View From the Top > Esteemed Reader

One day Majnun was sifting dirt in the middle of a road.
An ascetic asked him:
“What is it you are seeking here, Majnun?”
“I seek my beloved Leyla,” Majnun replied.
The ascetic said: “How can you expect to find a pearl in the midst
of rubbish?”
“Well,” Majnun answered, “I look for Love everywhere; I am apt to find her somewhere.”

—Attar of Neishapur

Esteemed Reader of our Magazine:
Where is Love to be found? And I don’t mean the kind of Love that can turn into hate or jealousy or resentment or even boredom. I mean real Love. Love that persists; that knows no opposite. Does such a Love exist? Not in this world. We have to enter another. A world within a world. Can we have it? No. Such a Love can only have us, if we allow it; if we make ourselves an instrument for its use, a vehicle for its transmission.

True Love is sometimes called unconditional. It is not predicated upon anything. As such, true Love is not contained within any boundaries. It does not need to be requited, isn’t dependent upon any specifications in its object. The beloved doesn’t need to be fat or skinny, pink or brown, progressive or conservative. The beloved may be a dues-paying member of al-Qaeda. He or she may have voted for Bush! With Love that is true there is no requirement upon the beloved. All is forgiven. All is given.

And this state of openness, of generosity of being, is our native state. We are born human with the task of being agents of the finer energy, the intelligence called Love. It is who we are at the core. Our genuine identity is none other than Love itself. How can it be otherwise? It is only what comes between—the layers of conditioning, the inherited patterns of self-contraction—that is the obstacle to truly Loving.

Love is what we are always seeking. The Love in us is seeking itself in the world. Even all the broken relationships, the objects acquired and feats accomplished to gain approval, the reactions provoked and given, are misdirected attempts to locate elusive Love. And it is precisely all this seeking after Love that prevents us from finding it. Or at least we can say, as Mickey Gilley did, that we are looking for Love in all the wrong places. We get in the way of Love, even in its pursuit.
Isaiah said “Make straight the way of the Lord.” He is admonishing us to bring ourselves into balance, make our lives true, so that Love can find a way into the instrument of our persons and our lives. The twisting of self and life is the result of our own egoism—our pride, vanity, self-importance, and the requirements we place on life.

Ironically, all the negative emotions that arise from the results of our egoism are precisely the doorways to the Love we seek. Ordinarily we think we need to escape from suffering to get to Love. The result is repression and buttressing of the obstacles to Love. No, when we feel righteous, insulted, disdainful, or outraged, it is the opportunity to be tenderized by this suffering and step into Love. To sacrifice that pain on the altar of Love, to give it up regardless of its justification is to till the soil of the being for insemination by Love. To give up negativity by fully inhabiting it and letting it go is to become receptive to Love itself.

In order to get Love, we must give it. And give without any expectation of receiving Love in return; as though it is not our possession, but something we are charged with the task of transmitting. The more we give, the more we receive. Such is the nature of Love: it is not mine or yours. It just is. Giving and receiving are irrelevant. Where Love is present we partake of it together.

Don’t just look for Love everywhere. Give it everywhere. Give Love to everything, animate and inanimate. To the ground underfoot. To the driver who cuts you off on the road. Give Love whether you are glad or depressed, inspired or bored, self-righteous or benevolent; whether you believe its object to be deserving or not. Give Love and it will be given to you.

—Jason Stern