love

In this episode of the series on attitudes, I'm going to talk about love. Now, love is a word that's used in many different ways. And especially we use it to mean romantic love for a particular part person. But here I'm not going to talk about love in that sense. Here I want to talk about a loving attitude. And this is an attitude towards everything, really, not just a particular person.

In a previous episode, I talked about gratitude, thankfulness for this moment. And if we allow that gratitude to grow within us, it can, perhaps, overwhelm us in a positive way. And in that, it becomes love. At such a deep appreciation for the moment, that there is nothing else except this feeling, this emotion, we've become love, at least for that moment.

And this loving attitude is of tremendous significance on the spiritual journey. It's the opposite of antagonism. And usually we are rather antagonistic. It might be at a subtle level. We might not be picking physical fights with people. But quite often we are hostile in a subtle way to our environment, to other people in it in particular, but even to objects or situations. And this antagonism or hostility keeps us feeling separate. And remember that the endpoint of this spiritual journey is to realise that we are not separate.

So developing a loving attitude helps to overcome this antagonism, which maintains a sense of separation. The loving attitude is a bridge, a bridge between oneself and the moment. And that bridge is basically the way that we end the sense of a separate self.

Love, love in this deeper spiritual sense, is really the key: the key to ending the sense of separation. And for the most part, this deep love comes to us, unbidden, and overwhelms us in a very good way. 

It is possible for us, though to encourage, such love. We can try at least to adopt a loving attitude. And the more we can do this, the more naturally love will fill us.

And how might we go about developing a loving attitude? The first step is to notice when one is being antagonistic or hostile. The most obvious cases are usually towards other people who are doing something that we don't like. It's also good, though, to spot when we are simply antagonistic to the moment. It's as if we've become irritable, and anything can irritate us. Spotting this, catching it, is the first step. And then, of course, we might contemplate a little.

We might contemplate how our own irritability is playing the major part in this antagonism. Or if another person is involved, we might try looking at the situation from their perspective. They are acting from their own conditioning. and their own desires. That's who they are in this moment. And perhaps we can at least try to take a stance, a perspective that is accepting of that, that is not judgemental about it.

More than that, though, we might also contemplate how the moment is here to teach us something. Even moments that we are antagonistic towards are really offering us a gift. They're showing us something about ourself. We can learn from the moment. We can grow from the moment. And if one can have this attitude, then naturally there's a sort of appreciation for the moments, even the difficult moments. And again, that appreciation, if it grows enough, can become this love, a deep love of life, in all its ups and downs. This love demands a sort of surrender in us, and that, too, is part of the spiritual journey.