What is love? It may be different than what you think.

True love is feeling the presence of God in your own Being and in that of every other human and creature, says spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle. He describes love, joy, and peace as three states of connectedness with God that are inherent in our immortal true Self.

Our immortal Self, or Soul, is the essence of who we really are. It’s the emanation of God within us. And just like a ray of sun is a part of the sun, our true Self is a part of the Divine.

Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

Eckhart Tolle

For most of us, glimpses of true love, joy, and deep peace happen rarely or accidentally. Witnessing great beauty, the miracle of childbirth, or having a near-death experience, can suddenly create a moment of inner stillness. In that stillness —if only for a moment— is intense love, joy, and deep inner peace. In this state, when the mind is quiet, we are directly connected to our soul — to God.

Love is the realization of oneness with God within ourselves and with all that is.

“Love” as an Emotion

Eckhart teaches that since love, joy, and peace are inherent in our true Self, and arise beyond the thinking mind, they do not have opposites.

Emotions, on the other hand, are the body’s reaction to our thinking and arise within the mind. If we think we’re going to be attacked, our body will activate a fight or flight response and release adrenalin to help us react more quickly. And since emotions are connected to the thinking mind, they are subject to the law of opposites.

When “love” has an addictive, clinging quality to it, it’s not derived from our true Self but from the mind, and can quickly turn into its opposite: hate. If we believe our existence has suddenly become meaningful because someone else needs or wants us, we are seeking fulfillment outside of ourselves. This is the love of a personality. And as Byron Katie often says, “personalities don’t love, they want something.”

People think that relationships will make them happy, but you can’t get happiness from another person; you can’t get it from anywhere outside you.

Byron Katie

What are we Looking for in Love?

Eckhart teaches that most of us seek romantic relationships because they seem to offer relief from a deep state of fear, need, lack, and incompleteness.

When that special relationship comes along, we think all our problems are solved. We now have a center and meaning: the person we’re “in love” with. That person has temporarily filled a need and our sense of lack. It’s the ego’s substitution for salvation. And for a while, it almost feels like salvation.

But sooner or later, our partner fails to meet our needs in some way. And those feelings of lack, fear, and incompleteness return. We may go from one partner to another or remain in a dysfunctional relationship for the sake of the children, security, fear of failure or being alone, or an unconscious addiction to drama and pain.

Whatever the substance you are addicted to — alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person — you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain.

Eckhart Tolle

Relationships don’t cause unhappiness. They bring out the unhappiness that is already within us.

Avoiding relationships to avoid being hurt doesn’t work either. The fear, sense of lack, and incompleteness remain.

Cultivating Meaningful Relationships

IT BEGINS — AND ENDS — WITHIN OURSELVES

Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until we have freed ourselves from incessant thinking about past pain and future worry.

Once we begin to connect with and know our immortal Self we begin to understand and deeply love who we really are.

We are not our thoughts. Nor are we a product of our past deeds and upbringing. We are much deeper than that. We’re the stillness underneath the pain. And we’re an inseparable part of the One Life that connects all of existence.

Until we fully embrace this reality and stop seeking external fulfillment by our possessions, social status, relationships, and so on, all relationships — especially intimate relationships — will be deeply flawed and dysfunctional.

The Path to Love

• THIS IS KEY: Connect with your True Self and live in the Now. Stop lugging around the past and worrying about the future. Read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I know I suggest this book often, but I do so because I’ve personally experienced its truth and power. And, if that book doesn’t speak to you, it doesn’t matter. Keep searching and the right teacher will appear.

• Stop judging yourself: accept yourself as you are and stop resisting what is
  • We cannot truly love another until we love ourselves.
  • When judgment stops we are free of the thinking mind and have made room for love, joy, and peace to enter.

• Stop judging your partner: accept your partner as he or she is, without needing to change them in any way — THIS IS THE GREATEST CATALYST FOR CHANGE IN ANY RELATIONSHIP
  • This does not mean staying in an abusive situation. Rather, it’s accepting that your partner is abusive and removing yourself from the situation as soon as possible.

These practices immediately take us beyond ego and all mind games and addictive needing and wanting are over. And it also ends all codependency of being drawn into someone else’s drama and allowing it to continue.

Is it really that simple?

Can we just stop being controlled by our thoughts, stop judging ourselves and others, and have lasting love, joy, and inner peace? Yes, it is that simple.

Is it easy? No, it’s not. Unless we have a spontaneous spiritual awakening, changing ingrained thought patterns is a process we must want. I first read The Power of Now in 2018. While the book opened my eyes to reality and cracked the door open to my Soul, I still get drawn into old reactive patterns. But now — and this is huge — I’m aware of it as it’s happening.

A new dimension has come in. I’ve become the watcher of my thoughts. So, my thoughts don’t take me over nearly as often. I also frequently have moments of intense joy that just hits me for no reason. And I LOVE IT! My relationships are also much deeper, more meaningful, and real.

Imagine how very different our world would be if everyone just got to know who they really are.

In the next post, we’ll talk about how relationships can be our greatest teachers, and how to use them as a spiritual practice.