
LOVE REFLECTIONS
As written words,
the following thoughts, descriptions and insights have no value in themselves.
But if we are interested to experience the essense in our daily life, in
our inner and outer reality, they may be stimulating and supportive.
A helpful attitude on this road is that of an explorer who has the curiosity
of a child. We look into the unknown and want to discover the truth of
love.
What could mobilize our interest and the energy that is necessary to look with full attention?
It could be the love and beauty that touch us directly in moments of grace. For some time they fill the brain with their fragrance and evoke the intent to be more awake.
More often, however,
our motivation comes from discontent and suffering. When we become aware
that our unrealized ideals and hopes are illusions, when the condition
of society and mankind touches us deeply, when we are caught in fears of
senselesness and death, there might be an inner push that encourages us
to question everything and look anew.
How do we look? What is there to explore?
Our theme is love. But we don't know what love is. We don't simply believe what others tell us. We don't follow any outer authority. Therefore, we can only start with what is present in our consciousness now.
I watch myself
and become aware of my feelings, thoughts and actions. I watch the others
and I watch the world. Being an explorer, I don't judge - I look. I find
out if I can see without judging. Being an explorer, I have no fixed expectations,
only an intention - to discover what love is.
Quite often I
might get angry, scared or depressed by what I see in myself and others.
Through this I realize that I react automatically to nearly everything
- thereby clouding my perceptions.
Slowly, self-awareness grows and I come closer and closer to what is: the movement of contents and qualities in consciousness.
It becomes difficult
to separate the outer from the inner world because I can't decide whether
objects and experiences are outside or inside my brain. It becomes almost
impossible to hold on to any sure knowledge. But my intention to find true
love stays and grows.
I see my own limitations
and those of others. This makes me more open, more tolerant. I discover
the existence of a language of the heart to which I can listen. I am surprised
to notice that my feeling of self-importance diminishes.
Slowly a new taste spreads in consciousness. I can't really grasp it. But it lights a flame of certainty and joy. The taste is full of liveliness. It is more real than anything I have known.
Again and again I lose the contact to it. But it calls. I can't forget it any more. And over and over I walk the road anew.
The following thoughts, experiences and insights reflect this road. Only when you and I discover and live them now are they true.
I write about
love. What I say about it is not love. It is not an idea or a concept.
I cannot invent love through thought. But maybe it will radiate from between
the words and lines, because love shines. It is the light of all.
For me the most
important thing in life is to live in love. I am filled with this wish
because I feel that we are deeply disturbed. Our illness is that we are
not really present.
We are imprisoned
in our constructed worlds. This creates pain and deep suffering. It effects
me and all of us. There is a certainty in me that only love can heal us
humans, because it leads to direct being. Therefore, it should be the main
concern of our life.
The journey into
love is the biggest adventure possible. It questions everything. It shakes
everything. As a guide, it teaches us to meet ourselves. Love is like an
inner fire - the more I surrender, the more it shows itself. With gentleness
it sees my inabilities and failures. It shows me patiently, with love,
what is not love.
Over and over
I reach a point where trust is important. These are the moments when love
wants to show itself through my actions. It shakes my reason. It shakes
my self-image and my rules. It asks for attention, because otherwise, I
can't feel it. It asks for devotion, because otherwise, it can't reveal
itself.
Yet, strong resistances
in me do not want to let go: fear and hate, greed and longing, self-pity
and pride, comfort and routine. Love accepts my struggles - with love.
It is always present: in my conflicts, my desperation, my aggression, my
inattention. Love sings the song of love without a pause, and without choice.
Wherever I am, wherever I go, it is already there. Love is concerned about
me, but it is free of all worry. It contains all the time of our world.
No matter what I do, at some point I have to meet it.
What can be stronger than love?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Our main problem
with love is that we take it personally.
Personally means
- in separation, as a property right.
Personally means
- under certain conditions.
When we talk about
love we usually mean conditioned love - full of romance, sentimentality
and drama. It is shaped by our personal upbringing, by what we heard or
read.
We believe that
our image of love is true love. The image consists of value systems, ideals
and dreams. If I believe to meet this image in you, I believe to be in
love with you. But I am in love with my own image.
My image of myself
sees my image of you. And your image of yourself sees your image of me.
Images feel, kiss and make love. If after some time, your or my behavior
no longer fits our images, we feel hurt, angry and uncaring.
Personal love
has also a great beauty. It is often a door or a teacher. But we suffer
so much from it. We have to guard it all the time, fearing it could break
any moment. Is love hurting, transient and strenuous?
Personal love
is often full of greed.
It wants to possess
and to control. It wants to decide what it loves. It defines you and me
and loses contact to the beauty of our indescribable being.
Personal love
is part of our prison. Within it we can never be free.
If I am no image,
who am I?
If you are no
image, who are you?
I am being.
You are being.
You and I are
who we are.
You, as being,
are always new.
I, as being,
am always new.
We see each other,
touch each other, without knowledge.
Forgotten is
the image-world,
A play, a dream,
of you and me.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Why is love so
full of pain?
Why is love so
limited?
Why is love a
chain for us?
Why are we afraid
of love?
Why are we so
hard from love?
Why is love a
passing flame?
Why is our love
no love?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The path of the heart is difficult, because it asks to forget all fixed knowledge. Only in forgetting you, can my heart see you. Only in forgetting me, can my heart feel me.
The path of the
heart is thorny, because it walks the roads of the suffering world. The
heart sees war and torture, pain and loss - and lets them in.
The path of the
heart is alone and all embracing. Amidst the separate forms of being, flows,
undescribed, its nameless strength.
The path of the
heart is free and full of beauty. In love, all things get born and fade
away.
Love shines like
a sun.
Sometimes visible
and sometimes invisible.
But it is always
here.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Love originates
from the source. It flows into our being, and radiates from our actions.
Love does not belong to anyone. It is life's gift to all. Love has no needs,
and is without condition. Love wants only one thing: that we feel it.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
To let go of what
is not love, leads to love.
To accept what
is not love, leads to love.
Yes and no. Known
and unknown. Empty and full.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Love is perceiving,
taking everything in.
Love is acting,
streaming into everything.
Love comes from
the center - love has no center.
When I lose the
center, I lose love.
When I am in
the center, I lose love.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The heart is cleansed
and cleansed. All suffering pours through until it says yes to love.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Love does not
define. Love gives no compliments. Love does not do good. Love cannot be
owned. Love cannot be taken away. Love is where nothing is not love.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
In a natural state
of being, love is the essense.
Where there is love, there is no alternative to love.
With care it holds pain, ugliness and hate.
Everything is
seen and nothing can hide.
All has a place
in love.
Love is a mirror
that transforms everything.
It is like an
inner fire that evokes the shine of all.
When I meet you
and all the world, am I in love?
Lovemaking,
be it shy or wild like orgies,
is in obedience of rules.
In making love, I want to lose and to assert me.
In making love we seek to reach fulfilment.
Lovemaking is temptation, fight, surrender.
Lovemaking often leads to heavy problems.
And often it is
simply great.
Are man and woman separated worlds?
How can I ever understand you?
And show you what I really feel?
We need each other, want each other, flee each other.
And constantly we look and search.
The tension grows, erupts
and starts all
over.
Ruled and driven
- we are not free.
Jealosy and lovers'
pain.
The perfume of
eternity is lost. What seemed so real has passed away. In torture breaks
the world apart. The loving dream of you and me. No exit, panic, endless
pain. I am no more who I just was.
Who carries me? Who gives me peace?
The suffering
heart drives me to act. But what to do? Lamed and confused, all energy
is gone. Alone, the world makes no more sense. So lonely, joyless seems
all time.
I force myself
to desperate actions. But emptiness and resignation stay.How often will
I have to suffer all this pain? The head hits hard against the wall and
hurts.
I am imprisoned
in myself.
When two human
beings love each other, in whatever form, they are together in love. They
melt and merge. Beyond all definitions of man and woman, beyond all descriptions
of sexual feelings and actions, we are one. Breath and movements are one.
The space between
the bodies is filled with the dance of being - tender, wild, inconceivalble,
wordless. The energy is lifting us, and if we trust, it leads into a light
unknown.
Two bodies sense
each other without image.
Two bodies touch
each other without goal.
Waves are coming,
waves are going.
Life is leading.
At the end of
each wave - a moment of silence.
Today we are possessed
by love,
Forgetting all
the world.
We are so taken
by sweet lust
That streams
of light the bodies fill.
Exciting strokes
by magic hands,
The skin vibrating
from each touch,
We penetrate
so deeply in,
That intertwined
we swallow us.
From instict driven
to the shore
The separating
fog is gone.
The bodies' love
is our core,
In peace united
we are born.
Silence envelops everything. It is everywhere. Everything happens within it. Everything can lose itself in it. It is eternal. Silence is.
To let go of myself
and listen to the silence...
What am I afraid
of?
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
There is a kind
of equanimity that brings deep peace. It is not indifference because everything
is concerning oneself: the ocean, the light, the childrens' voices from
the playground, and the weight of wood logs on ones own shoulders. Everything
is intermingling, blending together and opening the consciousness of a
gentle silence.
The questions
- Who am I? or, What am I doing here? - are gone. There is no need to have
a right of being. The eyes look aimlessly upon the smooth sea. Questions,
which otherwise create disturbance, heaviness, or activity, are meaningless.
The red glow of
the sun comes once more through the clouds at dawn. Peace covers the earth
and touches everything with its silence.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
The beauty of
the world is indescribable. All descriptions distract from the beauty.
Beauty comes to you when you see it. You see it when you look. In order
to look, you have to be present. Then, all energy goes into perception.
The looking comes from silence and it sees what is. What is, is the beauty
of life.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
All forms through
which life manifests have a specific knowledge about life. They are unique
expressions of life. If we listen, the knowledge speaks to us and shows
us the richness of each moment.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
We live in paradise.
Paradise was never lost. Our wars take place in paradise. We create our
conflicts in paradise.
We live in paradise
when the brain surrenders and becomes quiet.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
I want to show
the beauty that I see to you. It is glowing and vibrating like a dance
of light. It fills my heart and flows to everything I see. It is limitless.
It is so intense that all words fail.
Quite often during my daily life and now, as I write about love, the contact with it slips away. I feel separated, and it is only a memory.
When I am in contact with love, there is no doubt or unclarity. It is a state of complete trust. But when I think about it and try to grasp or understand it, it slips away.
Love is like an
energy that comes to us. I cannot go towards it. I can only open myself
to it.
When I feel doubt,
ambivalence or mistrust - about myself, my actions, or about my perceptions
of the world - then I know that I am not in contact with love.
In those moments,
there is nothing else to be done than to be aware of what is going on inside
of me - as deeply and clearly as possible. It requires a conscious journey
into ones own actual state of being.
Doing this, I
notice frequently, that in spite of my training, my learned concepts, and
my psychological knowledge, I have no real answers to what happens inside
and outside myself. I don't understand why the human world is the way it
is; why there is so much suffering and so much injustice. All the explanations
of science and philosophy don't help me.
I don't understand
why my mood always changes and why the same things make sense sometimes,
and seem at other times completely senseless. And in spite of all biographical
explanations, I don't comprehend my dissatisfaction, my arrogance, my rudeness,
and my drives. I don't know what is right and wrong. Nor do I know what
is the inner and what the outer. I don't believe in authority.
And if I am honest
with myself, I have nothing really to hold on to, including the people
and activities I enjoy the most in my life.
Nevertheless,
I often get caught in the wish to change something because I don't like
it and I don't accept it. I don't want the human world to be the way I
see it. The TV pictures and the stories in the newspapers, you and me,
touch my heart.
How shall I handle
what I see - poverty, power, money, cruelty? How shall I meet your feelings,
your demands, your pains? How shall I handle the ways of the politicians,
the religions, and the educators of our children? How shall I meet the
mechanical-ness, the pleasure-dependence, and the insensitivity of our
lives?
I ask and ask,
and I find answers less and less. I think that something has to change
if you and me feel true love. Or can it really be, that we human beings
are endlessly imprisoned between desire and conflict, pleasure and suffering?
The thought comes
to me that maybe the world is only this way because I perceive it in this
way. Perhaps I, myself, am responsible for the separation and duality that
makes us suffer.
As I start to
explore the fact of duality, I feel the splits and conflicts wherever I
look. I feel that I have to be separate in order to be me. I feel sadness
and pain. I start to sense the abyss of my aloneness. But answers I don't
know. I just see that we are the way we are.
I direct my attention
towards the body and feel the breathing.
I am aware of
its fragility, its desire for lust, its sensations of discomfort and well-being,
its hunger and its thirst. I ask myself what is the body - what is matter?
Is being in a body not bondage and separation by itself? Am I the body?
What is the right way to deal with it, its sicknesses, its dying? What
is love of the body? Is there consciousness without a body?
I listen deeply
into all my questions. Answers come and answers go. Convictions blossom
and fade away. What remains is just not knowing. The more I meditate on
all of this, the more I feel alone. I am alone with not knowing. Its taste
and its space become clearer and more certain.
I walk the circles
over and over again, but I always arrive here. I have no answers, no basic
explanations. I have no identifications, no orientation, no fixed identity.
At the base of searching and fighting for something to hold on to, I am
alone in being - without understanding.
Slowly dawns a
new insight, like the opening of a curtain: I cannot know anything. It
is impossible to know anything that is ultimately secure. Knowledge and
definitions have to be limited and incomplete by their nature, therefore
they are transient.
There is an instant
feeling that this insight changes consciousness. It is like a letting go,
a relaxation, a surrender, an incredible relief.
At the bottom
of my questions, my conflicts, my pleasures, and my aloneness, all disappears,
and is received by the unknown, the unknowable.
The energy of
the unknowable is slowly filling the brain. It dissolves all questions.
With all that concerns me, with the whole world, I end in the unknowable.
The truth of the
unknowable is full of harmony, security and peace. It is the essense of
trust. It is space. It is limitless space. And this space is filled with
love.
Now love is here
and it shines on everything from the unknowable. When I pause, when I listen,
when I endure my not knowing, then I am ready and open for love. It can
touch and lead me.
Love is not suffering.
Does love see suffering?
How are unity
and duality connected?
How are you and
I connected?
I am just I when
I am not you.
I am just I when
you are you.
Am I you?
Who asks the
question? Who shall respond?
I see suffering
- am I the suffering?
If I am the pain
- who feels the pain?
I am two or I
am not.
You are two or
you are not.
All is two or
it is nothing.
If I am two,
then I am one.
Two is one seeing
itself.
When pain feels
pain, then it is one.
When it is one,
then it is love.
Sorrow is only
sorrow when it does not feel itself.
Two is only two
in separation.
Separate can
only be whatever is already one.
You and I are
separate because we are together.
One is always
one, even when it is two.
Two is always
one, even when it is two.
Love is always
love, even when it is sorrow.
Suffering is
always love, even when it is pain.
Love and suffering,
in unity - is trinity.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
I feel physical
pain. This pain is a body sensation; a specific physical quality. Is it
possible to feel it through attention and breathing, without naming it?
If I don't give it a name, if I don't describe it, it is just there, being
what it is. Then, there is no conflict.
The quality of
pain is one of the many faces of life. It has its place in the universe
as all that exists. With the help of intuitive and medical knowledge, we
do everything to heal and soothe the illnesses and pains of the body. But
when they are there and when there is no help, we can only say yes.
Physical pain
is a form of energy. It is pulsating. It is not separated from love. Pain
can feel itself in love - if we allow it.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
Breathing in -
breathing out.
Silence.
I walk the way.
You walk the
way.
She walks the
way.
He walks the
way.
We walk the way.
You walk the
way.
They walk the
way.
It walks the
way.
Flowing, going,
standing, flying, growing, swaying, sinking, lying, gliding, swimming,
running, dying.
Breathing, breathing,
breathing, breathing.
Love is like a
clear endless lake that fills consciousness and streams through the brain.
A thought appears
- and sinks into the lake of love.
An image appears
- and sinks into the lake of love.
Memory dissolves
in light.
You dissolve
in light.
I dissolve in
light.
Love flows through
everything.
Everything dissolves
in light.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
Love is the music
of the universe.
Sounds, tones,
harmonies.
The string is
swinging, the gong vibrating.
Music is nourishment,
healing and light.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
No must, no goal, no obligation, no pressure to be somebody, no role, no direction to go, no wish, no push, no meaning, no purpose, no explanation, no reference point, no description, no question, no answer, no framework, no definition, no I, no non-I, no comparison, no evaluation, no knowing, no not knowing.
I am walking and
singing in circles.
Light like a feather
I laugh from joy.
Light like a
child I laugh from ignorance.
Light like a
bird I laugh into the sky.
Light like a
breeze my laughter dies.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
From aloneness
comes the strength to live. It is an inexhaustible source that says yes
to all.
Aloneness is a
safe shelter. The stars are your friends and the blackness of the night
embraces you. You feel love.
Aloneness is freedom
from all desire, all needs, all drives.
Aloneness knows
no burden and no shadow.
Can we meet without
losing this feeling of all-oneness, without separating from each other?
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
I listen. You talk about your problems, your experiences, your physical discomforts, and your future plans.
I am you. I am made out of the same material as the things you tell me.
Our talks become
monologues. The contents lose importance. Compassion opens the hearts.
Your joy is my joy and your suffering is my suffering.
But the listener
is like an empty space. The listener is listening. It takes us completely
in. It connects us with everything. It says yes to you and me. We are safe.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
The breath is
the umbilical chord to the source.
As long as we
live it is always present.
It connects us
with space and silence.
When we breathe,
we breathe the connection.
The breath is
a direct entry into all.
Every moment,
everything happens together. Energy flows in all forms. All appearances
are energy in movement. Life has endless faces, endless tastes and endless
sounds.
Consciousness
is simultaneously filled with all of them.
The ego, however,
is only identified and busy with a few contents. In the process of becoming
me, I learn to fix these contents as my identity. I am caught, living in
a rigid world.
The beauty of
the natural energy movement escapes from the perceiving mind. The flow
of life seems to be broken and, apparently, we live simultaneously in two
worlds: the conditioned one of you and me, and the unlimited one of all.
If we become deeply
aware of this the illusion of separation goes away and our identity becomes
transparent.
As waves in a
river, you and I appear like constant forms. But every moment creates us
new.
In the big stream
there are many currents. Each one has its own direction, its own creative
unfolding. It develops and fades away with all.
In a herd of animals
each one of them moves for itself and, at the same time, they form together
the motion of one energy being. This being moves itself in a bigger stream,
which again, flows in even greater energies. Like this, everything moves
together until infinity, where big and small are one.
Sometimes, I can
lead the herd, creating the form of our movement. Sometimes, I can just
follow it. And sometimes, I disappear in the movement - everything is naturally
together.
Life is simple
when I trust it. In my space I dance my dance. In our space we dance our
dance. In the universal space, the dance dances itself.
The vastenss of
all touches my heart and its peace streams even in my little world.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
Stones and sand
are talking to me, water and waves.
Mountains and
flowers are talking to me, birds and goats.
The sky and the
light are talking to me, the humans and the stars.
Their talk is
their being.
Their language
is essense.
I walk on the
stones without falling.
Air and water
are clear.
We breathe together.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
When the known
world transforms itself into the awareness of now, all time disappears.
Everything is new, bathed in the light of beauty. Knowledge ceases to clothe
being. All is perfect as it is.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
Because we define
here and now, we are not here and now.
There is no more
to be done than what we do right now.
When we don't
want to arrive, we are here.
When now exists,
we are immortal.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
The days disappear
in the now.
Was it yesterday,
the day before, or this morning?
The fire warms
me beneath a grey sky.
I have no time
- it is quiet.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
All time is now.
All that was
is now.
All knowledge
is now.
Death and life
are now.
All beauty is
now.
Now is infinite
space.
Now is creation.
Creation is being
now.
Love in itself,
can't be described, for all described is never love.
But love can talk
through gowns of words.
When taken off -
it's purely here.
Love does reflect
itself in all.
For all the things
are made from love.
United, love melts
all divisions.
To feel the love
means being love.
When love sees me
then I am loved.
When I see love
then I am love.
One can't succeed
to cling to love,
For what I grasp
is never love.
Love is the taste
and scent of being.
Quite irresistible
is love,
For never does itself
resist.
Quite inexorable
is love,
For no-one can escape
from it.
Love is the light
of core and heart.
All things are touched
and melt in it.
Timeless flows love
as holy being.
It is a clown, a
sparkling mirror,
Reflecting laughingly
oneself.
Full of surprises
is its essense.
All things are new,
untouched and fresh.
Love is the endless
stream of giving.
Surrendering dissolves
oneself.
Love means arriving
now at home,
Safe shelter in
eternity.
Of all is love,
therefore, the end.