We are called to reclaim, live, and become the TRUTH of —Love— . Deep, impersonal, all-abiding love is THE “evolutionary spark.” It is the inherent drive of systems within systems which compose the evolving universe that moves us and all species collectively toward the most refined versions of who/what we can be. Impersonal love is impervious to the onslaught of our culture’s attempt to commercialize, trivialize, and commodify it.
The intellectually-pious unthinkingly quip that “God is Love” so often that the phrase risks becoming a cliché. Our culture has distilled “love for others” down to wishful attempts to “do the right thing,” “live decent upstanding lives,” and, “make a difference.” Love is equated with varying degrees of attachment and need-meeting contracts. Most are oblivious to just how pivotal universal, impersonal love is to the evolution of the larger consciousness system (light, spirit, universal intelligence) of which we are a part.
Becoming love and staying in that alignment is the reason, the key, the purpose, and the point of existence. Becoming love is radically different than acting in a loving way. Acting lovingly is an intellectual exercise which doesn’t produce enduring growth. Love as we refer to it in the work of our community-of-practice includes yet transcends anthropomorphic states of relationship-love. Becoming and being love herein connotes experiencing and transmitting the joyous “evolutionary spark” which propels our growth toward ever greater conscious alignment with the larger consciousness system.
BECOMING LOVE: is to consistently expand our awareness beyond the self, (personal avatar-centeredness*), into Self (larger frame of consciousness). This means to live into — intentionally experience our oneness with others and with ALL. Love is fearless. It is the absence and letting go of inordinate fear and the ego which is fear’s subset.
Love has no expectations or calcified beliefs, which again means letting go of egoic points of reference. When we dig ourselves out from under and shed these limitations, what is left is our true selves —love. When living that experience becomes the norm it pervades, and conditions our relationships and we become universal love receivers, generators, and transmitters at once.
Anthropomorphic Love
Agape – selfless love for everyone – Love extended to all people. Agape translates into Latin as caritas from which the word “charity” is derived.
Eros – romantic desire, and/or sexual passion – It incorporates a fiery, out of control aspect of love that could become obsessive.
Ludus – playful love – affection between children or flirting between young lovers.
Philia – deep friendship – which involves mutual sharing of emotions, loyalty to, and sacrifice for friends. This also applies to the bond between parents and children.
Philautia – love of the self –There is a healthy dimension of loving self which is the essential cornerstone to cultivation of the wider capacity to love the Self. There is also an unhealthy narcissistic, self-obsessed aspect that comes from egoic constructs.
Pragma – longstanding, mature love – making compromises to help a relationship work over time, ─ abiding patience and tolerance.
We exist in physical form to evolve toward consciously being love, unity, oneness and in so doing maximize the evolution of the larger field of consciousness. Consciousness is a self-aware, evolving, growing, information field of universal intelligence (God, light, spirit, unified energy field). Maximizing evolution is the goal.
All evolution is maximized, can occur faster and more efficiently:
- In the dense physical realm/reality-frame because the feedback from constant
interaction and the constricting planetary rules-set (mass, time, space, charge, spin, and gravity) is rich and intense. The larger consciousness system increases its choices and enhances its complexity as it manifests in physical forms (i.e., us) which interact, with free will. The physical plane is a virtual reality laboratory comprised of information —data streams in which opportunities to grow are maximized. As we evolve we help the larger system evolve. - In an ordered state that moves toward unity (a low entropy state). Love is the ultimate low entropy state. It is an integral, fundamental part of consciousness —of being.
Fear, is a high entropy state. Pervasive fear spells the disintegration and death of a system. So, being love first and foremost means letting go of fears which cut us off from our true self, the universal field of intelligence and love.
High Entropy – High randomness, fragmented parts and bits, heightened fear.
Low Entropy – Increasing order, coherent information that creates value, unity, love.
As we focus, slow, observe, and still thought we gain increased mastery over the mind and intellect. Community-of-practice cognitive restructuring work widens our field of vision which increases our palate of perceived choices. Practices peel away the sediment of cultural conditioning, constricting points of reference and beliefs about ourselves and our reality-frame (s). Sharpening intentional focus yields to silent stillness which in turn paves the way for us to rest our attention in the heart center.
Heart intelligence is the flow of awareness when the heart, brain, mind and emotions are in coherent alignment.
Heart rate variability coherence is an optimal physiological state of the heart. We can train ourselves into this state to help change our baseline brain response to stress and more consistently sustain awareness of our higher intuitive guidance. We can work our way intentionally into the flow state; train into coherence —stay awake.
Staying in alignment with love requires us to continually work at decreasing entropy. This is synonymous with continually working at rediscovering that we are part of an undifferentiated field of love, and clearing away all that hinders progress toward that awareness. This doesn’t happen, nor is it sustained by osmosis. It takes practice!
*Avatar here refers to: a physical body, a temporary vehicle living in a dense, physical reality-frame which is entirely conjured and maintained over time by the collectivity of human mind-brains ─the collective unconscious.
Quaker Pathways Forward: Thought Leaders who inform Friends’ community-of-practice.
Inner Landscapes: Thought Leaders who inform the activists’ community-of-practice.
