I believed I loved. I said the words. I acted in accord. But I did not truly love. I loved the best I could, knowing not what love is. I had no idea what it means to love, to be love. I had no idea of my true estate, the true estate of life itself, and yes, that includes you.

I put pretty words to what love meant. I dressed it up like a child’s doll, cleaning and sanitizing, adding my knowing, tossing in the warm, fuzzy sensations of my experience … and still I did not understand love. 

I added the wealth of knowledge accumulated over centuries, over the eons of recorded existence, piling on words of the masters, philosophies of days gone by, deeds of good kings and bad, testing what felt right inside and that which was worthy of rejection … and still I did not know love.

I purified my mind, controlling the thoughts, cleaned up reactions, explored emotions which led me to my fears, and I dove into the depths to discover their source. I saw glimmers of light peeking through and yet, I knew not love.

And then love found me. It was nothing I did, nothing I could do. One day it simply showed its face when I had quit looking else where, every where, any where … including within … when I had no where to turn, when all need to turn was lost. 

Opening my eyes in a wholly new way, I saw that love is all the details. There is no where love is not. I’d been looking for it while all the time, it was the breath within, the empty space without, the above and the below. It was the inner world and all that can be seen, the infinitely diverse visible world and the infinite aliveness in which it all appears.

There was never two, even though two puts on a pretty awesome show. I was never separate, never someone who could love. There was never someone to love. All the love stories were stories arising in love, were love in motion … and so was the storied fear.

I can’t escape love, even when I create stories that seem to do the trick. Everywhere I go, love is. Everything I think, love is. Doing nothing, love is. That’s the thing about love. It is all there is.

I thought it was something special; it is from the story point of view. It is, and it isn’t, depending on the story being written.  I thought love was on holiday, that it was missing, was needed to be found, for it was the cure for a broken world, but it is the broken world too.

Until it showed its face, I had no idea what love is.