Mind Filters: Dropping the "Love" Story.

Sep 09 2007

Note: This was an experience based on the "Mind Filters" post.

In my own experience, the term "Love" has always been attached to many emotions and sentiments (mind filters:)). I had no idea there was something like pure love.. a feeling that is not associated with any emotion.. It does not feel like romantic love for a partner, or caring, protective love for a child, or grateful, respectful love for a parent, etc. It is just pure feeling arising from the heart with absolutely no emotions/labels attached. We have all experienced this at some time or the other, however they may have been very fleeting feelings that we have not realized existed, and that we may not have recognized as Love.

Yesterday I was reading the Alchemist by Paul Coehlo.. and there was a part where he says "He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn't separate them". Later during meditation a though arose "you can love without possession". This thought started expanding.. it was spreading and automatically being applied to people in my life.. a feeling of just pure love with no stories attached. I stayed with it for a bit.. then finished my meditation.

Later I was driving alone when the thought of someone who has been a very negative influence on my life came to me. I saw her in my mind.. and before last night , any time I thought of her, my emotions took over and I would get sad and depressed and drown in self pity. But this time was different. I could see very clearly.. I realized that she really did love me and all her possessive, controlling, trying to change me, was her own distorted way of showing me her love. That is the only way she knew how to show love. When that filter of all the mental and emotional abuse she put me through dropped, all I saw was the love behind it. I am not saying what she did was right or it was OK for her to treat another human the way she did. All I am saying is when I saw the story, I could drop it and become free from it. I realized that it was not how she treated me that kept me imprisoned, it was the story my mind made around the situation that kept me imprisoned.. and when I drop the story, all that is left is love.

I realized what the statement, "you can love without possession" meant. Possession does not have to mean physical possession.. just holding on to a mental story is also a kind of possession.. and dropping this mental story is really loving someone without possessing.

I went through the entire evening, enjoying this new opening, this new freedom.. it was such a tiny switch, but such a huge relief. All through the evening, my ego tried to create another story to show me how flawed my thinking was.. but it just could not stick. I could appy this to many other situations in my life.. and it was so easy to feel love.

As I sat with this all evening, I felt love emanating from my heart. Such pure emotionless, sentiment-less, story-less love. It expanded and took over me.. and then around everyone I knew.. I had no identity.. I was not Shanti, I was not a woman, nor was I a mother or wife or daughter or friend.. I was just love with no boundaries. I looked up to thank Ma, and my awareness was drawn within.. I realized, Ma was in me, Ma was me, I was Ma. I had tears of love and gratitude rolling down my cheeks.

And the best part of this whole thing.. None of it was mystical, no lights and bells and angels and aums.. No image of Ma.. No blessings from the skies.. Nothing.. just a pure feeling of love, a pure essence of Ma and a pure joy in my heart. Nothing changed in my life.. and yet everything has changed. I am lighter and see more clearly.. and yet every one of the situations that existed before last evening are still there. I just don't have an attachment to it. It is such a minuscule shift in perception.. and yet such a life changing shift.

I don't know if I manged to convey anything in this post. It is so hard to put these experiences into words. All I can say is, it comes your way when you least expect it.. and is as normal a feeling as looking at the palm of your hand. You may be looking at it everyday.. and suddenly one day you will see it