which at times to the beginner, may seem like indifference, especially when we pass through tests and expect sympathy and emotional reactions.

It is difficult for some to realize that it is sometimes more loving to allow someone to suffer a little more so he or she can find the solution him or herself and grow stronger and freer from ignorance. Only a realized being can know, however, when "not to help" externally because this would be the most loving act for a specific person.

Many parents would do well to learn this form of wise love. They might help their children far more if they refrain from solving their problems every time they are in trouble.

No one should, however, misconceive that this text is suggesting that we should not help those who are in need. We must help, but we must also ask ourselves what the most appropriate help would be in each situation.

The greatest and most precious help we can offer to those we love, is to help them get in touch with their inner power and wisdom. This, at times, means helping, and at others, means letting them struggle by themselves while we mentally pray for them and visualize them in light.

For an awakened spiritual being to see someone cry about some unhappy event in his or her life or fear some future possibility, might be like our watching a small child cry about a toy that has broken or express fear of the "boogie man." We sympathize with and understand the child's feelings. We love it and we want to help it, but we cannot really be worried.

Those who experience this level of love sometimes do not exhibit the emotional display which others may be used to interpreting as indications of love. As we grow spiritually, we begin to understand, however, that real love is a love for the soul within the other, which is seeking to free itself from ignorance and the illusion of weakness and fear.

These spiritually awakened beings offer help on other levels through their positive thought forms, prayers or sometimes, direct contact on the astral level, usually in dreams.

In this way, help is given without undermining the others' self-confidence.

Loving the Wave or the Ocean

Part 6 of a 6 part series on the "The Stages of Love"

Robert Elias Najemy

When we limit our love to a specific person (we do not mean sexually, but rather emotionally, mentally and spiritually), it is difficult to experience love in its highest expression. We love this person and not others. We tend to focus on a specific person, "loving" them often because they offer us security, pleasure or affirmation; or because we consider them to be "ours."

Pure love is universal. It can express itself toward any particular being, but it cannot limit itself to that being or group of beings. If it does, then it is love mixed with conditions. Each individual is one of the countless waves on an ocean of consciousness. The ocean is the One Universal Consciousness, which is temporarily taking the form of those specific waves and then disappearing into the formlessness of the ocean again before reappearing as billions of others. All waves are expressions of the one ocean.

When we single out one specific wave from the ocean of beings and limit our love to that, we are, in essence, loving an illusion. That being which we love is just a temporary manifestation of the one Universal Being, which manifests as all the other beings simultaneously.

That form on which we focus is a temporary physical, emotional, mental manifestation that will dissolve back into the ocean. When we love the water in that wave, that is, its spiritual essence, the spirit within, we begin to love all waves. The same water is in all the waves. The same spiritual essence is in all beings.

Then we love the spiritual essence in others and not only their form or the specific benefits that we receive from them. We love the spirit within.

Our love now becomes both unconditional and universal. It is unconditional because it does not depend on what others do or do not do, and universal because we start to love more and more people independent of their appearance, character and other superficial factors. We love the spirit within them. We as spirit are one with the spirit, which is within them.

So we can love the wave or we can love the ocean and thus all the waves. This is our choice.

Love is like the gold ore that is brought up from the earth; it is mixed with other metals (emotions, needs). Our job is to purify that gold through our efforts to love unconditionally in all of our relationships, no matter what the other does or does not do.

Only then will we truly be happy. Only then will experience our true Self.

Be sure to look for the remaining the parts of this series:

1. What is Love ? 2. Love or Need for Security ? 3. Love, Pleasure or Affirmation? 4. Selfless Love 5. Spiritual Universal Love