The Healing Powers of Love

On my way home from a yoga of healing class, pondering a comment Deborah had made to me about “the Light of understanding that can be given rather than figured out,” two thoughts about Love suddenly struck me:

1. In love, I love my lover’s good qualities so much that if I am able to keep doing so, then someday these good qualities will eventually become a part of me. [Interjecting voice: But all these good qualities will comes from inside you anyway! Me: Yes! And when someday they become a part of me, then I will really know that they came from within!]

2. In love, I love my lover’s weak areas so much that if I am able to keep doing so, someday those weak areas will know how much they are loved, and they will become strong areas too.

And these two benefits are reciprocal! We can provide/receive these benefits for/from each other. The opportunity to provide them is itself a gift that we receive. Loving someone’s weak areas, or having one’s own weak areas loved, is a beautiful opportunity to access the “understanding that can be given rather than figured out,” both as a receiver and as a giver.

Andrew pointed out to me that this “understanding” is part of the guru-disciple relationship. As I’ve expressed it, I know it to be part of the lover-lover relationship too. There is only one Light, and a personal link-up to the Light, whether it is an internal link-up like the Divine Light Invocation or an external link-up like a lover or a guru, is a link-up to that same Light that will eventually be found within. It seems paradoxical to discover something within by connecting to something external, but it’s a paradox to dwell in joyfully, not a paradox to figure out! Love the Light, and love your link-up to the Light! Love your guru, love your lover… he or she is also Light, and eventually each side of the equation [within = without] will be simplified to the point that only the truth will be there, pure and unspoken, Light = Light, where the equals sign is Love. Om Namah Shivaya!

I suppose that with external link-ups to the Light, however, there are things that could go wrong. This would be why metaphysical and spiritual literature abounds with cautions around choosing the right guru… and modern times have provided an even greater emphasis on the cautions involved in choosing the right lover. It’s kind of like doing acid! Self-transformation and personal evolution can be painful and traumatizing if attempted under unsuitable conditions… You don’t want to start giving all this understanding and then unleashing your god-given self-transformative loving function if you are just going to be abandoned, do you? Ah, Fear! Ever the antagonist of Love!

Is that why we are cautioned so strongly about choosing the right guru, and even more strongly about choosing the right lover? “Choosing” seems like such a modern word, flippant and fickle in a culture where marriages last for five years and fifty types of toothpaste vie for our attention at the drugstore, all in disposable throw-away tubes. I’d rather not think I “chose” my lover in this particular way – instead I tried to verify with myself that my actions towards this particular person were in alignment with my dharma. Hm. In any case…

Maybe in some previous era it was more of a given that people took the lover relationship seriously, just as the guru relationship would have been taken more seriously. One can never totally depend on anyone outside oneself, but for lovers and gurus to help us we need commitment at least. Like students and gurus, lovers also throw their karma in together. There are foolish ways to do this and there are potentially enlightening ways to do this. Couples can throw their karma in together unconsciously, sharing their lives without appreciating the magnitude of the potential in what they are doing, and missing out on the higher opportunities. Couples can share themselves with each other in an escapist way, avoiding who they are on their own. Couples can share themselves selfishly, with no real commitment, just to see what they can “get” out of one relationship before they move on to another.

Couples can also enter into relationship with the commitment to give and receive, the conscious intention to mutually purify and be purified through offerings of love and understanding, accepting the grace that is given. I don’t know if commitment has to be about ‘forever’ – though one of the highest achievements I can aspire to in this lifetime would be to give love to my lover, allowing the healing powers of love to embrace us over decades, as we grow old. Commitment to the present (at the very least), to giving and receiving with an open heart here and now, can provide the space for the healing powers of love to begin to unfold. Just like a guru, a lover whose intent is truly to love provides his or her partner with a pathway for healing and self-transformation, and gives the partner the opportunity to provide the same.

I’m sure that’s why marriage was once thought to be sacred – it wasn’t always just about subjugating women as the property of men, and maintaining the socio-economic status quo – it has always had in it a spiritual potential because it involved the relationship of lovers. Marriage ceremonies themselves were potentially ways to clarify and offer the intentions of the relationship, and to sanctify the relationship by placing it into a sacred context. Yet there are so many lovers and so many marriages, but not a lot of real love. It seems so wasteful. I want people to realize what a gift they have when they hold each other in their arms, and not to squander the opportunity. I want people to unlock the healing powers of love! I want to unlock the healing powers of love!