Valentine's Day

It's often a tossup for me in the word association game as to whether "massacre" or "massage" comes to mind first after hearing "Valentine's Day". In either case, "love" and "romance" seem to struggle to stay in the top 5; and I think this is due to what I see as both the trivialization of love and its commercialization, forces that go hand in hand.

My views on love have been forged between the anvil of necessity and the hammer of anguish; and further qualified by my intellectual and spiritual education. All-in-all, my views put me pretty far afield from the mainstream account of love and romance that appears in the idealized images that gush forth in today's celebration. But I'm not without a firsthand understanding of it...what is it..."been there, done that"?

To me, the following experience seems to have been set from before the foundations of the earth, but to others, no doubt, it is nothing more than a mere coincidence. The experience in question occurred this past Thursday, about three days after I received the Oneness blessing in a nearby city. (Google "Oneness Blessing" to find out more.) To be sure, this is not the first time that I experienced some definite result from having received this blessing; it just seemed appropriate that the result came into place just in time for "the day of love and friendship," as some of my Latino/a friends call Valentine's Day.

The experience itself defies categorization and seems to be a kind of hybrid between dream, vision, and imagination. I was given to see myself in the third person, as it were. In this view I was able to see within my body to my heart space where there was a glowing, even dazzling, center of very white light. My perception then took me closer to that nebular presence and, as I approached, I could see that it was dancing, shimmering, scintillating. I continued the approach until I was inside the nebula and could feel the light; it felt actually substantial; it was soothing and comforting and brought me to look upward, where I saw a much more enormous nebula of the very same light, connected with the smaller nebula in my heart space. I felt drawn up into that light and felt myself at home and at one; there was a kind of rainbow around this nebula and when I looked at the rainbow, I immediately felt uplifted, supported, and...glorified. My view then returned to the more distant view where I could take in the "smaller" and the "larger" nebulae in one glance. I then "heard" myself saying "I AM the Light of the world." And this is where begins a connection with today.

The Light of the world was "I" but "I" wasn't the form, or body that I was looking at; the "I" was the Light and the center of consciousness articulating the announcement. I seemed to be focused "outside" the scene but yet speaking from within it. I then realized that the Light is self-luminous, self-conscious, intelligent, substance and that all was literally in the Light because it was out of that Light that everything came. I strangely didn't want anything more than just the Light at the time; resting in a serene repose within it, I felt completely at peace and fulfilled; I now wish I had given a little more thought to my day-to-day existence, as I could use a little stimulus package of my own...and not one of those measly little $780 billion ones either.

In all of this there was a supporting feeling of love that I noticed only afterward upon reflection; the Light was Love and Love was Light. But this Love seemed a far distant relative to the cupids and sirens we usually see performing the ambassadorial role in Love's stead; indeed, the difference between the two was like night and day. On the one hand there was the continually out-pressing, self-forgetful push of Love's Presence and, on the other hand, the opportunistic efforts designed to sate the body, feigning selflessness and adoration in the disguise of an economy of equal emotional exchange. In the same way that there is the tiniest detectable difference between naturally occurring vitamin c and that which is commercially made, there is a detectable difference between how these two competing loves feel to the participants; that is, if they can ever get to the level of self-consciousness where such a feeling looms prominent. I say "competing" but that is not technically true; Love never looks back to see what's behind because it acknowledges nothing but itself, so it is not in competition with anything; it knows only giving; and when it gives, it gives the Light, from which all blessings flow.

This gift to me was not a "pat on the back" for being devoted; it was the removal of a veil which kept my oneness hidden from me. The Light in my Heart space is the Light in your Heart space; the Love in my Light is the Love in your Life; and the Life in my Heart is the Life of your Love.

To those who have just started a new relationship, just ended one, are sustaining one, or struggling with one I say: find that Light within yourself by pushing your self-consciousness back to the "I" and you will not only find yourself, but you will have all else you need. The Light in your Heart is the Law of your Life.

My Love to All