On Love

April 5, 2012

Lou Catarino

Tristan asked me to write a post about love. I admit it has stumped me all week. I have to write it now, as it is driving me crazy. So here it is in all its greatness or mediocrity.

What the heck is love ? You can not measure it. It is one concept that you can only see through its effects.

I mean, we all love someone. We fall in love. We suffer its consequences or its rewards. We talk and sing about love; it’s in our music and poetry. I will leave that kind of love for the poets.

Instead, I will expand on Love as a powerful force in our universe. Times and time again I have seen evil operating out of the minds of people. I have come to the conclusion that evil arises from ignorance. Ignorance can ignite hatred and produce evil. If you see it this way it gives you a tool to combat hatred, ignorance, and evil. And the only energy that  can combat those three is love. Love as a force of transformation. A force of positive energy that can alter the chemistry of hatred.

What is Love ?

I don’t know. All I know are its effects. I have seen souls drastically changing or altering their lives because a mist of love engulfed them. Souls who were on the brink of destruction coming back to life and the light.

Loving family is easy, as you have no choice really. Loving an individual is easy once all the prerequisites are in place: physical chemistry, common background and social spheres. All it takes is for the love butterfly to nibble at you and you are in a state of delicious infatuation. But, like I said, I will leave that to the poets.

I want to address Love for others. Strangers. The people out there. The great mass of people.

It is not easy to Love others, strangers. Our preconceptions and prejudices create barriers that prevent us from seeing that we are all connected, that we are all in the same fantastic journey of life and death.

A clerk does not smile or acknowledge you and you don’t like that clerk anymore. How dare he/she not recognize my greatness ? We are indeed simple creatures that are influenced by how others relate to us.

Siddhartha taught us to look at others as if they were our mother. Also, that we should look at others as if we were their mothers. If you see others as part of yourself, as travelers on the same journey, you cannot help but to experience feelings of Love towards them. You see their weaknesses and watch them fumble the ball as they go on their daily illusionary realities.

You learn to accept others for what they are. Not what you think they are. You do not want to change them anymore. You recognize the variety of experiences that human beings exhibit. I realized long time ago that every one of us has a unique talent or excellence. The street alcoholic used to be a professor. The cab driver knows quantum entanglement. The server at your local café is an incredible artist. Etc.,.

We are all part of an invisible cosmic web that stretches through time and space.

I have been practicing this form of understanding and it has helped me tremendously in accepting and…gulp, loving others for what they are: A part of me.

We live in an era that promotes greed and egoism.  We value abnormal competition above all else: we need to have more than our neighbors or our sense of self is diminished.

We need a new paradigm. A shift in consciousness from the ape-like greedy mentality to a new way of thinking that promotes sharing, acceptance, and satisfaction for what we have. There is never enough ? Is there ? And it’s all empty. Material possessions have no value per se, but we perceive them to be our vehicle for happiness.  Which one would you rather have: a calm and peaceful moment in a healthy body by a lake observing a sunset or driving down the highway in a $100,000 vehicle ?

It’s all a matter of perspective. And no, you can not take it with you.

Peace and love to all

Lou