Reflections: Riding the Phoenix Part IV

I introduced the Phoenix series in 2020, presenting each class around the cosmic, archetypal and personal significance of this era of transformation that is truly governing our lives. In this Reflections series, I am continuing that rich Phoenix theme of transformation, shifting our attention in this series from the world around us to the intimate details of our personal lives. Now we will explore the transformational power of love from the personal expression of love to the mystical.

Love, as we will discuss, is a power – perhaps the greatest power that we have to give to one another. Love is capable of restoring a person to the threads of life, to inspiring a person to want to live, and to giving someone (including ourselves) the capacity to endure the unendurable. Love is no ordinary force. Indeed, love is more than love; it is an expression of the life force itself. We have named the life force “love” because love is the most blissful, joyful emotion in the spectrum of human sensations.

Perhaps that is why we have a mysterious relationship to the power of love. Love is a force that transforms us – and others. Love can lift us out of despair and depression or, conversely, when love is removed from our lives, we are plunged into the depths of darkness. In the sharing of even the smallest amount of love with another person – friend, family or even stranger – we immediately witness a transformation take place. Perhaps that love opens a channel for hope to flow into someone’s life or joy. It doesn’t take a great amount of love to make a difference but withholding even the slightest amount can be devastating.

And therein is hidden the mystery of love’s great power. We know how powerful love is – and we fear this awesome force as much as we need it in our lives to thrive, to humanize us, to feel alive. We fear being loved and loving “too much” for fear that we will be broken in two should love evaporate from our lives. Love is no ordinary power – it is a force of life itself.

The great spiritual masters all taught that love is the greatest power that we have and though they all offered their own paths of instruction to their disciples, ultimately, they were teaching versions of how challenging it is to truly manage the power of love in this world. I am particularly captivated by the love and compassion that Jesus and Buddha illustrated in their lives. They were channels for mystical, cosmic love – pure life force and grace. Their lives illustrated how the power of love and compassion could transform illness as well as the bitterness that so easily can take hold of the human heart, making us incapable of letting love flow easily through our hearts.

Jesus and Buddha emphasized that life was indeed unfair and difficult which is why striving for inner resources was the only path out of that suffering. Buddha taught that this world was filled with illusions – a very challenging concept to comprehend – but such a powerful mystical truth. Equally challenging is the teaching of forgiveness for which Jesus is known. These truths, these deeply mystical instructions, are for the soul. They are not rational, they are not logical. These instructions boggle the mind, which is why we struggle so with them.

And yet, the mind is not capable of accessing mystical love. That is what it fears the most. Whereas the heart in us and our soul intuitively recognizes that we are capable of becoming vessels of transformation, that we can step beyond the love of power and open ourselves to the power of love.

We are transitioning through a time of epic chaos, as all of you know. Chaos always generates madness and fear and there is no shortage of that in our society. We are witnessing what happens when people fear the loss of their power – social power, political power, racial power.

But make no mistake. We are also witnessing the emergence of the power of love influencing a gradual transformation in our world. And though we are living in the chaotic stage of this transformation, love – the force of life – is deeply present.

One of the fears that we will explore in this series is why people fear empowering other people, why we hesitate to support those who are different than us. Are they different, or is that an illusion, as Buddha would say? And I would ask you to consider, “How deeply are you capable of loving and empowering others?” And what if someone left you behind because of how you looked or for fear of what empowering you might mean to them?

We even hesitate to empower those we already know and love – family members and friends. Among the greatest sufferings of the human experience is knowing that you are capable of loving someone more than you do – and deliberately choosing not to for fear that the other person might become more significant than you. Such a choice is directly motivated by the knowledge that love has the power to transform the fear or insecurity in another person. All someone has to do is let that love flow. The constant guilt and shame that festers in someone from the repression of love is a suffering like none other

Love the greatest power we have. It is a power we fear because love can, and will, transform us as well as the world around us if enough people are willing to embrace the transforming and healing power of love over the love of power. It is truly our one great choice in life – to love beyond reason, beyond logic. To love enough to the darkness and influence of fear…Even if you bring more love into your own life, you will have brought more Light into the world. I hope you will join me for this Reflections series.

Love,
Caroline