A few years ago, if you had asked me what my goal in life was, I would immediately have responded: "Enlightenment."I don't think I really knew what enlightenment was (not that I claim to know now), I just knew that I wanted to get there. And I knew I would, eventually.
One day, while staying in Rishikesh, some friends told me about a Brazilian enlightened master named Prem Baba who was giving satsangs in another part of town. I asked them, "What's his teaching? What's his thing?" and they answered: "Love. It's all about love. Love, love, love."
And I rolled my eyes and thought this Prem Baba must be a gigantic cheese-ball, and probably not even enlightened. Love is such a generic, overused concept in spiritual circles! And how is love ever going to get people to enlightenment?
Ah, how foolish and arrogant I was...
I ended up going to one of Prem Baba's satsangs, and then another, and another, and pretty soon fell head-over-heels in love (yes, love!) with him. Thankfully for my resistant mind, he didn't speak about love all the time. He spoke about meditation, psychology and the path to enlightenment.
Looking back, I can see why I was so resistant to a teaching based on love. I thought of enlightenment as something to achieve. Something for me to achieve. A path I walked alone, leaving everyone else trailing in the dust. A path that would finally remove me from this painful world and let me escape into permanent bliss.
I didn't see what love had to do with enlightenment. Love was too earth-bound. Love meant having to relate to other people. It meant having to participate in life on Earth... And I really just wanted to leave.
Some time later, I started to have experiences of Love. Immense, intense, almost unbearable capital-L Love. I would look around and be touched by the beauty of every person, every object, every situation. I would laugh and cry at the same time, overcome by how much I loved the whole messy miraculous human experience.
And then I would come back to my everyday reality... A reality in which so much time was spent worrying and planning and trying to control life, that I hardly ever noticed beauty or felt any kind of love.
The path to Enlovenment is not a solitary one. I walk it hand in hand with every one of my brothers and sisters. I walk it by fully participating in this world. I walk it by letting Life touch the deepest part of my being and opening my arms out wide to embrace it all. I walk it by always remembering that it's all about Love.
Love, Love, Love!
"People of Love" - Performed by the amazing Snatam Kaur.
"We are the people, the people of love. Let us people love today..."