RAPTUROUS LOVE.

I have seen people wanting enlightenment with the idea that they will have a perfect and easy life and only good feelings, happiness eternally. I have seen people imagine that they will have this instantaneously and magically, that it's given to them by some other person or withheld from them by life. Full enlightenment doesn't happen in a flash or overnight. It's not an “aha” experience. It is so much more than that. With patience and allowing the transformation to take place, to take it's time to become full and complete, ease will be the result. Ease is the experience that comes from totally letting go and from the deepest acceptance of what is, and that in itself comes through gradual change.

In '94 I lived at a retreat center on a Spanish island in the Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of Africa. The center had invited a teacher, Shantimayi, to come and stay at the center for three weeks. She offered satsang twice a day and my first question to her had been "what is love?". She had then asked me to go and sit by the ocean and ask the question again, to ask the ocean. So this I did and later that week came the answer from within that love was not a feeling or emotion, but that love was the building block of this universe.

Overwhelming and powerful love is experienced off and on in waves all throughout the transformational journey and is intense only when the systems aren't absolutely clear. When one has reached pure emptiness, perfectly at peace with this world, love will become a rapturous and gentle sensuous experience through the whole beingness, consciousness and awareness. The emptiness is flooded with love.

What love is, where it comes from, why it flows here or what to do with it remains the mystery. But when all centers and meridians are open and clear, the cellular structure and chambers clear, there is a sense through the complete being, sensations of love, pure and simple. It's not overwhelming or awe - inspiring, but it is simple, natural and easy, like natural breath. And then again it can be overwhelming, massive and awe - inspiring when perceived through the mind. When perceived through the being, it's the natural state.

The sensation is not that one is in love with any one person, place or thing, but with All, One with every place, every person and every thing. All senses are now one sense only and perceive only One. This oneness is experienced sometimes in deep love, galactic love. This experience of love will only grow and expand rapturously and easily. It’s like falling in love with everything, then it deepens and widens.

Love is not enlightenment; rapturous love is the result, the finest gift of enlightenment. It’s a new and fresh state of being, a new way of living. In this state of newness spontaneous kindness, great joy, gladness and a joyful interest in life and all that comes one's way is now endlessly arising. There is an endless outpouring of never ending affection for everything.