Ancient wisdom from all over the world has found a resurgence in modern culture that serves as a channel of connection that we have lost through industrialization, urbanization, and the new cyber age. We are finding inspiration in ancient texts, poetry, rituals and methods of healing. The practice of meditation is one of these inspirations that has become a source for helping us to reconnect to what we’ve lost, a connection to others and to ourselves.
Science is helping by attempting to build the bridge between East and West as it contextualizes the benefits of meditation into something we can understand intellectually. Meanwhile, critics, experts and followers alike promote the many ways to attend to the many needs of those seeking to bring a semblance of peace and connection into their lives. So, what’s love got to do with meditation?
Meditation is a discovery, a method of finding many things. Love, like the many paths that lead to our core being, has always been a meditation in our lives. It is the guidance, the revery, the daydream of our peace—our truest peace and our purest enlightenment.
Though we may not think of love as a meditation, it very much can be when we bring our awareness to it and allow ourselves to loosen the grip of fixed definitions of what meditation and love are supposed to be. For some, love may be felt in an early morning walk, in the exchange of affection with a pet, in the taste of a warm cup of tea, in the joy of a child’s play, in the voice of a loved one or in the passion of romance. But when we step out of the illusion of a romanticised version of how love should look or feel, we notice that it is the most natural, innate phenomenon known to humanity. Love is the compass, the thermostat, the tonic of all life, and it can be your meditation.
Even if you are not a meditator, you are most definitely a lover. And if you are a meditator, you can most definitely meditate on love. Conscious or not, whatever we seek and whichever method we use, we share a common truth and we search to be connected to the core of who we already are…love.
One of my favorite teachers of all time, the late Ram Dass, a.k.a. Dr. Richard Alpert, taught us that meditation was a process of dedication and habit. However, he would also remind us that when we didn’t feel like meditating but somehow feel we must, that was not the time to meditate and gave us permission to “fail” in our task and let go of the achievement mentality, which made his teachings so unique. It only follows that this organic approach, meditating when it moves us vs. forcing it upon ourselves, enables a loving approach toward finding ourselves on the path of meditation.
In Spanish there is a saying, “el corazon no se manda,” which loosely translates to “in matters of the heart, the heart cannot be bossed.” Because the heart is in charge, it knows how and when to choose, how to beat in sync with the vibration of our essence, how to direct our lives and illuminate our spirits. There is no higher meditation.
Bringing the meditation of love into your life can help you reconnect with your inner compass of peace. Whether you love to dance, to cook, to read, to socialize or even to rest, consider making your preferred state of love your meditative space—that place of unconditional being where the critics are muted, pressures become holidays and the pain melts into still waters. What is left is love, the greatest meditation of all.
