Higher Love
Higher Love
When we’re at the edge, in danger of falling over the
precipice into suffering, compassion is the most powerful means I know for
keeping our feet firmly planted on the earth and our hearts wide open.
Roshi Joan Halifax, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom where Fear and Courage Meet
However capable and skillful an individual may be, left
alone, he or she will not survive.
However vigorous and independent one may feel during the most prosperous
periods of life, when one is sick or very young or very old, one must depend on
the support of others .I believe that at every level of society-familial,
tribal, national, and international-the key to a happier and more successful
world is the growth of compassion.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama
In our culture the most celebrated love is romantic
love. If you don’t have it, you must
want it and can’t possibly be happy until you have it. It’s in the pairing up, we are told in all
those happy endings, where we will find purpose, support, fulfillment, and an
end to our loneliness. Unfortunately,
romantic love does not seem to be spread equally among us. From its packaging, it appears to be mainly for
the young and unwrinkled, the healthy and fit, the active, engaged, and
exciting, and those with perfect skin.
This gives way to all kinds of self-loathing and a love economy of
scarcity. Since the message is that
belovedness comes to those who meet the idealized standard, those of us who do
not meet this standard can begin to feel left out of love bliss and vulnerable
to the advertisements that promise a pathway to love. We spend our precious energy and resources reaching
for the physical, emotional, spiritual, or fiscal perfection that promises
belovedness. This is game where we will
fall short. There isn’t enough youth,
health, fashion, intelligence, wealth, or skin cream that can bring us belovedness. This is because being loved for smooth skin
is not very satisfying or everlasting. More
importantly, the love and belonging we seek doesn’t come from finding the “one”
right lover. Love - big,
deep, meaningful - comes from a well-spring within that is released when we
relax with ourselves and open to self-compassion. When self-compassion spills over to
compassion for others the possibilities for deep intimacy and connection in
relationships are nourished.
By many spiritual and philosophical accounts across the
ages, romantic love is only a sliver of the enormous and boundless love that is
available to and for all of us.
Cultivating this bigger love, a higher love, is our deepest life’s
purpose. Higher does not mean superior
but rather from above like the view from mountaintop as opposed to the valley. From this higher love, we become more focused
on the giving to others than the receiving and in being more fully present to
those we are with. There is an urging towards
more kindness and caring. Unlike
romantic relationships which we enter into mostly to get from others - be it
affirmation, praise, financial security or just a distraction from boredom –
higher love is expressed as giving and being with in kinship.
In compassion, when we give our attention to others with
open-heartedness, caring, and a desire to enhance another’s well-being, our own
hearts bath in the same kind of neuro chemicals that give us that “in-loveness”
feeling. There comes in compassion a
sense of “in-loveness” with others as we see them more clearly not for what
they can give us but how we how much we share in our vulnerability, fragility,
and courage as humans. It allows for
deeper relationships with others as we stand together in our full-throttled
humanness. In compassion, we also come
into a deep feeling of “in-loveness” with ourselves recognizing the
preciousness of our life and the magnificence in everyday things.
Romantic love certainly has a natural time and place in our
lives and can bring great joy, belonging, and energy. Feeling beloved by another can make us so
hopeful and courageous. It can take away
all of our awkwardness. It can move us
to a higher love. On its own, however,
because it is love that is conditional on how another is treating us or making
us feel it will inevitably wan. We will eventually become human again with our
lovers and in that humanness the organic messiness of life returns. No one person could bear the responsibility
of being caretaker to another’s heart. What
we find in compassion is a way to connect to others with a love that is enduring
because it comes from our own inner wellspring of open-heartedness and inner
knowing. It is available to all of us –
young, old, strong, frail, thriving, dying – accompanying us on the journey
from our first breath to our last.
Tapping into this wellspring we feel nourished and belovedness from a
higher infinite source which allows us to be more loving in the world.
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