Falling in love with everything that is

I find more and more that the only suffering that exists is only our resistance to suffering. We prefer some experiences to other experiences and go into the duality of yes/no, unpleasant/pleasant. We resist Darkness with our minds, hearts and bodies and only want the Light.

In Buddhism there are said to be 4 types of people:

-those running from darkness to darkness
-those running from darkness to light
-those running from light to darkness
-and those running from light to light.

When I heard this I made a promise to myself to be running from darkness to light. But I have realised now that this is not completely the true way of seeing. In truth there is no darkness, but only our dislike of darkness. What is the Light that we aspire towards?- Love. It is not a love for only the "good" and the "wholesome", it is a love for everything, without exception. It is a love for darkness as well.

Living in Ireland rain is ones almost constant companion. I used to like the rain until I moved here, here rain became an obstacle to seeing the sun, it became ever-so-tedious in its persistence. It's not only the rain itself, but the people around who only talk about the rain. You talk about the rain with your shop-keeper, neighbour, boss, taxi-driver, friends. In Ireland you end up greeting random strangers with a remark about the rain. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. In the end it wasn't only raining in the outside, it was raining in the inside of myself and all the other people in this little green island. Why- because I was resisting the rain. But as the Borg so wisely say in Star-Trek, "Resistance is futile." True words indeed.

The simple way to stop resisting is to start loving. There is much one can love about the rain. You can love the feeling of purification that it gives you. You can let it nourish you as if you were a flower. You can love the beauty of the sunbeams reflecting in the rain in colours of the rainbow (yes the sun also shines in Ireland but its common for it to still rain at the same time :)). You can love the funny squeaky sound your shoes make when they're filled with water. You can love jumping over puddles and you can play in the rain like a child. And once you have fallen in love with rain, you will never mind anymore when it happens.

It is exactly the same with emotions. Yesterday my heart was going on a roller-coaster. I had some wonderful news, and was overflowing with happiness. And then I had some difficulty, which made me suffer. So I decided to embrace my suffering. At first my heart was beating wildly and it caused me hurt. But when I was in the state of love for this hurt the pain disappeared. My breath was still very rapid and my heart was pounding. But there was no polarity or quality to the breath and heart-beat, they simply were as they were. And I found it so miraculous that my heart could pound so fast- what a wonder your own heart is. And then I wasn’t just listening to the wonder of it, I was enjoying it. The pace hadn’t changed all this while, but everything had changed. I had fallen in love with my heart, whatever it felt and did. This is the alchemy of emotions, of negativity. If you love yourself fully, with everything, in every single state, then there is no such thing as negativity or suffering. Suffering is merely the lack of love that you have for yourself.

Take the time to get to know your suffering. Dive into it, with no reservations. Look at it, accept it, embrace it, and love it. At the end of the day its all you, it is all the Universe. Everything that you are, everything that you feel, in every moment, deserves to be loved by you. It may be anger, it may be hurt, it may be desire, disappointment. Whatever it is, everything is worth love- why? Because it is life, because it is divine, because it is a miracle.
We often tend to forget that life is a wonder, it is always, always a gift. Yes- life is suffering, but even suffering is a gift. Everything is a miracle to be fallen in love with.


Here is an excellent talk by Eckhart Tolle on the power of Yes to life