Thursday 28 July 2011

Rule 12: The Quest for Love

The quest for Love changes us. There is no seeker amongst those who search for Love who has not matured along the way. The moment you start looking for Love, you start to change within and without.


Any quest changes. The goal rules the direction and influences the seeker even when he has not yet reached the destination. The clearer the goal appears to the inner eye the more energy flows into every phase of the search.


Love as the goal of the search is not a minor one but the essential human one. For the whole evolution of consciousness, as we can understand it, grows towards this goal, and also the life paths of us can be read according to this script. Of course people strive towards different aims, and many among them have seemingly nothing to do with love at all. In our society, many searches are directed towards material goals. Wellbeing and quality of life should be enhanced by the augmentation of available goods.

Still the genuine hope of people is not in the heaping of as many material objects as possible or to find impressingly high positive numbers on the bank account; the hope is to have a happier life with the help of these objects or figures. With such and such an amount of money I can afford this or that travel, and I want to travel because I would feel happier then. With this new bath tab I can relax and feel better. This new car gives me a better feeling of live etc.

Our inner hope is not limited to self enjoyment, to the satisfaction of our own needs and desires but includes other people as well. We want to share our pleasure of driving a new car, we want to communicate our impressions of a journey etc. Being connected to other people, feeling understood and trusted gives rise to states of happiness which can never be reached with the help of objects or substances. Happiness can hardly be imagined without people who are with us. It is trivial and yet permanently forgotten: We cannot buy love. We should never forget the fate of King Midas.

Finally, our hope enlarges beyond the interactive sphere as seen in the love from person to person. When deep love can be experienced it is not limited to one or more persons but expands and expands till it comprises and embraces everything. So most mystical seekers are not fulfilled with the love to persons which they always see as an important part of their way. But in every kind of love they always strive towards the love to God or another transcendent wholeness.

Even if we are no mystics we understand the connections but tend to forget about them. Yet as soon as we fail with our conditioned searching movements in our world of consumption, these insights become vital – when the newest mobile phone, the house of dreams, the prettiest girlfriend and the most beautiful dress cannot give us comfort in our suffering. The materialistic world of products offers us an infinite amount of consolation goods but sooner or later we realize that we just buy them as means to an end. Our self deception consists in getting lost in the world of means and in forgetting about the end. For the end which justifies the means is nothing material but resides inside without measurement: Happiness, wellbeing and love.

Only when we move into these realms in a conscious quest, a real change happens inside of us, and the end, love, penetrates us more and more, sometimes even when we are not looking for it.

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