The Law Of The Garbage Truck

When life is full of shit:

How often do you let other people’s nonsense change your mood? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss or an insensitive employee, difficult neighbour, ruin your day? Well, unless you are thick skinned like the Terminator, you’re probably setback on your heels. This happens to me regularly, even though I try to practice mindfulness but just now and then some Garbage Truck comes along and knocks me down for a while. I honesty think I am a sucker for punishment when it comes to life’s little niggles and being dumped on. However, the mark of success is how quickly you can recover and refocus on what’s important in your life. A few years ago I learned this small lesson. And I learned it in a city taxi. Here’s how the story goes:

I hopped into the taxi one day and we took off for the train station. We were travelling in the right lane when all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, the car skidded, the tires squealed and at the very last moment our car stoped just one inch from the other car’s back end. It was a close call.

I couldn’t believe it.But I couldn’t believe what happened next. The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. And for emphasis, he threw in a one finger salute, as if his words were not enough.

But then here’s what really blew me away. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy as if old friends. And I mean, he was very friendly. So, I said, “Why did you just do that? This guy could have killed us!” And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, “The law of the Garbage Truck.”

He said, Many people are like garbage trucks.They run around full of garbage, full of frustrations, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up even more, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Believe me you’ll be happier.”

So I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people, at work, at home, or in the street? It was then that i said, “I don’t want their garbage and I’m not going to spread it anymore.”

I began to see Garbage Trucks all over. Like in the movie the Sixth Sense, the litte boy said, “I see dead people.” Well, now “I see Garbage Trucks.” I see the load they are carrying. I see them coming to dump it and sometimes it’s on me! Now, like my taxi driver, I don’t take is personally, I just smile, wave, wish them well, and I move on.

From an original story by David J Poolay with thanks.

Prayer for the day:

“Dear God.

So far today, I’ve done alright.

I haven’t gossiped. I haven’t lost my temper.

I haven’t been greedy, moody, nasty or selfish.

And I’m really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, God,

I’m going to get out of bed.

And from then on I’m going

to need a whole lot more help.

Thank You.

Amen”

One God, Many Forms – Guru Purnima Memory

Sathya Sai Baba

“God’s limitless compassion for humanity, makes him descend to earth in human form, to show the world the path of divinity and righteousness. All the spiritual Masters, who have established dharma, (righteousness) and have shown the world the spiritual path at all times, in all parts of the world, are such incarnates. There is an intrinsic bond between ones individuality and God-consciousness, it is God-Consciousness alone that manifests itself in all forms of life. Divinity and God-consciousness are latent in every living entity.”

~Sathya Sai Baba

Tuesday, July 8th, 2014 – A Guru Purnima Experience – A devotee’s story

He has an uncanny style of teaching and many a time it comes in the most realistic way, inducing us to stir our thought process. A devotee from Australia had such a wonderful experience during a Gurupurnima Festival at Prasanthi Nilayam in the mid seventies that the devotee learned the greatest lesson that God was (Is)  One and the entire creation was blessed to be within His Aura ! My friend and I were sitting fairly centrally, about one third of the way back despite the invitation to sit near the front and towards the side: the position was fortunate as otherwise, I doubt if the following wonderful experience could have been possible. In His Divine discourse, with Dr Bhagavantham translating, Swami spoke about prophets and teachers of the great faiths, showing that the Sai faith embraced them all. Later on, Swami discoursed on the role of the Guru, but I heard little or nothing of this, because apparently inexplicable, my mind seemed to wander and I wondered casually if I could see Dr Bhagavantham’s aura. The dark background curtain absorbed the aura; so I switched attention to Swami to see if His aura could be discerned despite the curtain and concentrated hard to see at least His aura. Suddenly, unbelievably, Swami’s hair seemed to have disappeared! His hair had become a sort of clear transparent aura. Amazed, my concentrated gaze then discerned within this frame a quite different head of hair, shoulder length, black, with a slight wave, and Swami’s face became the face of Christ, a Jewish Christ, not the blonde Christ of the Medieval Italian artists. I gazed at this phenomenon with great interest and no religious emotion. As I gazed, the face became that of someone I could not place—possibly Zoroaster or Buddha or perhaps some teacher unfamiliar to me — and throughout the subsequent events these two animated faces recurred, to assure me that I was not inducing these visions.Having thus gained and held my attention, Swami then gave a great blessing and an emotional jolt, for there was my revered Ramana Maharishi, white haired and slender faced, utterly unlike the former visions. I was a devotee of the Maharishi, whose writings have given glimpses of reality, and had been feeling disloyal because of the new found devotion to Baba. Baba settled this disquiet by showing that there was no difference between Gurus. This indeed was the main purpose of this blessed experience. The following visions were brief and were mostly of the Hindu deities or personalities which had become meaningful to me. Rama, a brief but distinct and repeated glimpse of Ganesha, Shirdi Sai Baba and Lord Shiva. Recently I had seen a photograph of Sathya Sai Baba in which He had been depicted as Durga on Her lion, and I wondered if I might be able see Baba in this Goddess form ever. Instead, I had a breathtaking vision of Tripura Sundari — Lalita — Goddess of the Three Worlds, exquisitely beautiful and very alive. I was wondering why Krishna did not appear. Then there was Krishna! Periodically I yearned to see Baba Himself, with interesting consequences: I saw Him at His various ages, His face always an oval of Light; at times He dissolved into pure Light with no form at all. Now and again, in response to mental request, I saw Baba superimposed over other visions of Him talking animatedly. His face—how could I adequately describe it? —clearly visible but not of solid matter, more, like a series of points, the nucleus of matter.What was Baba’s purpose in allowing these visions? So many lessons were learnt that evening, apart from the precious knowledge that Ramana was one with Baba, that all were One and we were one with The One. Maya, illusion—the unreality of constantly mobile matter and its reality as pure Light. The Formless God who could assume any form He liked and the response of those forms to our own mental creativity. I had recently been thinking deeply about Maya, and in Ooty I had mentally, half seriously asked Baba to show me His real form. “God can be seen in concrete form—but it is still only in the devotee’s mind. Form and appearance is determined by the mind of the devotee. Minds and interpretations differ.” (Teachings of Ramana Maharishi: Osborn ) “Visions of God are as real as your own identity. Objects bear relation to the state of the seer. Visions of God have their place, below the plane of Self-realization.” (Talks with Ramana Maharishi.) Beloved Baba, to give so much to one as ‘unworthy’ and unprepared as I am! And to how many of those many thousands did He communicate, while delivering what I could only presume to have been a profound discourse? How blessed are we to be within His aura! Beloved wonderful Baba!II Samastha Lokah Sukhino Bhavantu II – Courtesy SSB Central Trust – Puttaparthi

Swami

I chose this story because it rang true for me. I have also seen Swami’s aura. You can find the story on this blog. Swami’s Halo:

https://sathyasaimemories.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/swamis-halo-1994/

Have a very happy Guru Purnima 2021 – Sai Ram

Sat Chit Ananda

 

Defining the Moola Mantra with stunning visuals and the mesmerizing voice of Deva Premal.

You have come from God, you are a spark of His Glory; you are a wave on the Ocean of Bliss; you will have peace only when you again merge in Him. ~Sathya Sai Baba

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I’ve been thinking about God recently.  I’ll  tell you what I think God is all about. The  Indian mystics all tell us, “A God defined is a God confined.” “What can’t be said, can’t be said and it can’t be sung about either.”  They also say, “God is impersonal.”  “I am without form, without limit, beyond time, beyond space. I am in everything. Everything is in me. I am the bliss of the universe. Everywhere I am. I am sat, chit, ananda, absolute existence, absolute knowledge, absolute wisdom.” ~  No messing about with their sacred ideas of God and what He is all about. They are straight as an arrow about it.

Jesus Christ says “He that is born of the flesh is flesh and he that is born of the spirit is spirit.”  Then he says, “Least ye be born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” also Jesus says, “I and my father are one.”  then Jesus says this,  “He that loveth mother and father, child, more than me cannot follow me.” What exactly is He telling us?

He is simply telling us just how things are. He’s talking about higher consciousness; He’s telling us who we really are. He is telling us what it means when we start on the journey  to be born again, when we suddenly start to have faith in another possibility than the one we have now. Now what is that called, what is the other possibility? It’s just a vibrational rate. It’s like you’re born with a pre-fixed setting on your television set to channel eighteen and you never even knew there was a channel eighteen, channel four, three, two. So when someone comes along and says, “Were you tuned into channel seven last night?” You look at them with a wee smile, “Don’t they know there’s only  channel eighteen? Then something suddenly happens, something touches a place in your heart that’s been there all the time. It’s just like you have suddenly awakened for a moment from a long sleep and say, “Oh! Wow! So that’s how it is! I was asleep for a long time. But now you are awake and tuning in to channel eighteen and you like what you are seeing.

Just saying

The First God – A story from the Chhandogya Upanishad/Inspirational

Isabelle V. Lim

What if you gave someone a beautiful gift, and they neglected to thank you for it, would you ever give them another?  Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, we must truly appreciate what we already have. For God is in everything. Food comes from God. In fact food is our first God, although we often forget. Here’s a story about that. 🙂

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In the Upanishads there is a beautiful story. Shvetketu, a young man, came back from the university full of knowledge. He was a brilliant student, he had topped the university with all the medals and all the degrees that were possible, available. He came back home with great pride.

His old father, Uddalak, looked at him and asked him a single question. He said to him, “You have come full of knowledge, but do you know the knower? You have accumulated much information, your consciousness is full of borrowed wisdom — but what is this consciousness? Do you know who you are?”

Shvetketu said, “But this question was never raised in the university. I have learned the Vedas, I have learned language, philosophy, poetry, literature, history, geography. I have learned all that was available in the university, but this was not a subject at all. You are asking a very strange question; nobody ever asked me in the university. It was not on the syllabus, it was not in my course.”

Uddalak said, “You do one thing: be on a fast for two weeks, then I will ask you something.”

He wanted to show his knowledge, just a young man’s desire. He must have dreamed that his father would be very happy. Although the father was saying, “Wait for two weeks and fast,” he started talking about the ultimate, the absolute, the Brahman.

The father said, “You wait two weeks, then we will discuss about Brahman.”

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artwork
Isabelle V. Lim

Two days’ fast, three days’ fast, four days’ fast, and the father started asking him, “What is Brahman?” In the beginning he answered a little bit, recited what he had crammed, displayed. But by the end of the week he was so tired, so exhausted, so hungry, that when the father asked, “What is Brahman?” he said, “Stop all this nonsense! I am hungry, I think only of food and you are asking me what Brahman is. Right now, except food nothing is Brahman.”

The father said, “So your whole knowledge is just because you were not starved. Because you were taken care of, your body was nourished, it was easy for you to talk about great philosophy. Now is the real question. Now bring your knowledge!”

Shvetketu said, “I have forgotten all. Only one thing haunts me: hunger, hunger – day in, day out. I cannot sleep, I cannot rest. There is fire in my belly, I am burning, and I don’t know anything at all. I have forgotten all that I have learned.”

The father said, “My son, food is the first step towards Brahman. Food is Brahman — ANNAM BRAHMA.” A tremendously significant statement. India has forgotten it completely. ANNAM BRAHMA: food is God, the first God.

OSHO

God Alone Is Real, Al Drucker – Early Devotees

Here’s an interesting article from Al Drucker recently published on his website. (link provided.) I will provide more information on this post at a later date when I have the time. I am still away in India, this being my last week. I found here at the ashram as always, a sublime peace that  permeated everything, and everywhere. The vibes in the Mandir, hall and surrounding area remain as blissful as ever.

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The Highest Teachings of the Non-dual Vedanta

God alone is real. Besides the One God (who is also known as Brahman or Atma) nothing else exists. A world without God is utter illusion. Such a world can never exist. From the standpoint of Reality, a God-less world is nothing. No matter how real it may appear, it is totally illusory, a momentary perturbation in Eternity, signifying nothing.

On the other hand, when you see the world and yourself as firmly implanted in God Awareness, vitalized and governed by God Presence, your perception radically changes. As you become filled with God you become subsumed in God, and you, as you previously knew yourself within, disappear. Though you may continue for a time as a body, your separate identity as an individual in the world dissolves, and you shine forth as the unchanging God Awareness, the one universal person masquerading as the many.

As long as you live your whole life in the deluded state of separation, unaware of your non-dual Reality, you will see a world of variety, a world of many separate objects, countless beings and things outside of you. In your curiosity you ask the question, “Who created all this multiplicity, who caused this world of variety to spring forth?” You will hear stories of creation which attempt to answer that, and they may satisfy you for a moment. But they cannot give an enduring, believable, uncontroversial answer to your question. Why? Because your question makes no sense! Your question, “Who created all this variety?” is meaningless – precisely because there never was, is, or will be, any multiplicity in Truth. No being, force, circumstance or accident, produced a world of multiplicity. How could it have arisen? Where would it have come from?

The most likely candidate to spin out such a separative world is the egoic, dream-making wizardry of the human mind! But, despite its creation stories, multiplicity can never occur. The One remains as One. It’s just that you mistook It and spun it into the many.

God, the Supreme Reality, did not change into a relative world, just as at dusk, a rope lying on the path did not suddenly change into a snake. In the twilight, you imagine the rope to be a frightful snake, and convince yourself the snake is really there, threatening you. But the rope is still a rope, and remains a rope. It’s just that you mistook it to be a snake.

In a similar way, God is God forever, but your ignorance of this fact made you see God as a world of many. In your deluded perception, you look on the One God, but unable to identify It, you concoct an illusory world in which you unknowingly label God by all the myriad worldly names and forms that you give meaning to. You believe all these to be real, but they are unreal, for no separate objects can exist in Reality. Only God exists.

You think you see an objective world outside of you, but there is nothing outside of you. What you see is always only what you yourself made up and projected to appear to be outside. Wherever you look, you always see only yourself. You see either your True Self, which is one with God, or your false self, which appears in the form of the objects and beings of the illusory world of separation. This latter path, driven by false perceptions, will keep you bound.

Don’t subject yourself to that suffering! Correct your vision! Remove your delusion! Focus and dwell on God, who alone is real!

The world stands on one leg, Maya, namely, illusion. Kick down that leg and the whole world falls. Maya is not real. It is nothing. It disappears when you give it no further support and stop feeding it with your energy and belief.

You now experience the absence of this multiplicity, the disappearance of this world based on illusion, every day in deep sleep. But when you return to waking consciousness you do not hold on to that experience. That is a great tragedy! When you are deep asleep, what happens to your world? Where does all that multiplicity disappear to? What is the source of joy that sound sleep brings? Deep sleep keeps a tiny trace of the ego as a seed, a memento of the false world. When you awaken, you grab hold of that seed, and the next instant you again find yourself to be the same deluded individual you were before you fell asleep, again pestered by creatures of your own fantasies, imaginary boogeyman that you yourself made up!

Sathya Sai Baba as I remember him

Sai Baba said, “I often tell you not to identify me with just this particular physical build-up; but you do not understand. You call me by only one name and believe I have only one form. But, there is no name I do not bear and there is no form that is not mine. And what is true for me is equally true for you.”

“You are God, you are the Atma, you are the One Self. You are not this temporary body or the separate personality it has identified with in the world. You are not an individual in a world of illusion. Correct your perception. It is said, ‘Dust if you think, dust you are; God if you think, God you are.’ Be the God you truly are! Nothing is ever outside of you. You, your Self, are God! Realize It and be happy! ”

– Based on a talk given by Sai Baba 11/24/62, and expanded on by Al Drucker, 4/1/15

The Flowers God Loves – Sathya Sai Quotations

 

 

 

This is an old post from long ago. I have updated it with new images and also added several quotes from From Sathya Sai Sath Sambhashana, a new translation into English of a book Sai Baba wrote a long time ago. The book ‘Sathya Sai Sath Sambhashana’ is an authentic translation of Swami’s words written originally in his native Telugu, then translated “precisely” into the English language. At first glance, the words and sentences are not easily understood by English speakers, because of the phrasing used at the time the book was translated.  But the book is all Swami. Indeed it is!  From my point of view, the simple and beautiful translation is more meaningful than many other translations of his collective works.

 

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Here are a collection of Sai’s quotations, where he touches on the idea of flowers. It is an interesting theme for Sai devotees who enjoy studying Sai’s collection of spiritual books.

 

1.The most complete explanation of Ashta Pushpam is in: ‘Sathya Sai Speaks,’ Vol. 15. Chapter 9, “The Flowers that God Loves.” All chapters are a beautiful explanation of  the meaning of the flowers used for worship.

2. “Of course, floral offerings are commendable. The sixteen items are good. But, one should progress from this stage to the awareness of the Aathma. Flowers fade and wither. The effect of offering flowers may not last long. What God loves more are the flowers blossoming on the tree of man’s own life, fed and fostered by his own skill and sincerity. They are the flowers of his virtues grown in the garden of his heart.” (‘Sathya Sai Speaks,’  Vol. 15. Chapter 25, “The Garden of The Heart”). In this chapter Swami clearly explains the properties of flowers from the heart’s garden.

3. “Eight types of flowers can be offered to God, viz, (1) Ahimsa (Non-violence), (2) Indhriya  Nigraha (Control of senses), (3) Sarvabhootha Dhaya (Compassion towards all beings), (4) Sathyam (Truth), (5) Dhyaanam (Meditation), (6) Shaanhti (Peace), (7) Vinaya (Humility), (8) Bhakthi (Devotion).” (‘Sathya Sai Speaks,’ Vol. 16. Chapter 3, “Ceiling on Desires – 1″).

4. “Since you cannot swim across the flooded stream, you board a raft. So also, since you cannot master the Nirguna (formless), you resort to the Saguna (form with attributes) and struggle to swim across to the Nirguna through Araadhana and Upaasana (worship and contemplation).

But it is not advisable to remain ever on the raft, amidst the currents and whirlpools, is it not? You must discard this conventional Araadhana some day and reach higher. Pathram, Pushpam, Phalam, Thoyam, (leaf, flower, fruit, water) – are all primers for the initial stages when children join schools. Clean the mind of all the animal and primitive impulses which has shaped it from birth to birth. Otherwise, just as milk poured into a pot used for keeping buttermilk curdles quickly, all the finer experiences of truth, beauty and goodness will get tarnished beyond recognition.”

(Sathya Sai Baba. Discourse) ” Primers of Spiritual Education.” 26 Oct 1961, Prasanthi Nilayam;

 

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Beautiful Clematis

The inherent joy derived in the process of performing karma is not found in its fruits. The immense joy that one derives while performing karma is like a stream of joy. Will an artist stop painting if money is offered to him? If you offer money to a poet to stop composing poetry, will he do so? Do real artists submit themselves to these kinds of deals? They derive purest joy in expressing their art. That joy is the true fruit of those karmas. In comparison, its external fruit is negligible. The word karma is used in the sense of swadharma. (ones particular duty. We eat, drink and sleep. All these are karmas, but not in the way the word “karma”  is referred to in the Gita. There, the word means “to follow one’s path or dharma.”  In this way, those karmas performed in introspection, is referred to as vikarma in the Gita. Karma is the solid state, (Sthoolarupa), or to follow one’s Dharma. Concentrating is chitta (consciousness), while external karma is “vikarma.” When we offer our salutations to somebody, if we do not bow our heart along with the head, the external salutation has no value. The external and the internal should be unified.

From Sathya Sai Sath Sambhashana

 

Iris in the Rain

Whether one remains in the affairs of the world (samsaara) or renounces it thinking that everything depends on God’s will,  and offers everything to God and performs one’s karma, there is nothing one can do beyond this.  Just as the quantity of bread depends on the quantity of flour, so is it  jnana of the divine realm that one attains, and  depends on the devotion (bhakthi) that one has gained. It is an act of insanity to search for jnana in a place where there is no dedication or true worship to God. Undeterred faith is essential for God to reveal himself. Undeterred faith in chanting His name and is essential for the revelation of God. Discriminate between the permanent and the transient. To kill others, one may require swords and spears, but to kill oneself – is not a small needle enough? In order to preach to others, one has to study many scriptures (shastras) in order to attain revelation of God; repetition of a single mantra is enough.

From the book Sathya Sai Sath Sambhashana

Womens’ Ecstatic Visions of God – Poems And Faith

 

 

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Next week, I will be on holiday and far away from the computer. Gosh! I need a break, time away to relax and indulge myself in photography. I leave you with this post on Truth as seen by several ancient women poets whom I admire greatly. Hoping  you will all enjoy this post as much as I did writing it.   I do enjoy comments, if only a one liner once in a while. They provide me with valuable feedback, without them, I am lost to know what to write and publish here. Here we go with my last post for a while.

 

I
n every spiritual tradition, the same truth appears: I am sure you have all noticed that at some time or another. Writing on spiritual matters as I do, I honestly can say, there are as many paths to the divine as there are people.

 

While it is necessary to undertake specific practices in spiritual life – prayer or meditation, the vows of right behaviour and right speech, all the many paths that lead to “being awake and aware at the core of our being” – such practices do not create anything that was not there from the beginning. They only open the door to what is already present within us. We do not pray or meditate or engage in good works in order to reach a goal or to become some way “better,” but because these activities are the fundamental expression of the heart freed of the distortions of ego and dualistic thinking. Nothing we do can bring the Sacred into existence and nothing we do can destroy it: this is the message the mystics have always brought to us.

What follows in this post are several poems from different traditions and different times – all from women, yet each points to this idea of the hidden treasure of Truth that does not change.

 

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A small image of Lal Ded

The first poem is from Lalla Ded, a fourteenth-century Kashmiri poet. she was also a mystic of the Kashmiri Shaivite Sect. She wrote many devotional and mystic poems, expressing her longing for the Divine.

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I was passionate,

filled with longing,

I searched far and wide.

But the day that the Truthful One

found me,

I was at home.

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To learn the scriptures is easy,
to live them, hard.
The search for the Real
is no simple matter.

Deep in my looking,
the last words vanished.
Joyous and silent,
the waking that met me there.

– Lalla Ded

 

 

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Sun Bu-er (1124?) was the most famous woman teacher of Chinese Taoism. She began spiritual practice only at the age of fifty-one, when after raising three children to adulthood, she and her husband undertook study of the Way. Each became a fully realized being and teacher, and SunBu-er left behind a number of Taoist treatises and poems.

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Cut brambles long enough,
Sprout after sprout,
And the lotus will bloom
Of its own accord:
Already waiting in the clearing,
The single image of light.
The day you see this,
That day you will become it.
-Sun Bu-er

 

Rabi’a

 

 

Interestingly, the inner sacred is almost never desribed as residing in a temple, but as being at home, kept from public view behind closed doors, in the inmost rooms of the self. Here is one example of such a poem, by the Sufi saint Rabi’a (717-801), a freed salve who lived in the simplest of huts on the outskirts of Basra, in what is now Iraq.

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O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.
Here, I am alone with You.

-Rabia al Adawiyya

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Painting of Mirabai by GR Sharma

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From an early age Mirabai felt an irresistible attraction and devotion to Sri Krishna. As a young child she was given a Krisha doll, which she worshipped as if it embodied the living presence of Him. Although people misunderstood her, she considered Krishna to be both her best friend, lover and husband.  Swami Sivananda said of Mirabai  ‘It is extremely difficult to find a parallel to this wonderful personality – Mira – a saint, a philosopher, a poet and a sage. She was a versatile genius and a magnanimous soul. Her life has a singular charm, with extraordinary beauty and marvel.’

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That dark Dweller in Braj
Is my only refuge.
O my companion,
Worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death
Will not devour.

My Beloved dwells in my heart,
I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.
Mira’s Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.
My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee,
Thy slave.

– Mirabai

On God And Love – Inspirational Quotations

People who are attracted to you because of your pretty face or nice body won’t be with you forever. You will grow old and so will they. But the people who can see how beautiful your heart is will never leave you. A beautiful heart has its own luminosity, a certain shine that lights up the face and brings joy to all who see.  Love is a force of nature, it cannot be bought. A rich man or woman may want to buy a beautiful lover, but all they  can buy is beauty, for love has to be won.

Love is bigger than you are. You can invite love, but you cannot dictate how, when, and where love expresses itself. You can choose to surrender to love, or not, but in the end love strikes like lightening, unpredictable and irrefutable. You can even find yourself loving people you don’t like at all. Love does not come with conditions, stipulations, addendums, or codes. Like the sun, love radiates independently of our fears and desires. Love is a mystery. Here below is one of the most profound descriptions of Love, I’ve read in recent years.   Eve

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ON LOVE If our love is dependent on looks, when our looks fade, our love fades. If our love relies on feelings, when feelings weaken or suddenly change, our love is threatened. If our love is attached to stories and memories, when history cannot be remembered, our love is forgotten. If love clings to form, then when form dissolves, as it must, love dies too. Is there a love that is not dependent on form or feeling, looks or stories? Is there a love without conditions, and without end? Is there a love untouched by disease and death and the passing of things? Is there a love that is so close, so intimate, even the word ‘love’ is too much? We do not seek love, find love, borrow love or steal love; we do not buy love or sell love; we do not even become love. Love is what we are, the awesome power of universes, holding planets in their orbits and dripping morning dew from the grass in the first light. Without love, without the profound interconnection of things emblazoned on our hearts, without that deep knowing that we are inseparable from all we see, all the riches of the world fall into nothingness. Love is all. Jeff Foster Painter: Catrin Welz Stein

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