If someone shows you a lot of love, how do you react? Often, you don’t know how to respond. You feel obliged and bound. You shrink or shy away. You may feel foolish and awkward, or try to reciprocate, even though it isn’t genuine. You may even doubt the love expressed or your own worthiness.
The ability to receive genuine love comes with the ability to give love. The more you are centered- and by experience know that you are love- the more you feel at home with any amount of love, a little or a lot. Deep inside, you will know, love isn’t an emotion; it is your very existence.
There are three types of love: the love that comes out of charm, that which comes out of comfort or familiarity, and Divine love. The love that comes out of charm doesn’t last long. It comes out of unfamiliarity or attraction. In this, you lose the attraction fast, and boredom sets in. This love may diminish, and bring fear, uncertainty, insecurity, and sadness along with it.
The love that comes out of comfort and familiarity grows. However, this love has no thrill - it has no enthusiasm, joy, or fire to it. For example, you are more comfortable with an old friend who is familiar to you, rather than with a new person.
Divine love supersedes both of these. It has an ever-present newness. The closer you go, the more charm and depth there is. There is never boredom.
Worldly love can be like an ocean, yet an ocean has a bottom. Divine love is like the sky, which is limitless and infinite. From the bottom of the ocean, soar into the vast sky.
Ancient love is beyond relationships. We often categorise love in the form of relationships - father, mother, brother, sister, wife/ husband, friend, master, and disciple. However, ancient love transcends all these relationships and yet is inclusive of all relationships. Any relationship brings a limitation, but ancient love is beyond limitations.
Let love be - don’t give it a name. When you give it a name, it becomes a relationship, and relationships restrict love.
Often, one experiences love at first sight. Then, as time goes on, it decreases, decays, becomes hatred, and disappears. Ancient love never decays. In our lives, love has a huge mortality rate. Love dies very young, sometimes in a few days, weeks, months, or years. Here, love never gets to grow into a tree. It remains a seasonal crop. The enthusiasm to write love letters or to exchange gifts dies in a short period of time.
When the same love becomes a tree with the manure of knowledge, it becomes ancient love. It continues for lifetimes - it keeps growing bigger and stronger. That is our own consciousness. You aren’t limited to this present body, this present name, this present form or the present relationships around you. You may not know your past, your ancientness, but just know that you are ancient - that is good enough.
You have gone through every experience and still have come out the same-shining, innocent, pure, untainted. That is why you are the Ancient Love. Being on the spiritual path means uncovering ancient love. Come, let’s get back home where ancient love is patiently waiting for you for ages. Know that it never judges nor punishes anyone for being late.
There are two paths-one is of seeking, the other is of devotion. Seeking and searching should ultimately bring you to a place of helplessness. When you become so helpless that you give up, then devotion begins.
In devotion, a longing arises in you. Love can never be disassociated from longing. If there is longing, know that there is also love - they are two sides of the same coin. However, usually when there is longing, we are in a hurry to get rid of it; but in devotion, the longing is very beautiful, we want to hold on to it.
Devotion is your nature. When you rest in your nature, there is no conflict. Yet we often feel a conflict. We feel bad about a negative quality we have - and this negativity pulls us down. Your positive qualities bring pride and arrogance in you. Then your whole life becomes a big weight. When you offer it all to the Master, you become free. You become like a flower. You can again smile and rejoice in the moment. What remains in you is pure, ancient love.
