The Lover and the Beloved
The Art of Not Doing Anything
April 19, 2023
dialogue

The Lover and the Beloved

El Amante y el Amado

A student describes an overwhelming experience of devotion to life and beauty, and asks who it is that feels this devotion, and to what it is devoted.

The Lover and the Beloved

A student describes an overwhelming experience of devotion to life and beauty, and asks who it is that feels this devotion, and to what it is devoted.

Your meditations lately have been moving me to a place that feels new, though I also feel I've always had it. It's very present these days. My question has to do with devotion, or this experience of devotion to beauty. It gets me to tears all the time. Anytime you talk about the heart, or about allowing everything that is happening, what comes up for me is this experience of devotion to life and to beauty. The beauty of the game of hide and seek is so wonderful. Just this awe of wonderment.

The Catholic prayer that flipped

What was interesting today was that I have a Catholic upbringing, and many of the Christian teachings are part of the framework of my mind. There is one that I have often called up. It's part of the church service I attended as a child with my grandmother. I'm not a practicing Catholic, but the prayer says: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter my house, but only say the word and I shall be healed."

I have said that to myself many times when I'm suffering. And for the first time today, it flipped. What I experienced was: I am one hundred percent worthy of you. Not only that, I am your church. I am the walls. I am everyone attending. All this love, all this beauty, and suddenly it's just so overwhelming.

But the question in the end is: who am I, this one who feels the devotion? And to what am I devoted? I know the teachings of this one reality, yet the experience is still of devotion to something else. So I don't know what to make of today's experience.

It's beautiful to hear you, and I don't think I'm the only one who feels that way. There wouldn't be non-duality without duality. What beauty there is in this experience of the lover and the beloved. It is simply something to savor.

That makes sense. Another thing that has been with me lately is how beautiful it is to hide behind the belief, behind the doubt about loving life, when what I truly have is the biggest love for life.

Hiding behind the doubt

And the fun of it: it wasn't that long ago you told me you didn't know whether you had love for life at all.

Exactly. We often talk in non-duality about the fear of death or the fear of ultimate disappearance, and that is something I've been exploring. What is my relationship with fear? But death in particular, ultimate disappearance: how do I approach that one?

In the past few days, I've been finding that maybe I was hiding behind this idea that, because of a lack of love for life, there is no fear of death. When in reality, in order to find that fear, I first need to realize that I have this immense love for life. And that itself is part of the hiding and seeking.

Tears of immense beauty

It's beautiful. I don't know why I cry so much lately, but I know these are tears of immense beauty.

We can feel it. I can see it in people's faces.

We are the church. We are the walls. We are the service.

Thank you for sharing. It's really beautiful. The savor, the joy of being in love with life.

Thank you for the beautiful mirror you are.