Beyond Sentimentality

"If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable."

-- Teddy in J.D. Salinger's short story "Teddy"

In our culture we too often mistake sentimentality for love. We almost universally equate attachment with love.

Love is neither sentimentality nor attachment. Love is ruthless! Love is totally fierce and unconditional. It is a blazing fire, not a warm bath.

True love is not even an emotion -- it is a state of consciousness. It is a state of heart-on-fire, unconditional positive regard. It requires nothing in response, nothing in return. Love is never bartered or exchanged, it is always given freely, almost uncontrollably.

In a certain state of consciousness, at a certain point in time, you realize that love is the only rational way to approach everyone, to approach life. You don't pick and choose whom to love -- you either love all or none at all. You become love rather than give love.

And in that sense, you become God. A simple equation: God = love. You are love. You=God. Quit blushing! You knew it all along, you were just so willing to play along with the prevalent mindset that sees us all as separate sinners. Who knows why? Thank God, those days are over.

So, now, it's all about love. Love for God. Love for everyone. Love for yourself. No discrimination. Only love. Here, there; now, everywhere. What else is there? Nothing. Just love.

Be Nobody

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of splash."

-- "Franny" in J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey.

In our culture everybody is suppose to be somebody, and the BIGGER somebody the better. Bigger=better. We confuse greatness with the size of the splash.

Not all cultures have placed the same value on "somebodiness." The ancient Chinese culture, typified by Classical Taoism, held up "nobodiness" as the ideal. Blending with nature, harmonizing with the Tao was seen as the highest good. To attempt to be somebody, especially somebody who made a big splash, was not just seen as gauche but also as the type of ignorance that clearly courts disaster.

What if you could be nobody -- what kind of nobody would you be? Would you work for the mere joy of doing, rather than for the salary, the promotion, the adulation? Or would you even be able to tell the difference between your work and your play? Would you let go of goals, dreams and schemes, and live contentedly right here right now? Would you know and love yourself so deeply that you spontaneously knew and loved others as well?

Just imagine letting go of all your identities, titles, adjectives and descriptors. You came into life a nobody. You will go out a no body. Before you were somebody, who were you? After you are no longer some body, who will you be?

Do you have the courage to be nobody today?