Being in love is the only transcendent experience.
—Armistead Maupin
It’s fascinating how falling in love feels so similar to having our heart broken.
Our center feels raw and vertiginous. We are given to freefalling in memory of the beloved. A state of living in an alternate dimension. Not here, not there, but in that pool of randomly flickering image-memories and clips of conversation.
Hold it. We want to hold it all. Stop time. Freeze it in place and pin it like a rare and elusive butterfly.
But we can’t.
This is why it hurts. Love and loss of love. Ironically, these feelings have nothing to do with love whatsoever. Not real love, anyway.
We are human beings, and humans feel things. It’s why we’re here.
The purpose of human existence is for the Universe/Great Spirit/God/Godhead/Great Mystery to create and experience all states of being.
Unlimited Oneness does not parcel out joy and pain; it is non-dual and in a state of pure perfection. We—in human form—are desperately needed to play out the full range of emotions and adventures so it can experience itself.
Fully feeling makes us fully human, and in being fully human,
we are in service to Spirit.
So, the torments of love (whether ecstatic or mournful) aren’t about the lover. Or even us as individuals. They’re about Spirit. Our longing to experience love’s delicious agony is a desire to merge with the divine. But the divine already lives within us. We are serving it as it serves us.
Go ahead and test the theory.
Consider your beloved, either current or recently departed from your life. Now consider Spirit and your connection to it.
Can you see that the dance is the same?
Can you see your service to Spirit in your bliss, your longing, and your suffering?
Can you accept that all you experience in this life is a sacred offering?
How to be in love (as your fully human Self)
Open your heart. Feel earth-shattering, vertiginous love.
Check for projections now and again. Are you seeing your beloved for who they are, or are you playing the movie you want to see on the screen of their being?
When offended or upset by something your partner has said or done, check your Self first. Locate the source of your agitation (it may be a you thing—some unaddressed trauma that’s been triggered). Heal by talking it through with your Self, then with your beloved.
Get back to loving. Everything. Do your bit to create love in each moment, just as Spirit creates life.
Repeat steps 1 through 4.
I *love* this, Rachel (joking/not)! Love, loss, fully-felt life truly is raw, earth-shattering and vertiginous. These are beautiful words to describe how very intense it can all be. It took me a long time to even begin to grasp that the longing I felt around love or loss was really a longing for connection with myself and with spirit, which as you have so wisely expressed here, one and the same. I appreciate your practical steps for testing the abstract nature of this truism.