love is in you
Often we credit the feeling of being “in love” to another person: someone who
supposedly ignites that flame. I have come to understand that the feeling of
being in love is actually our natural state of being, and that it is possible to
access this state whatever circumstances might prevail in our lives… It is out
of this experience that the desire to share what I have learnt was born. For
many years from my late twenties, I struggled to make sense of my life. I was
well-educated, had good friends, a loving family, a fulfilling love life and
success at work – all the things I was supposed to want; the things that should
make me happy. At times I was happy. And yet somehow it was never enough; on
some level I felt I was never enough. Something was missing, but I couldn’t
quite put my finger on what it was. Then in summer 1999, lying on a beach in
Cape Cod, I experienced a kind of epiphany while reading the book Conversations
With God by Neale Donald Walsch. I didn’t grow up with much religion. The God I
was told about at school left me with the image of a man holding a book of
rules, and if you didn’t follow them there’d be no happily-ever-after for you!
And if you were reading from the ‘wrong’ book, you were also in trouble… Not
surprisingly, I decided to stay well clear of anything ‘religious’. Even now, I
don’t quite know what drew me to a book like this one. But in it, Walsch doesn’t
talk about the God I was taught about at school.Instead he speaks of a very
personal experience with a benevolent force that manifests itself as pure,
unconditional love – and that exists within each of us. He describes this force
as the foundation of our being and believes we are in direct contact with it
whenever we are in touch with our most altruistic loving qualities. Everything
we do, he says, comes from a place of either fear or love, and whichever we
choose reflects back our own life experiences. Within these pages I discovered a
truth that resonated so deeply that I had an experience of direct knowing. I
knew that I was more than I had perceived myself to be. You might call it soul,
higher consciousness, Buddha-nature, life force, chi, awareness, love… even the
entire universe. No words can fully express the depth of this personal
revelation. I felt, for the first time ever, in a state of deep peace, and
utterly comfortable in my own skin. I knew this feeling as love – unconditional
and total. A blissful moment of surrender. And then… life carried on, as it
does. Happy times, sad times, and everything in-between. But that experience in
Cape Cod had changed me forever. I realised in that moment of revelation that
everything I needed in order to be happy was already there within me. During the
years that followed I launched myself into a journey of self-inquiry, both
physically and spiritually. I’ve studied many teachings – with many teachers –
from various disciplines. But those that I continue to use within my life daily
are the transformative techniques of kundalini yoga, A Course In Miracles and
thus the work of Marianne Williamson, Gangaji and Eckhart Tolle, as well as the
principles of Kabbalah and Tantra. And, what I have come to believe is that for
every one of us, within the core of our being there is a still, quiet centre
that is totally at peace with whatever is happening in every single moment of
our lives. And in every single moment we have a choice: to discover the truth,
or run from it.
