Aurora image from Keller, WashingtonLet’s face it.  Love is not within you. It can’t be.  To think that something as powerful as love can be contained by the flesh or defined by the boundaries of your skin is to not know love at all.

We may find love there…but in truth love is everywhere. It is behind you, above you, below you.  It is you. It is not you. It’s in the sudden twitch of pain that we feel when the end comes. It’s in the joy we feel when we hug our children, in the sadness we feel when they no longer wish to hug us, and in the rebirth of joy when their embrace returns. It’s in the sunrise, the sunset, and the moments between.

You don’t exist. An idea of you exists, but you don’t. No, you are an idea posed to separate you from me, me from you, us from them. You are the idea created so you can find love, simply by looking within yourself, without ever paying attention to the fact that you only exist in love. You are nothing but dust without love. Love does not exist because you do, you exist because love does.

So, when you think you’ve found love after closing your eyes and meditating check yourself. If you can only find love in there, it isn’t love. It’s when you open your eyes and see love everywhere that you have truly found it. Then you no longer have to look within to find love. Love becomes you and you become love, and then you find that you and love are one in the same. Soon you see love in everything, and you realize that you no longer exist. Only love exists, and then you realize that you are the tree you are leaning on, and it is you. You become the ground you walk on, the grass you lie on, the fruit you depend on. When the Earth bleeds you bleed, and a mortal wound inflicted upon the Earth is a mortal wound inflicted upon you. You realize you are the stars, and they are you. You are the emptiness of space and the matter that gives space life. You are the eternity of the cosmos and the limitless potential of the smallest spark of energy. You fail to see failure, and you define success one breath at a time.

Life no longer means living. Joy is no longer defined by sadness, happiness is no longer defined by suffering. Wealth is no longer measured in currency or things, but by the very essence of who you are. Your skin ceases to be the boundaries of who you are. Your story ceases to be written and your song is no longer sung even as your endless book is opened and your music is heard. You begin to know so much more than you were ever taught.

You close your eyes to sleep but you remain awake. You can see the truth in the lie, the laughter in the tear, the life in the death all around you. You see the tiny sprout poking through the hardened lava and the dove returning through the darkened storm clouds. You can embrace it all because you hold on to none of it. You are always home despite never residing within any walls.

There is no within you because when you look there you are actually look way out there. There is no self except in the mind you’ve created to keep yourself in pieces. Be in love, and never forget who you are.

Peace.