(Love as the force that reorders all values)
The animal soul wants to live, wants to eat, wants so many things, but love gives it another value system—one that makes the soul see that all those things are ultimately insignificant. If love is complete, if it is really integrated, then a person is willing to give up physical life if that is what is called for.
Love is the wave that is unfolding all of appearance. We don’t see it as love because our perception of love is limited. Truth is manifesting all that we experience, all that we see; and the force of the manifestation—which is the unfoldment itself, the movement itself—is the movement of love. That is the function of love. But what is the manifestation for? The Beloved wants to be known, wants to be seen. The purpose behind creating the world was not so that everybody would have a hard time—though many people think that, right? They ask, “What is all this for? It seems like it is just for us to suffer.” The truth implied in these sayings from Rumi’s tradition is that reality loves to see itself—truth enjoys perceiving the treasures that endlessly come out of it. The source loves so much to see and perceive that it manifests the whole of creation. It is always revealing its treasures, continuously creating all that is. Everything in existence is only those hidden treasures that are manifesting all the time.
(The universe as love unveiling itself through veils)
Love from Two Directions We are seeing that we can look at the process of love from both directions—from the side of the lover or from the side of the Beloved. If you look at it from the side of the lover, love is arising in you, compelling you to follow your heart’s desire. The more you follow that desire, the more the love grows and the more you want to continue. And the more you continue, the more you realize that your heart’s desire is nothing but the desire to be at home with the Beloved. If you look at the relationship from the side of the Beloved, then the whole process is nothing but the source revealing everything to itself until it sees itself in its completeness. So, although it looks quite different depending on whether you look from the position of the lover or of the Beloved, it is the same process. For instance, when you look at a beautiful flower, you feel an appreciation and love for it. You think, “This is such a beautiful flower, and I love flowers.” Here you are looking from the limited perspective of an isolated entity that has feelings and preferences. You think that what you love is the flower. In reality, when you appreciate a flower, it is really the truth appreciating its own treasures. From the perspective of the soul, the love that the soul feels for the flower is the same love that the soul feels for the Beloved. In fact, when you are loving the flower, you are loving the Beloved—this particular manifestation of the Beloved—but you don’t know yet that the flower is the Beloved. What this indicates is that the flower has become one of the veils. When you say, “I love this flower; it is so beautiful,” you are looking at the Beloved through one of the veils. You can rend that veil by recognizing that in loving the flower, you are actually loving the beauty of the flower. And here the beauty of the manifestation—the flower—is the light of the Beloved that shines through the veil. This realization gets you closer to the source, and getting closer is what makes you happy.
With each revelation, you are full of love, you are full of joy and celebration. It is a wonderful discovery, an exhilarating experience. But at the same time, the Beloved is hiding itself, and you don’t know that until you realize, “This is just a veil, another veil. The journey isn’t finished yet.” You need to part the veil and keep going. The journey continues until you find yourself recognizing that the whole universe is the unfoldment of love. As long as you don’t recognize this, you will experience the unfoldment of love revealing the truth to you through one veil after another.
our endeavor “the work,” but that term expresses only a certain aspect of the inner journey. Here, we have repeatedly called the work a love affair, in the sense that it provides nourishment for our heart and soul.
Do I love the absolute or does the absolute love me? The passionate love is the intensity of the annihilating power of the absolute, as it erases all but itself.
The beloved now claims the heart fully. It has taken full possession of it, as its own throne. The beloved is not an other, it is the true dweller of the heart, my source, my ultimate self and the ultimate essence of everything.
When you really get to the source of that longing, it is a dynamic love—full-bodied, like a full, rich wine with a lot of texture and taste. It is a presence aware of itself as it fills your consciousness with intense passionate affect.
(The superego’s war on self-love)
There is a defensiveness and obsessiveness to the guilt that arises for loving yourself, which will tend to block your true self-love.
Of course, the superego says you’re bad to be loving yourself. “You’re so selfish, so self-centered—how narcissistic you are, really?! All you can think about is yourself. Other people are suffering and you are ecstatic.”
“What the hell is this judgment, who says that’s bad? Whoever thinks it’s bad, they can jump off a cliff if they want. I’m not going to stop liking myself and having fun.”
Love is the perfume of union, of the unity of reality, when seen beyond external divisions and separateness. However, because we ordinarily know ourselves as separate beings, love is needed to bring us together and unify reality in our perception.
The heart is like a faceted gem that glows with the sweetness of its many flavors.