What is Love?
What’s been popping up for me lately is wondering about the nature of love. Or perhaps I should say Love, with a capital L.
It’s a topic I’ve long been interested in. I remember over a decade ago when I was in school at The Hendricks Institute, and one day in class we had a Q & A session with Gay and Katie, to ask about anything we wanted. The question I asked was this: I’ve heard that you (Gay) don’t think love is an emotion. Is that true? And the answer (in paraphrase form) was essentially yes, that is true. I don’t think love is an emotion. I think love is something much more encompassing than simply an emotion; much bigger than that.
I agreed at the time, and I still agree now. The research on emotions even backs that up. Depending on which research is being looked at, there is agreement that there are either five or six primary emotions- those being anger, fear, sadness, joy, sexual feelings, (yes, sexual feelings!) and- some say- disgust. I generally clump disgust in with fear and say that there are five core emotions. Notice that love is not one of them.
Some people say “God is love.” In my way of thinking, it would be God/dess, but who’s nitpicking? 😉 I think there’s some validity to this. That perhaps God/dess IS pure positive energy, or love. Or is it?
When I am engaged in Tantric practices like eye gazing or synchronized breathing- even with a total stranger- there are inevitably moments when I am so totally in the energy of love. I can feel an expansive form of love for the person in front of me. This feels like more of a Universal Love. And it is in fact the same Love that I offer to my clients when I am engaged in sacred work with them. If anything, THAT is what people probably mean when they say “God is love.” It feels like I am channeling Universal Energy/Love through my body into theirs, which is possible with or without any physical touch.
This Universal Love is healing energy. Whenever another is themselves connected to Source and is holding you as the focus of their attention, it not only feels amazing, it also has the power to heal.
I think of this as “pure” Love. There is no ego involved. What if the only REAL experience we can ever have is that of being in our true essence, that of BEING Love, that of being in connection with Source, either alone or with another and being in “the zone” of that?
What if the truth were that we are all the same? What if the truth were that we are all Love, shining through different physical bodies? What if?