Love Lessons Part 6 - Desires and Desireless

Amarjot and I looked forward to Sat Nam Fest so much. This year we planned to go for the whole event and the first two days proved to be as amazing as I hoped. Full of bliss and "super-concsious ecstasy." Then on the third day God put a teacher in front of me that I did not expect. She is not the kind of person I'd normally be drawn to as a teacher, but He told me that she was a teacher for me and that I should book a private session with her.

So I did. When I went in to see her she asked if I wanted to work on anything specific. I said "No life is pretty good, but if you could help me release anything standing in my way of feeling superconscious ecstasy all the time, that would be great." She told me I would get bored of it. I would then be looking for the next thing.

I was totally offended. Guh! No I would Not!

She totally burst my bubble of bliss as I realized that I had fallen into the trap of getting attached to non-attachment. Attached to the bliss. And life is not always superconscious ecstasy but it can still be a life of Love. So I was a bit moody for a day and in a daze as I processed the fact that I was still getting caught in addictive patterns. Luckily, the work we did and that I was doing at Sat Nam Fest helped me clear it super fast. I realized how fast energy is moving through me now when I woke up in the night in my tent with a migraine and then thought, "oh well."

I woke up an hour later and it was gone. I woke up an hour later with another migraine and then in the morning it was gone again. I don't know what went through me but I was changed fast.

It's hard to describe how I felt after that other than just a little more stable, grounded.

We came home from Sat Nam Fest and had a few days to prepare for Hawaii. I spent those days thinking about God is Love. If God is Love then Love has all the attributes of God. One of my favorite mantras names eight different attributes of God. So I went through them one by one.

Gobinday (sustainer) - real Love sustains
Mukunday (liberator) -real Love liberates one from bondange. I believe I wrote about that here.
Udaray (enlightener) real Love enlightens--because God is Love and He enlightens.
Aparay (infinite) - Love is infinite. Real Love that is God is of course never ending and infinite
Hariang (Destroyer) - Love destroys illusions and sorrow. Real Love does. The false kind of love creates more illusions
Cariang (Creator) - Should need no explanation
Nirname (Nameless) - God has so many names and yet is nameless and has names that no man knows. It is the same with Love. So many names/faces and yet to truly know Love there is no name for what is found in the experience.
Akamay (Desireless) - no earthly desire. This was the Aha for me.

I was thinking about romantic love and how this had always been my problem. I wanted a lover who....xyz. For example, one X tall, Y shape, and with XYZ religious affiliation and liked to do ABC in his spare time. Some things on my list were flexible and some things I was really fixed on.  I realized that in several of my past relationships I had gotten everything on my "list," but they didn't make me happy, and several of the things that I "got" suddenly changed and I no longer had them, such as: a man who was mentally healthy--that changed quickly. Physical health can change quickly. Also, membership or activity in the church can change quickly.  

So what does a person do then, when they are suddenly married to a person, or in some sort of partnership with a person who is no longer what they had signed up for? I realized that true Love is not about wanting someone to be any certain way or a certain thing. It is about loving them for who they are and where they are at the moment. Most people just want to feel accepted and loved for who they are. That's why we have all the problems we have in the world. People are just mad that they don't or didn't feel loved unconditionally. Most relationships I see are strained because of wanting the other party to be different.

I realized that if my only desire was for God, then it wouldn't matter what my partner said or did or was, because I would know with absolute certainty that I was loved and accepted. And when I can radiate that same love and acceptance for others, life is a lot more joyful. There is no struggle. No tension.

I realized that any time I feel tension in any relationships it is because I have got attached to wanting the other person to be a certain way or to think the way I do. The trouble with a point of view is that it already creates a separateness. If you become very fixed in your ideas and beliefs, then you have to defend them, and it creates need-to-be-right syndrome. This creates a lot of tension in relationships and in the body. 

Why does one need to be right? Why not just be with God and ask God to show you himself in the other person. If we all did this there could be world peace. [It would take the world some daily cleaning of the mind's reactionary patterns and feelings of unworthiness, but it would be worth it, don't you think?]

In fact I just read a scripture this morning that illustrated the sad point of what happens when people get fixed in their beliefs even if they seem to be in the name of love. It was Mosaih 9:1-2. So sad.

1 I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites, and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi, or of the land of our fathers’ first inheritance, and having been sent as a spy among the Lamanites that I might spy out their forces, that our army might come upon them and destroy them—but when I saw that which was good among them I was desirous that they should not be destroyed.
 2 Therefore, I contended with my brethren in the wilderness, for I would that our ruler should make a treaty with them; but he being an austere and a blood-thirsty man commanded that I should be slain; but I was rescued by the shedding of much blood; for father fought against father, and brother against brother, until the greater number of our army was destroyed in the wilderness; and we returned, those of us that were spared, to the land of Zarahemla, to relate that tale to their wives and their children.

So I identified some of the most fixed "desires of my heart" and examined them. Even though they seemed like really good desires that I have been taught to want my whole life, I realized that they were the things causing me the most pain, because I had no control over them and they were not actually what mattered most. When I turned my desire completely to God and not any earthly desire, including love relationships, I realized that I had something better. Then amazing things started to open for me and my earthly relationships got way better! I was finally "getting" this Love thing. Which is a perfect time to go to Hawaii.

Until that next episode, please share: Have you had an experience where you released wanting people or a specific person to be a certain way. Please share your experience.