"The foundation of all spiritual practice is love.  That you practice this well is my only request.  Of course, to be able to do so in all situations will take time, but you should not lose courage.  If we wish happiness for mankind, love is the only way."

The Dalai Lama

His Essential Wisdom - pg 24

"It is vital to leave a lot of room for change in one's relations to another person. Change comes about in times of transition, allowing love actually to ripen and expand. Then one is able to really know the other one--to see that person with their faults and weaknesses and going through change, a human being like oneself. Only at this stage can there be true love."

~The Dalai Lama

The Expression of Love

"You practice, not to forget or to avoid difficult times but to be fully present for all experiences; past, present or future.   When the heart is open, soft and tender, the soul is free to the potential of honest expression.  It is here that you meet the internal voice which leads you rightfully towards deeper joy and inner tranquility.  Don’t be surprised to find that your internal voice may be saying the opposite of what your mind has been selling you all along.  This may stir up deep seated fear, but in time and with continuous practice, you learn to trust your internal voice and you find that life is not the rollercoaster ride you imagined it to be but an ever unfolding mystery of the expression of love in all things."

~ Nirmala

Power said to the world, “You are mine.”

The world kept it prisoner on her throne.

Love said to the world, “I am thine.”

The world gave it the freedom of her house.

Rabindranath Tagore

Indian Poet

1861-1941

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet."

~ Rumi

Love Barges In

"But love is more like an electrical storm than a pension plan. It has scant regard for our rational intentions. When it comes, almost always unbidden, love will upset our comfortable routines.  Like so much confetti, it will fling into the air all our

fantasies of what our life is meant to look like. What is true of human love is also true of the love divine."

~Roger Housden

'Ten Poems to Open Your Heart'

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  I love you straight forwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”

~ Pablo Neruda

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”

~ Isaac Newton

The Mother

Love:  The Joy of Identity

Student Question:  Before our nature is transformed, can a person love another truly?

The Mother:  Love another? I have said there that it is impossible. I have said that if one wants to know what love is, one must love the Divine.   Then there is a chance of knowing what love is.  I have said that one grows into the likeness of what one loves.  So if one loves the Divine, gradually, through this effort of love, one grows more and more like the Divine, and then one can be identified with the divine love and know what it is, otherwise one can’t.

Inevitably, love between two human beings, whatever it may be, is always made of ignorance, lack of understanding, weakness and that terrible sense of separation.  It is as though one wanted to enter the presence of a unique Splendor and that the first thing one did was to put a curtain, two curtains, three curtains between oneself and the Splendor, and one is quite surprised to have only a vague impression and not at all the thing itself.  The first thing to do is to remove the curtains, to take them all away, to go through and find oneself in the presence of the Splendor.  But if you put veil after veil between it and yourself, you will never see it.  You may have a sort of vague feeling like “Oh! There is something”, but that is all.

Student Question:  In order to know how to love truly, should the nature be transformed?

The Mother:  The quality of love is in proportion to the transformation of your consciousness.  

If you have the consciousness of an animal, you will love like an animal.

If you have the consciousness of an ordinary man, you will love like and ordinary man.

If you have the consciousness of an elite being, and if you have god’s consciousness,

you will love like a god.  And so by the effort for progress and inner transformation,

by aspiration and growth, you pass from one consciousness to the other and your

consciousness becomes vaster and vaster, well, the love you experience will be vaster and vaster.

“Love is, in its essence, the joy of identity; it finds its expression in the bliss of union.”

The Mother – (1878-1973)

The Mother was born in Paris as Mira Alfassa.  She was a devote of Sri Aurobindo

The above was an excerpt from one of her collected works  “Search for the Soul in Everyday Living”

Compiled by Wayne Bloomquist

Love means to reach for the sky and

with every breath to tear a hundred veils.

Love means to step away from the ego,

to open the eyes of inner vision and

not to take this world so seriously.

Congratulations dear heart!

You have joined the circle of lovers,

tell me in your own words

when did all this throbbing begin?

“I was absorbed in my work in this world

But I never lost my longing for home.

One day, exhausted with no strength left,

I was lifted suddenly by the grace of Love.

To describe this mystery there are no words.”

~Rumi

From Hidden Music

Translated by Maryam Mafi

& Azima Melita Kolin – pg 18

I Saw A Woman Sleeping

I saw a woman sleeping.  In her sleep

she dreamt life stood before her, and

held in each hand a gift - in the one

hand love, in the other freedom.  And

she said to the woman, "Choose." And

the woman waited long:  and she said,

"Freedom."  And life said, "Thou has well

chosen.  If thou hadst said 'love,' I would

have given thee that thou didst ask for;

and I would have gone from thee, and

returned to thee no more.  Now, the day

will come when I shall return.  On that

day I shall bear both gifts in one hand."

I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.

Oliver Schreiner, South African wirter and social critic,

1855-1910

I Know The Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get

When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,

Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned

About a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror

And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant

To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness

That arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into

The innocent

And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get

If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart

Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale

Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure

From every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once

Trusted.

I know the way you can get

If you have not had a drink from Love's

Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of

The vital need

To keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him

As being so Playful

And Wanting,

Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:

Bring your cup near me.

For all I care about

Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about

Is giving Love!

~ Hafiz

From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

"To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is."

-~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

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.

~ Rumi

From: Love Poems

Translator: Coleman Barks

"There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame of that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other."

~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

"Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or Bends with the remover to remove.

O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

It is the star to every wandering bark,

whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.”

~ William Shakespeare

"Love is not a thing to understand.

Love is not a thing to feel.

Love is not a thing to give and receive.

Love is a thing only to become

And eternally be. "

~ Sri Chimnoy

But when you talk of love, there is duality,

is there not - the person who loves and

the entity called God who is loved?

The individual is not separate from God.

Hence love means one has love towards one's own Self.

Only if one knows the truth of love,

which is the real nature of Self,

will the strong entangled knot of life be untied.

Only if one attains the height of love will liberation be attained.

Such is the heart of all religions.

The experience of Self is only love, which is seeing only love,

hearing only love, feeling only love, tasting only love

and smelling only love, which is bliss.

~ Ramana Maharshi

Love is Reckless

Love is reckless; not reason.

Reason seeks a profit.

Love comes on strong,

consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,

Love proceeds like a millstone,

hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died of self-interest,

she risks everything and asks for nothing.

Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being;

without cause, give it back again.

~ Rumi

Mathnawi VI, 1967-1974

This month celebrates love –

self-love, love for others, and love in

all its manifestations. We invite you

to look beyond the titles,

masks, and stories you’ve been telling

yourself about who you are . . .

to discover and honor your essential self,

which is pure love, pure spirit, pure potentiality.

~ Deepak Chopra

“Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful

words in the English language, and yet one that

we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.

The consumption society has made us feel that

happiness lies in having things, and has failed

to teach us the happiness of not having things.

~ Elis Boulding

Love's Constancy

Hadewijch of Antwerp

Love's Constancy

Anyone who has waded

Through Love's turbulent waters,

Now feeling hunger and now satiety,

Is untouched by the season

Of withering or blooming,

For in the deepest and most dangerous waters,

On the highest peaks,

Love is always the same.

Translation: Oliver Davies

“I have no enemies and no hatred,”  “Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.”

Quote from imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo

"I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most

important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations

of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here because

of you, you are all my reasons."

John Forbes Nash, Jr.

American Mathematician and Nobel Prize Winner

Love

The purpose of life is to express love in all manifestations.

In order to be happy, you should love – love with self-sacrifice,

love all and everything, and spread a network of love everywhere.

No matter who gets into this net, catch them all and fill them with love.

Everyone can recall a moment, universal to all, perhaps from

early childhood, when you wanted to love everyone and

everything – your father, your mother, your brothers, evil people,

a dog, a cat, grass – and you wanted everyone to feel good,

everyone to feel happy; and even more, you wanted to do

something special so that everyone would be happy,

even to sacrifice yourself, to give your life so that everyone

should feel happy and joyful.  This feeling is the feeling of love,

and it must be returned to, for it is the life of every person.

Anything you do should be filled with love.

~ Leo Tolstoy

"If it is love that you truly desire, then set out at once on the task of seeing...

As you do this, the hard, protective shell around your heart will soften and melt

and your heart will come alive with sensitivity and responsivenes.

The darkness in your eyes will be dispelled and your vision

will become clear and penetrating, and you will know at last what Love is."

~ Anthony de Mello

"Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth... This is the real message of love."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

By love, bitter things are made sweet and copper turns to gold.

By love, the sediment becomes clear and torment is removed.

By love, the dead are made to live.

By love, the sovereign is made a slave.

This love is the fruit of knowledge.

When did folly sit on a throne like this?

The faith of love is separated from all religion.

For lovers the faith and the religion is God.

O spirit, in striving and seeking become like running water.

O reason, at all times be ready to give up mortality

for the sake of immortality.

Remember God always, that self may be forgotten,

so that yourself may be effaced in the One to Whom you pray,

without care for who is praying, or the prayer.

~ Rumi

Quoted in 'Essential Sufism' Fadiman/Frager

"Some day, after we have mastered the winds,

the waves, the tides and gravity, . . .

we shall harness . . . the energies of love.

Then, for the second time in the history of the world,

man will have discovered fire."

~ Teilhard De Chardin

"The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me."

~ Ram Dass

The Breaking Wave Of Love

Rumi

Ah, once more he put a fire in me,

And once more this crazy heart

is craving the open plains.

This ocean of love breaks into another wave

And blood pours from my heart

in all directions.

Ah, one spark flew

and burned the house of my heart.

Smoke filled the sky.

The flames grew fierce in the wind.

The fire of the heart is not easily lit.

So don't cry out: "O Lord, rescue me

from the burning flames!

Spare me from the army of thoughts

that is marching through my mind!"

O Heart of Pure Consciousness,

You are the ruler of all hearts.

After countless ages

you brought my soul

all it ever wished for.

The eyes of all people happy and sad,

are closed to the truth.

May their eyes be opened!

May they look upon God

and get drunk on His beauty.

May their hands reach toward the Truth.

May their ears hear the voice of the Beloved.

May the shadow of a Master

fall upon everyone who has devotion.

All the world praises you,

But where did this "you" come from?

All the universe is born of Love -

But where did this Love come from?

O Shams,

you are the owner of the land of life -

the light of every heart;

Even the King of Love

knows no love

that is not yours.

Ode 881

Version by Jonathan Star

"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi"

"Love wakes much and sleeps little and, even in sleeping, does not sleep.  It faints yet is not weary; it is restricted in its liberty yet is in great freedom.  It sees reason to fear, but, like and ember or a spark of fire, flames always upward, by the fervor of its love, toward God, and through the special help of grace is delivered from all perils and dangers.”

~ Thomas A Kempis

WE ARE FIELDS BEFORE EACH OTHER

How is it they live for eons in such harmony-

the billions of stars-

when most men can barely go a minute

without declaring war in their mind against someone they know.

There are wars where no one marches with a flag,

though that does not keep casualties

from mounting.

Our hearts irrigate this earth.

We are fields before

each other.

How can we live in harmony?

First we need to

know

we are all madly in love

with the same

God.

~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Love Does That

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes

with heavy loads on her back and sometimes

just with worries about things that only bother burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting

than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes

to her stable and brings

a pear, but more than that,

he looks into the burro's eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free

and even seems to laugh,

because love does that.

Love frees.

~ Meister Eckhart

Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;

Friends, kindred, days,

Estate, good-fame,

Plans, credit, and the Muse,--

Nothing refuse.

'Tis a brave master;

Let it have scope:

Follow it utterly,

Hope beyond hope:

High and more high

It dives into noon,

With wing unspent,

Untold intent;

But it is a god,

Knows its own path,

And the outlets of the sky.

It was not for the mean;

It requireth courage stout,

Souls above doubt,

Valor unbending;

Such 'twill reward, --

They shall return

More than they were,

And ever ascending

Leave all for love;

Yet, hear me, yet,

One word more thy heart behooved,

One pulse more of firm endeavor,--

Keep thee to-day,

To-morrow, forever,

Free as an Arab

Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;

But when the surprise,

First vague shadow of surmise

Flits across her bosom young

Of a joy apart from thee,

Free be she, fancy-free;

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,

Nor the palest rose she flung

From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,

As a self of purer clay,

Though her parting dims the day,

Stealing grace from all alive;

Heartily know,

When half-gods go,

The gods arrive.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not This Not That”

Not anything,

not the eastern wind whose other name

is rain,

nor the burning heats of the dunes

at the crown of summer,

not the ticks that new, ferocious populace,

not the President who loves blood,

nor the governmental agencies that love money,

will alter

my love for you, my friend and my beloved,

or for you, oh ghosts of Emerson and Whitman,

or for you, oh blue sky of summer morning,

that makes me role in a barrel of gratitude

down hills,

or for you, oldest of friends: hope;

or for you, newest of friends: faith;

or for you, silliest and dearest of surprises, my

own life.

~ Mary Oliver

From Red Bird – Poems by Mary Oliver

"Drink from this heart now, for all this loving it contains.  When you look for it again, it will be dancing in the wind."

~ Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir

"Love is the essential ingredient in the blossoming."

~ Manorama

When love shatters your heart

don't try to put the old pieces back together again -

instead, build a new one with your tears and anguish

so that you may always feel humility and compassion

towards all of humanity's suffering.  

~ Nirmala

The Woman I Love

Because the Woman I love lives inside you,

I lean as close to your body with my words as I can-

and I think of you all the time,

dear pilgrim.

Because the One I love goes with you wherever you go,

Hafiz will always be

near.

If you sat before me, wayfarer, with your aura bright from

your many charms,

my lips could resist rushing to you, but my eyes, my eyes

can no longer hide the wonderous fact of who

you really are.

The Beautiful One whom I adore

has pitched His royal tent inside of you,

so I will always lean my heart

as close to your soul

as I can.  

~ Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c.1320-1389)

From Love Poems From God - Daniel Ladinsky

The Sky Gave Me Its Heart

The sky gave me its heart

because it knew mine was not large enough to care

for the earth the way

it did.

Why is it we think of God so much?

Why is there so much talk

about love?

When an animal is wounded

no one has to tell it, "You need to heal" so naturally it will nurse

itself the best it can.

My eye kept telling me, "Something is missing from

all I see."  So it went in search of the cure.

The cure for me was His Beauty, the remedy-

for me was to

love.

~ Rabia of Basra (c. 717-801)

From Love Poems From God - Daniel Ladinsky

The Ocean Surge

I want to be in such passionate adoration

that my tent gets pitched against the sky!

Let the beloved come and sit

like a guard dog in front of the tent.

When the ocean surges, don't let me

just hear it. Let it splash inside my chest!

~ Rumi, "The Book of Love"

"The essential ingredient in the transformative process is love -- Self love."

~ Manorama

"No bird can fly without opening its wings and no one can love without opening their heart. "

~ Mark Nepo

THE FLAME OF LOVE

Love (and passion altogether) can be based either on the central reference point of ego or on a more centerless approach that is beyond ego. There is a vast store of energy that is not ego’s energy at all. It is the energy of the primeval background, which permeates whatever is going on. This energy has a consuming quality, an ever-burning quality, like that of the sun. This vast power goes on and on and on, leaving no room to manipulate, leaving no room for confusion or ignorance or panic or doubt. Passion is a very powerful thing.

~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

From “The Flame of Love,” excerpted from pages 113 to 117 in Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness.

Memory Negates Love

Is it possible to love without thinking? What do you mean by thinking? Thinking is a response to memories of pain or pleasure. There is no thinking without the residue which incomplete experience leaves. Love is different from emotion and feeling. Love cannot be brought into the field of thought; whereas feeling and emotion can be brought. Love is a flame without smoke, ever fresh, creative, joyous.  Such love is dangerous to society, to relationship. So, thought steps in, modifies, guides it, legalizes it, puts it out of danger; then one can live with it. Do you not know that when you love someone, you love the whole of mankind? Do you not know how dangerous it is to love man? Then, there is no barrier, no nationality;

then, there is no craving for power and position, and things assume their values. Such a man is a danger to society.

For the being of love, the process of memory must come to an end. Memory comes into being only when experience is not fully, completely understood. Memory is only the residue of experience; it is the result of a challenge which is not fully comprehended. Life is a process of challenge and response. Challenge is always new but the response is ever old. This response, which is conditioning, which is the result of the past, must be understood and not disciplined or condemned away. It means living each day anew, fully and completely. This complete living is possible only when there is love, when your heart is full, not with the words nor with the things made by the mind. Only where there is love, memory ceases; then every movement is a rebirth.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

This is from 'The Book of Life:

Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti':

"The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me,

apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love."

~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and

Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,

He would just drag you around the room

By your hair,

Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world

That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly

And wants to rip to shreds

All your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,

And with others,

Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,

Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself

And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants

To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down

And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear

He is in such a "playful drunken mood"

Most everyone I know

Quickly packs their bags and hightails it

Out of town.

'The Gift - Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master'

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

Go Deeper than Love

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,

love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock

molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.

And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.

For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths

out of sight, in the deep living heart.

by D.H. Lawrence

From: Know Deeply, Know Thyself More Deeply

"There is only one question: how to love this world."

 ~ Mary Oliver

‎

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

~ Rumi

"Form came as a branch of Love; for without love this form would have no worth. A branch is that which cannot exist without the root. Therefore God is not called a form; since form is the branch, He cannot be called the branch.

One said: love too cannot take form and be compacted without form. Hence it is the branch of form.

We say: Why cannot Love take form without form? On the contrary, Love is the artificer of form. A hundred thousand forms are raised up by Love, pictured alike and realised. Though the picture does not exist without the painter, neither the painter without the picture, yet the painting is the branch and the painter is the root. It is like the moving of the finger with the moving of the ring."

Excerpt from Discourse 36

~ Rumi

"All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.

Love is therefore the only law of life.

He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.

Therefore love for love's sake,

because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live. "

~ Swami Vivekananda

"Accustomed long to contemplating Love and

  compassion,

I have forgotten all difference

between myself and others."

~ Milarepa

Quoted in  'Zen Soup' L.G. Boldt

"Love is a force of evolution, deeply meaningful and incredibly transforming."

~ Manorama

"When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.  When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

~ Paulo Coelho

"Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love your self absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself you cannot love them. Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realization can break it. Go for it resolutely."

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

From: I Am That