Even if we have been hurt in relationships many times in the past, it is natural for us to want to love again. We deeply desire to love others and also to be loved by others. In fact, this is more than just a desire – it is an innate need. All living beings need both to love and be loved in order to be truly happy and fulfilled. This is why we spend our lives seeking out and trying to maintain loving friendships with others. However, when we have been hurt and disappointed over and over again throughout our lives, it can be very difficult to open our hearts to love again.
This is the situation that many of us find ourselves in today. When we are very young, it is usually quite easy to open our hearts – to form loving friendships with others in a very relaxed and natural way. When we are very young, we tend to have a certain amount of innocence about the world that allows us to open our hearts easily, to be affectionate and generous in our relationships with others. But as we grow older and experience the pain of a broken heart, a broken friendship, a broken bond of trust countless times with various people, our approach to relationships changes. We often become hesitant to open our hearts, to really trust others with our love – and very quick to put up walls, to withdraw our affection, to keep our most intimate feelings hidden. We may go through the motions externally of making friends and having all kinds of relationships, but inwardly we are not really allowing ourselves to get too close to others. Often we even become deeply fearful of love and the pain we associate with loving others. And so we find ourselves in a most awkward position – wanting and needing to love, but not at all feeling safe to love.
So, how can we love again? Not just superficially so, but truly, deeply, in the way that we have always longed to love and be loved.
They key is in reviving our awareness of our true identity and innate relationship with the Supreme Person.
Because we are eternal spiritual beings – not the material mind and body we are temporarily wearing – we need to experience love that transcends our material circumstances. Our longing for love is actually a spiritual need, arising from our eternal nature, so cannot be fulfilled in ways that are limited and impermanent. This is why we are disappointed, frustrated, and bewildered time and time again when we try to find the extraordinary love that we are seeking in relationships with ordinary living beings. Ordinary living beings simply do not have the capacity to fulfill our eternal and unlimited need for spiritual love. Only the Supreme Person has that capacity – no one else.
This is not to say that we cannot have loving relationships with other people, but we will only find the absolute fulfillment in love that we long for in our relationship with the Supreme Person. And when we do actually find this fulfillment within our relationship with God, because we are fulfilled, we will be able to love others in a truly healthful way – selflessly and without fear.
So how do we develop a loving relationship with God?
Our answer is in the bona fide scriptures of the world – and specifically the ancient yoga texts give very detailed instructions on this matter.
In the yoga scriptures, it is explained that we are eternally related with the Supreme Person by a bond of kinship. He is our closest relative, our Supreme Father-Mother and our eternal dearmost Friend. Although the love that we have for each other is ever-existing, inseparable from our very nature, our remembrance of this love becomes covered by the influence of matter when we come into this material realm. When we put on the material “clothes” of the mind and body, and become lost in the misconception that we are these coverings, we tend to forget our spiritual nature and everything related to it.
Even though the Supreme Person is our closest Friend and dearmost Beloved, we can lose awareness of everything we know about Him, even His very existence. This is how powerful the affect material nature has on us. However, because living in forgetfulness of God is so unnatural for us, we are never able to become very comfortable in this materially-induced amnesia. We experience a deep emptiness, a gnawing restlessness that simply cannot be filled through any kind of relationship of this world. And it is this deep dissatisfaction that is actually our saving grace. Because it lets us know that something is wrong, that there is a very essential something or someone that is missing from our lives. It is this dissatisfaction that leads us to continue searching until we find our way back to the loving embrace of our eternal Friend.
If we are able to recognize, or even consider the possibility, that our longing for love needs to be directed toward God in order to be fulfilled, then we are very fortunate indeed. We may feel emotionally bruised by our failed exploits in material love, but inwardly we can take heart in the knowledge that our so-called failures have now put us on the most auspicious and joyful of all paths. Love for God is no ordinary love – it is the perfection of love, the perfection of our very being. It is what our hearts have been seeking lifetime after lifetime – our highest nature, and fullest, most authentic and glorious expression of self.
Love for the Supreme Person eternally resides within our hearts, but it is currently covered, dormant, like a seed. In order to awaken this love, to encourage this seed to sprout and flourish, we need to cultivate it. This can best be done by following the instructions of scripture.
In the yoga scriptures, it is clearly explained that the most effective way to cultivate our remembrance and love of the Supreme Person is by meditating on His transcendental Names. (In yoga, this is called Mantra Meditation.) The Names of the Supreme are the Supreme Person Himself in spiritual sound vibration. God appears in this world in the form of spiritual sound in order to give us the chance to personally know and relate with Him. The Supreme is always the Supreme, regardless of how or where He is chooses to appear. Thus, His Names are never influenced or tainted in any way through contact with matter. On the contrary, God’s Names remain purely spiritual in all circumstances, so they have the ability to purify our consciousness of all material misconceptions. In this way, our true nature can be revealed.
Through hearing and chanting or singing His Names daily, our hearts and minds are gradually cleansed of all material misunderstandings and misgivings. The darkness, pain, bitterness, anxiety, and heart-break of material living dissipates as the budding warmth, comfort, and golden healing radiance of spiritual love unfolds itself within our hearts.
This loving relationship that we have with God – that we are wanting to revive – is not at all impersonal or general. It is not loving some vague idea of Him. On the contrary, it is the most personal, close and intimate of all relationships. God is a real Person, our ever well-wisher and dearmost beloved Best Friend that we have simply forgotten. As we hear, chant, and sing His Names, we begin to actually remember Him. We experience the familiar feel and warmth of His presence in our hearts and in His Names – and naturally, we rejoice. It is life itself returning to our hearts.
In this relationship, we will find all the happiness, peace, meaning, safety, sense of belonging, purpose, and so on that we have been longing for. The Supreme Person loves us unconditionally. He loves us even when when we are not loving Him, even when we forget His existence. So, when we finally turn to Him with a sincere desire to know and love Him again, He will not refuse us because we are imperfect, afraid, or even very low and fallen. He will help us. He will hold our hand and kindly encourage us in the right direction. We may be hesitant, at first, to trust our heart even to the Supreme Person. But as our consciousness is purified through Mantra Meditation – as we are able to directly see Him for our self with a clear mind and heart – we will be able to know for sure that there is no place in the entirety of existence that is a more safe and natural place for our heart than with our Supreme Friend. When we are, at last, able to truly give our heart to Him, without the tiniest amount of fear, doubt, or reservation, we will be Home.
This is the solution to all of our problems of the heart. When our heart finds its real Home, its natural resting place, in the loving embrace of our dearmost Beloved Friend, we will understand completely why love has been such a difficult road for us up until now and why it never will be again. We will know love in a whole new way. We will know love – real love, spiritual love – as our natural condition.
For information on specific types of yoga Mantra Meditation, simply click on the links below: