A relationship is like an ocean – when one partner goes through the big waves, the other is there calmer holding their hand, and when the other is then taken by the waves, the first is now there to hold them calmly. But no matter the waves, no matter the winters we’ll sometimes hold, no matter the unseen horizons and shores because we are just on the tail of whale for a while learning trust, we’re the ocean, we hold each other, hand in hand, holding on holding strong. Because in the you of you is the me of me is us, of us is love.
Attaining our purpose is a smoother path when we are able to build, nourish and sustain relationships, which essentially means sustaining the path of life – because the higher purpose is to learn to love and to learn to love we need to create sustaining relationships, which we do through the four principles: integrity, in service to another, tolerance and humility.
Without integrity there is no love, no trust, there isn’t any foundation to have a relationship at all. Integrity may sound like a word from an old movie with knights – “my word is my bond” – and in our modern world integrity sounds like an extinct animal, because look around you and you won’t find many people who actually have it. Integrity is a foundation to love and relationships. If we can’t know to do the right thing, if our words have no weight, if we don’t align to higher values, why would anyone trust us? Integrity is about actions, it is something to be done not only spoken of.
The beloved is the one for whom real wealth is service to another – so to become the beloved who then attracts its beloved, we need to be selfless and know how to give to another. Relationships are based upon selfless service and generosity towards the otherness. We can’t separate our breath from our bodies, so the only way we become aware of it is through the one we love. In other words, the one you love is the external life force of you for you are of one, and through them you recognize and treasure the breath of life itself – and you deepen into yourself. The beloved, and each person we love in this life, our family, friends, animals – they are all the external walking of our breath. And as such, it is about selfless service and generosity. All relationships thrive upon this.
Just the opportunity to be able to love another is what gives the soul its depth of experience regardless of what and whom the other is; and the gift of being in service to another, and humanity, is what gives us wealth, purpose and true joy in heart and soul.
And then comes the tolerance – the ability to stay true to yourself and do the right thing regardless of whether others see it and appreciate it, and even when you are misunderstood you continue to do the right thing because it’s the right thing – because you love for God’s sake not for people’s opinions. Real love means to express your service, devotion and purity of heart no matter if you are in popular situations or in the quiet rooms.
Humility is the bridge to love and God, which is why it is a virtue. There is no love without humility because love is humility and humility is love. The word itself comes from the meaning of “being of the earth”, which reminds us of staying grounded, in the present moment, and knowing our right proportion within the vastness of the universe. It is about being loving enough to help another, to accept perspective different from yours, to temper pride, to know you don’t know it all and never will. Through humility, we open our hearts to love deeper, we open ourselves to receive the love meant for us and desiring us to come to us and be accepted by us, and we soothe our skins to open our palms and receive and hold another’s hands.
Through humility, we remind ourselves that no matter how many years we’ve lived together under the same roof we’ll never know it all, and we can approach them like art, with curiosity rather than taking them for granted; we can choose to pay attention to them because there is always something new to learn; and we can then re-learn, re-explore and re-discover the kissing, the holding, the caring. This is what love is: paying attention, being present, being grateful and allowing the other to be as they are. Love says I want you to be, as you are, as you need be.
The presence
We can only love what we appreciate. And to appreciate needs presence, needs paying attention, needs the ability to hold space for another’s inner world no matter how differently from yours it may initially seem.
Love for another is only possible if we are truly willing to become genuinely interested in them. When two worlds meet they touch and kiss and may become one – building a bridge of love to one another through trust, fidelity and compassion. Each person has their own inner world of a unique physical, emotional and spiritual wildlands – and like any wildland, it is full of various seasons, landscapes, and pathways. There are cycles, there are nutritive needs, there are unique timings, and there are wild unknowns which will forever remain somewhat mystical and unexplored by us – because we’ll never fully know all there is to know in another, just as we may never fully know all there is to know within ourselves and the mysteries of life and the divine. The humility of this deserves to be treasured.
And still, we may reach our hands across the lines that separate us – lines and borders of countries, cultures, languages, ideas and human skins – open our palms and reach our hands to hold another’s hands, and dissolve the boundaries between us. If we truly desire unity in the world and within ourselves and our relationships, it begins with us, dissolving the barriers and boundaries within us.
We cannot only love another when it is comfortable for us, or when we have the time, or when we can gain something in exchange. We love another’s winters, as much as their deserts. We show up. We are present. Love only happens through our genuine interest in another and the devotional pathway we may walk. Love happens and shapes through our way of noticing, witnessing, learning, paying attention – learning what gives them joy, what tears they hold, what worlds exist within them; love happens through our desire to know more about them. Love is a knowing and of being known not of flesh but through the flesh.
And as we get to know them better, we begin to gain deeper insight into them and a deeper understanding. Love allows us an opportunity for a deepening – and the deepening is essentially within our own selves – seeing the secret invisible threads that unite us. Our genuine interest and effort in knowing another person is what relationships and true love are based upon. This is how it works here on earth – if you want love to thrive you need to put in the effort and leave the assumptions and judgments aside.
Everything you wish and desire to receive, you must first give of yourself to others
If you desire generosity, give generosity; if you desire love, love others; if you desire respect, respect others; if you desire abundance, respect others’ work and time and give of yourself to them also. If you desire emotional expression or someone’s trust, have you earned it? Are you emotionally available and trustworthy? If you desire empathy, when was the last time you showed true empathy to another? You may say, “Oh, no one thinks about me!”, but if you were honest with yourself you may find that you didn’t think about anyone neither. When was the last time you called family or a friend to ask how they are and offer your help to them? If you desire success do you value other people’s work, time and energy, or do you have an entitled perspective expecting everything while giving nothing in return to them?
Love and all relationships rest upon selflessness, giving and interconnection; we need to be patient, attentive, humble and giving to others; we need to be dedicated to self reflection and self honesty.
With our hidden negative we bring out the negative in others; and with our hidden good we bring forth the good. Before pointing fingers at others, one needs to look within and reflect on their own behaviours, emotions and perspectives. All comes back around, so if you have nothing kind to say, just move away peacefully – you don’t need to stay in situations or with people you don’t like, you don’t need to love everyone, but there is no need to initiate harm through words, thoughts and actions.
It is our own words, thoughts, emotions and actions can become our own energy imprint and impulse and always follow us. Because emotions move, thoughts move, feelings move, actions move – and you may cause yourself unhappiness and harm often out of ignorance of these universal immovable truths. Don’t set traps in people’s minds and hearts, because it is only you who will fall into them. Love others, respect others and be a good person, not for their sake nor yours, but because this is the right thing to do, it is the right way of life.
Destiny in love
We can understand karma as the result of inharmonious manifestation of love between people. As disharmony increases and there is greater imbalance between give and take, the karma may weigh heavier. From a higher spiritual perspective, love between two people is not manifested in just one life. If you love someone it’s because they’ve loved you before. This is why you are pulled towards them in love – because your soul recognizes they loved you. But what happens with human beings is that they then get greedy and say, “Oh if they don’t love me now and pay attention to me now, whatever!” What may be done instead is to love them, do them good, treat them respectfully, wish the best for them.
You can’t love a person who hasn’t loved you prior to this life. If one did not properly take and the other did not properly give, you cannot love each other mutually and truly. If you’ve loved each other, and you’ll love each other still, these things don’t just change, because love incarnates as love, just as greed as greed, lack as lack, and it is through our current way of living and the choices we make that we may create something new for ourselves to be born.
Two people come together in love for a reason – there is no chance in love meetings; but fated relationships are a marriage between necessity and freedom. The necessity is the impulse from the past of memories ingrained – the iron hand that will pull you together; and after that, comes the freedom of will because a new soil will not be born, the soil of your relationship – and what land you’ll build, what new karma you may build upon the prior, what flowers you may nurture and birth or not upon the land you’ll walk, that is only up to you.
Love incarnates as love
We will find that our experience of love here on earth is a mere reflection of the love we experience in the spiritual world between earth lives. Love incarnates as love. People who have deepened in love through lives have a greater capacity within them to naturally love more deeply and openly, to feel and to embody the love.
How we live our lives on earth affects our ability to fully encounter the higher love planes and one another. It is our own responsibility to work towards our inner development, and if we choose not to do that, we may find it difficult to love another person and all of humanity; we may find it difficult to accept and acknowledge differences, to feel compassion for another, to work in togetherness, to hold opposites simultaneously, and our ability to love in another life may stagnate.
It is only ever love; then, now, always
We can be grateful for those who love us and the opportunities we have to love another, because this allows us to learn what true love really is; and this allows us soul growth. We can be grateful for the opportunities to work with others and create beautiful things in the world that contribute to others. We can be grateful for our family, because it is sacred and a great teaching of love – it is a story of love, of trust, of patience and deeper understanding; the humble understanding that no matter what happens and how different we are, outside of our role as parents or children, we are all human. One of the greatest lesson in life, aside from trust, is that we all do the best we can each day, with our current awareness, understanding, tools and capacity.
We can be grateful for the flame that drive us, fire us, unite us. We can be grateful for the flame that ignites inspiration in others and sparks love within them, and leaves little sparkles of fireflies like candle flames along their way to guide them also. We can be grateful for our talents, gifts and skills, and how we use them to contribute to others, to be better people, spouses, children, parents, friends. We can be grateful for our senses, for the way we feel and touch and see and taste, for these too have been earned by our love in other lives.
Our greatest purpose is to learn to love, to embody the love through our lips, hands and ordinary gestures along the every day circling staircases of life. Our purpose is to put in the effort to be our best selves, kinder and more compassionate people; and to be of service in this world and one another. This purpose doesn’t have to be on a big grand stage – it starts at home with your closest ones. Your greatest purpose can be to be a loving mother, spouse, homemakers – this is a sacred purpose, and most important one as your love is what will create even more love in the world and lineage.
To truly love we need to direct our will and heart towards this genuine encounter with one another. We need to be willing and able to meet another’s world, their internal and their external one. Each person you may love is a gift to you in this life, so treasure it.
Love is a seed of God, it is sacred gift. And as a seed within you, a seed placed by God, you need to then nourish it and nurture it within your church within, in the home of your heart, What becomes of this seed it only up to you. Some may be the sweetest roses, a whole garden of them and of their hands, the kindness and compassion they give to another will scent their hands for long after you’ve unheld them; just like a real rose will scent our hands and hearts even after we’ve unheld her. Others’ seeds may need more tending and effort, devotion and dedication to become flowers. The choice is only ours.
In our modern world today there are many walls build around hearts and hands; and we see the results of the lack of capacity to see and understand the other. We have lost our moral compass. We define people by our apathies or sympathies instead of seeing them as having souls like us. We see them through our judgments, biases, assumptions and desires to take from them. We see them from the broken mirrors that the windows of our eyes and perspectives have become. The results of this are heartbreaking and perpetuating separations.
We have to fight our own prejudices, lethargy, greed, selfishness, sloth, pride and lust, and instant gratification mentalities, if we want to seek insight into each other and deepen into more meaning, purpose and love. Becoming a whole human being, a moral human being, is the hardest thing we can do because no one can do it for us. Along the way we will be challenged, and each time we will need to make the choice between fear or love. But that’s the path, that’s the work. Patience opens the soul of matter, and we must walk a kindness and patience of rhythm. The land of the heart is the one that only matters; and that’s where the land of love is.
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