"...but the greatest of these is love."

I keep thinking about that. The GREATEST it says. The rest goes on to say that it doesn't matter what you can do or accomplish - how rich, educated, powerful, attractive, strong - whatever gifts you may have or the attributes you may assign yourself or others assign you - the greatest is love.

It isn't a feeling and it isn't a doing. It is a being. Along with the being may come a doing or a feeling or both but they are just evidence of the presence of love just like leaves rustling in the wind. You can't see the wind but the leaves show the wind's presence.

In between words, in between the tension of yin and yang, and all appearing opposites, one can find the Absolute, the Pure, the Essence. But without the appearing opposites, without the tension, without the contrast there would be neither life nor an ability to know the Absolute, the Pure, the Essence.

This Absolute, Pure, Essence contains the all but the all cannot contain It. All that is, is It but it is It only as a droplet is part of the ocean. The ocean is all of the droplets and contains all of the droplets. While the droplets reflect and are in essence what the ocean is, the droplets cannot contain the ocean the way the ocean can contain all the droplets. If you can grasp that, really grasp it, then you can begin to see that we are not separate entities.

We have different personalities and abilities. This is our "idea" of self but it is not the self at all. We wear these ideas of self and compare these with our ideas about others and with their ideas about us and themselves. Our interactions are nothing more than different ideas of selves bumping against one another. No wonder we compete, use and abuse, fail to love, and fail to interact from love. No wonder we can feign love or make outward gestures that at times appear to be loving while all the time be completely unable to be love itself. We can be nice, we can do nice things but are we truly coming from love? That is the ultimate question. We all have that gift but do we really, really realize it so that nothing gets in the way of being it?

When you can get into the mode of "oneness" and understanding that our human interactions are based upon a type of fiction, what is left to separate us? What is there not to love?

Our ideas seem to be who we are and we have known little else all our lives. Our society, our religions, our businesses, our politics, all that we know is based upon the system of our separateness and individuality. To give that up would seem too scary. To give that up would mean the ego has no life support system. Unless...unless we know that life will still go on and we shall still "see" and experience our individuality but we will know what it really is so that we can truly utilize the gift of love that we are.

Though some people think that ego actually dies or needs to, I don’t think it does or needs to. I think that ego would come under the mastery of love and it will perform as it was meant to perform. Ego will take its rightful role. Ego doesn’t change – we do or at least our consciousness does. We humans get things so backwards. The great teachers like Jesus came as messengers and sometimes humans mistake the messenger as the message itself. Like that finger pointing to the moon. We get fixated on the finger and miss the moon entirely. Oh, we see the moon out of the corner of our eye but we don’t SEE it. We lay flowers at the foot of the messenger or we kill the messenger. Either way, we miss the message. We worship the finger or kill the finger and miss the moon.

But OH! When we start turning our faces towards that moon, what a difference it makes! We don’t just talk the talk, we start walking the talk.

The greatest of these is love. There is nothing greater – not education, not beauty, not worldly power, not money, not position, not relationships, not even the talents we possess, though these in themselves are not bad and are gifts for which we may truly be grateful. When we are love, there is nothing else to be or do except let it flow into the many forms it takes. It will anyway. The difference is that we get to be aware of this process as we dance in our bliss.

If you make only one thing your goal let it be this. Be aware of the love you are. When you are aware of that then nothing is impossible, everything is sacred, everything is beautiful, and you know that there is no thing that in essence is not you.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added unto you.

Parables become the transmission for that which is not so easily conveyed with language, with words. Jesus, for example spoke in parables because how can you use words but as fingers pointing. The words are not it. The concepts of the words are not it. Only the moon is the moon. Only It is It. Each of us has to see that moon through our own eyes. No one can do that for us though many religions will point to themselves for you to see through them. They ask you to let them do it for you. So what you see is a moon that they have created. It is an image that they have drawn rather than the real thing. Only you can see the real thing.

Seek to be love. That is all that is necessary. But please do not take my word for it. See for yourself. Each has his/her own way to do this. That does not matter. Just do it! I can point you to the recipe but you have to gather your own ingredients and make it your own way.
Why would I not insist you do it my way, join my “church”, except my doctrine, take my vows? I would not insist because I know that those things do not matter. The finger never matters. It is the moon itself that matters. HOW you finally see it does not matter. That you do see it is. And once you do see that moon, you see that it is all there is. Once you see the moon, you realize that your beliefs are not it. Your ideas are not it. Your doctrine is not it. Your church is not it. Your attributes are not it. What you think you are is not it either.

Nathan Hale said, "Give me liberty or give me death". I say, "Give me love or I have not life nor am I free."

Love and be well.