“When you establish conditions on love, you experience the conditions,
not the love”
From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
 |
| Esquimalt 2013 |
This week at Light Tree we
looked deeply and noticed that we had surrounded ourselves by a fortress of
things we believed made us safe or comfortable in some way. While this may be
helpful in the short term, it does not help us to undo our dependence on
external objects to make us feel happy and secure.
We became aware that our relationship
to these ‘good things’ such as special food, clothing, people, animals, cars
etc. are all ways we think we keep ourselves safe. While we believed that we
were embracing life as fully as possible, in reality we were making sure we
were doing it from a place of familiarity and safety. This kind of thinking
comes from the ‘little me’ or ego self which is limited in perception and feels
utterly powerless, despite its efforts to appear tough and in control.
This is why it is important
to keep the practice of resting in the peace of our True Nature at the
forefront of our endeavour to find real happiness. We cannot pick and choose
only the good bits. This only leads to an endless cycle of desire and
disappointment. We can only move through life loving and blessing everything
that comes into our awareness while forgiving ourselves for believing that the
seemingly undesirable has any real power to hurt us.
We are learning to live life
without conditions. When start to notice that we only want something for what
fleeting happiness it might bring us we can simply sit back and be curious.
What seems to be charming me into believing it has special powers, when in fact
it has no real ability to bring lasting happiness and peace?
We don’t need to feel guilty
when we are fooled, once again, into riding the merry-go-round of desire and
disappointment. It’s only another opportunity to heal a confused part of our
mind. We don’t have to engage with it, or try to tweak it somehow. We simply
notice and let it go with compassion and forgiveness.
This is the power of resting
in our creator, however we might perceive them. When we remember that we are
part of a cosmic whole that supports and sustains each breath, we do not need
to love with a vast range of conditions and preferences.
Its all ok, nothing is
missing that needs our ‘little me’ to try and fix or improve it in some way. We
can surrender to what feels true in our hearts and let go of the rest. We are
unconcerned about outcomes because we know it’s handled by something wiser and greater.
What a relief!
We can relax and be at
peace, anywhere, anytime. No conditions required.