divine love: “… The greatest romance is with the Infinite … When you suddenly find God everywhere, when He comes and talks to you and guides you, the romance of divine love has begun …”
“… Feel the love of God; then in every person you will see … the light of Love which is in all. You will find a magic, living relationship uniting the trees, the sky, the stars, all people, and all living things, and you will feel a oneness with them. This is the code of divine love …” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Paramahansa Yogananda (“… world teacher who introduced millions to the perennial wisdom of the East … {and} … widely recognized as the Father of Yoga in the West …”) gives us a clue about divine love. Yogananda, of course, lived his life immersed in this love – from his early age, deepening over time (click here for more on his journey – his teacher page on our site will be coming in the future).
This divine love is the focus of A. H. Almaas’ recent book Nondual Love – the 2nd of his 3 volume trilogy on love …
We began a substantive preview of this 2nd volume in Part 1 (Can We Awaken To Loving Nature Of Reality) of our 2-part series with excerpts from the chapter Complete Release … which digs into what happens if we explore boundless dimensions …
Today, in this concluding part 2, we consider what the longing for divine love might look like … so we offer one of Almaas’ own experience about what happens when the longing for divine love arises … via more excerpts from the same chapter.
This series is part of our ongoing Shambhala Publications series that offers substantive previews of selections from Shambhala Publications new and classic titles …
All italicized text here is adapted from Nondual Love by A H Almaas, © 2023 by the A-Hameed Ali. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. Shambhala Publications has also generously offered a free downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents (link is at the bottom of the post).
You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.
We closed Part 1 with: “… I’ve talked about how the presence of divine love and its sweetness can manifest in us as a wanting of it, a yearning for it. It evokes a longing for merging and union. However, we can see now that there’s another kind of longing that is closer to the truth of divine love—it’s not just the wanting and yearning for union but a wanting and yearning for the freedom from care that this love brings. Because that is more what this state is: a condition of presence where there is no care, no conflict, no fear, no insecurity, and no need to worry about anything. …”
Here’s Almaas’ continuation …
Longing For Divine Love: What Happens When It Arises …
So the longing for a carefree condition reflects the longing for divine love. Below is an excerpt from my journal, from around the time I was learning about divine love. It will give you an idea of what can happen when this longing arises, one possible story of its unfolding.
Yesterday, I woke up feeling a deep sadness. Eyes full of tears. I do not know the cause of the sadness. In meditation, I start with the desire just to be aware. After a while I see the futility of it. I see that even paying attention is doing, is effort, and is based on desire. It’s not always based on desire, but this time I am controlled by the desire to be free. I feel deep tears again. The sadness is connected with a longing and yearning for a completely free condition, where there is no need to even be aware. Where just being, by itself, is enough. I see and feel that I do not know what to do to reach such a state. I feel there is nothing I can do in this situation. Everything I do is effort, and effort does not work. Also, it’s not what I want. I decide to not do anything. I don’t want to keep making efforts. I want an effortless and completely carefree condition. If I always have to pay attention and be aware, then I am defeating myself. I give up trying. I give up practicing any technique, even awareness. I just let myself be there—whatever happens, happens.
I decide not to work on myself for a while. There’s a constant feeling of irritation, frustration, and longing, as well as helplessness. As I feel the helplessness, it brings about a conscious light, which is love as well as light. It comes down through the head into the chest. It tastes slightly sweet and looks like a yellowish, golden-white liquid light. Obviously, I am looking for the ease and release that this divine light can bring, where there is no contraction at all, no concerns whatsoever. Where the heart is open and happy and the mind is rested. This, then, leads to a discovery of the fundamental issue in all searching, even for enlightenment: the cycle of hope, desire, and rejection that blocks the flow of the love and light.
Understanding this dynamic of hope opens a big door that leads to an understanding of essence from an egoless perspective. After this realization, I experience the conscious light most of the time. I feel it in the chest, mostly in the subtle center at the sternum, which I call the mobius, in the form of merging gold light. Sometimes I see that I am feeling motivated by hope again, and with it comes comparison, rejection, suffering, and wanting release. But to my surprise, every once in a while a quiet voice, which seems to come from the mobius, says, “It’s okay; it doesn’t matter.” And then there is no concern about changing anything or getting anywhere. There is only curiosity about the situation, without motivation.
As time passes, the conscious light becomes more present as I understand something about a kind of plastic boundary that I’ve become aware of around my body. I see that this boundary is the structure of being a limited individual. That’s how the ego boundary becomes manifest, and here it feels to me as if it’s made out of plastic—it has that kind of hard, resilient texture. And as I see this plastic boundary, I recognize what is preventing its dissolution: It is the hope for release and freedom from it. So I am approaching it with rejection and hope. Seeing that seems to melt the plastic into light, and so the boundary begins to dissolve.
A little while later, I am watching TV. At some point I become aware that I do not feel separate from the TV. Actually, what happens is I’m watching the TV, and suddenly I say, “God, it seems as if I’m there!” I remember it was a Western I was watching, and I said, “God, I am that Western! I am that cowboy!”
Stay tuned for more substantive previews of other books (both new and classic) in this ongoing Shambhala Publications series …
All italicized text here is adapted from Nondual Love by A H Almaas, © 2023 by the A-Hameed Ali. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.
And, click here for the free, downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents.
You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.
And, may you experience your own … longing for divine love … and …
May you remain safe and well.