“Just go ahead and love whatever is in front of you, and in that way be filled with love. It is that simple if you remember that the essence of love is awareness and space. The ideal human lover is someone who gives you lots of space to just be yourself but somehow connects with you as you are. Awareness is like that. It doesn’t limit the object of its awareness, but it makes contact.
Awareness is easy to give, and it doesn’t cost anything or deplete you in any way. We sometimes withhold love and awareness because we think that true love requires more than this simple, open attention. Our conditioning suggests that love requires things like compromise, sacrifice, and unconditional giving of our time and effort. Perhaps some of these are necessary for a relationship, but not for the essence of love.
This is an important distinction, as we sometimes confuse love and relationship, which is another example of how our conditioning leads us to believe that the outer object of our love is also the source of our love. If we recognize that the true source of love is within us, then relationship can be seen in perspective. Relationships are important, but they are not as important as the essence of love. This is clear when you consider how a relationship without love is not satisfying, but the experience of this inner flow of love is satisfying either with or without a relationship. You can experience it with a beautiful object of art in a museum, a moving piece of music, an exciting moment in a sporting activity, or in the deep connection of a relationship with another person. The love is what makes relationships and everything else worthwhile.
What a rich possibility: that all of the love you have ever wanted is available right now, just by giving it to everything you encounter both within you and in the environment. Love is for giving, not for getting. And the more you give, the more fully it fills your heart to overflowing.”
— Nirmala from the new free ebook, Love is for Giving, Not for Getting
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