Nothing nourishes, sustains, and encourages like the power of love. It is truly the most powerful force in the universe. Life gives us love. It is the deepest and most simple gift that we can receive. It truly requires nothing. Therefore, it costs everything. You don’t get to keep yourself, your desires, your momentum, your direction, your person. If you want to experience the complete slaking of your thirst, the end of suffering, the cessation of desire, the end of agitation, you must lay down everything. You must allow everything to go onward.
You suffer because you want, with passion and preference. Your desires stand opposed to their opposites. This creates tension and polarity within you. Desire is the engine of creation. Nothing happens without it. It is between the unfolding of your desire and its completion that your life takes place. But you’re there before the desire! You’re there after the desire! That is peace. We think that we will be happy when our desire is fulfilled, but really, we become happy because the desire has ended! So in truth, we don’t acquire happiness, we return to it. We are freed from the tension, the effort, and journey of desire itself. We return to our original state of peace, completion, and settled rest.
This isn’t to vilify or make wrong desire. Life IS desire. This is why the buddha said that desire is the source of suffering. It’s because it’s true! There are different kinds and qualities of desire. There are surface desires. There are deep desires. There are universal desires. There are personal desires. There are selfish, selfless, honorable, and dark desires. Desire is the mechanism for the soul’s evolution. The soul must weave and work its way through the landscape of desire, discerning, selecting, and acting, gradually liberating choice by choice. Desire is the basis of the cosmic lover within you. Whether you are falling in love with the divine, your practice, your woman, or life itself, desire is your guide. Listened to unskillfully and without devotion, it will lead you into ignorance and darkness. Attuned to gently and earnestly, it will give you greater and greater experiences of love and freedom, not just for you, but for all in your life.
What do you choose?
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